CROSSOVER MADNESS

 In some of my posts on the crossover subject, I've noted that I didn't consider a work a crossover if a famous icon appeared only as a conventionally dead person. Thus DRACULA'S DAUGHTER is not a crossover simply due to the presence of Dracula as a slain corpse, because in that form the vampire has no agency. If he was seen doing only one thing before he perished, as happens with Fu Manchu in DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON, Dracula would have agency. (Parenthetically, DRACULA'S DAUGHTER is a charisma-crossover because Van Helsing carries over from the 1931 film and does have agency within DAUGHTER as well.) So an undead being can still have agency, even if the original character of the individual has erased, as seems to be the case with Undead Wild Bill Hickock in JONAH HEX TWO GUN MOJO.                                                           

 The same principle holds for spirits of the dead that may not be able to do anything but render warnings or advice. This type includes the various specters that tutor the Ghost Rider so that he can become a new champion of the frontier: Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, Pat Garrett, Kit Carson, and some lawman I never heard of, Bill Tighman. The end of the story suggests that the hero may have dreamed the encounter, but as long as the icons in question have a possible real existence, as opposed to being null-variants, they still have crossover-agency.