Saturday, June 22, 2024

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 A noteworthy though short-lived hero-team book was the All-Winners Squad, which was a belated attempt by Timely to ape the successful Justice Society feature.



This story, pitting the All-Stars against a time-traveler named Future Man and his contemporary aide Miss Death, was pretty bland except for the villain showing off his invention of "atomic fire," fire that could burn anything made of atoms.



Sunday, June 9, 2024

MONSTER MASHUPS #106

 In MARVEL FAMILY #71, the titular heroes visit "Ghost Island." the refuge of a variety of "haunts," including a vampire, werewolf, a fire-breathing devil, regular ghosts and poltergeists, a witch and a variety of unidentified ghouls.

Incidentally it's only a crossover for uniting the Marvel Family, all of whom had independent features.




Saturday, June 8, 2024

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 I checked one of a series of "pulp heroes meet monsters" series from Moonstone, name of THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE VS. FRANKENSTEIN. It was competent, but I've nothing much to say about it except that I liked the descendant of Dr Frankenstein going by the name "Cushing."


Friday, May 31, 2024

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 From my review of CAPTAIN KIDD AND THE SLAVE GIRL:

Of the other "name pirates" standing alongside Kidd and Bonney, only Blackbeard (Mike Ross) has anything much to do. The names of Calico Jack, Stede Bonnet and James Avery are tossed out haphazardly and with no real characters attached, while another famous pirate, Bartholomew Roberts, gets both of his names farmed out to two separate characters, a Captain Bartholomew and a Captain Roberts. I guess the writers got a short list of famous pirate-names and ran out. Anyway, as far as crossovers of legendary historical characters are concerned, only Kidd, Bonney and Blackbeard rate. 




 


Wednesday, May 29, 2024

MONSTER MASHUPS #105

 EC artist Jack Davis did a lot of lobby cards and album covers on "monster mash" themes, but this might be the best of them, even if one doesn't necessarily consider most of the Addams Family "monsters."



Monday, May 27, 2024

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 From my review of the 1978 sex comedy FAIRY TALES:


Fairyland in this case is more like one of the many "all-fairy-tales-sold-here" worlds, though Prince doesn't seem to recognize any of the figures he meets on his quest-- Little Bo Peep (Angela "LOST EMPIRE" Aames), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Tommy Tucker, Scheherezade (Nai Bonet), Old King Cole, Peeping Tom, and the Frog Prince. The original version is also supposed to have some erotic schtick with Jack and Jill, but this didn't appear in the version I watched. IMDB lists actors who played the roles of "Little Red Riding Hood" and "The Little Dutch Boy," but I never spotted either one... Aside from Prince having short and inconsequential encounters with Bo Peep and the Jack-and-Jill couple, almost all the action takes place within a colossal laced-up boot, "The Shoe of Pleasure," which is Fairyland's foremost whorehouse. The woman who lives in this shoe doesn't have any children; I guess she knew what to do. The writers give the Madame Who Lives in a Shoe (Brenda Fogarty) a name culled from a separate nonsense-poem, that of "Gussie Gander." 




THE 100 GREATEST CROSSOVERS OF ALL TIME #62

Since I'm making up for not having done many villain-crossovers, I'm obliged to state that "Almost Got 'Im," the 1992 episode of BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES, is easily the best villain-cross in that series, if not in all Batman cartoons of all time.



"Almost" only has one close rival: "Mayhem is the Music Meister" from BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, which I mentioned in GREATEST #43. In any case, that one's less notable for its villain-crossovers than playing Batman off such familiar heroes as Black Canary, Green Arrow and Aquaman.