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Clay Olsen
May 25, 2012, 03:59 am

Aww... no Tick Universe (NEC press) on the multiverse map. 

Though now after last weeks Tick #100, its got a direct tie to Invincible.




Michael Regan
May 25, 2012, 12:01 pm

Clay Olsen wrote:

Aww... no Tick Universe (NEC press) on the multiverse map. 

Though now after last weeks Tick #100, its got a direct tie to Invincible.

The Tick can be inserted easily enough (dotted lines) since Big Shot is an analogue of the Punisher, the Caped Wonder is an analogue of Superman, Oedipus is an analogue of Elektra, etc.




Michael Regan
May 28, 2012, 01:08 pm

I need to catch up on some reading which includes Stephen King's Dark Tower series to I'm not sure how this is worded specifically, but in the fifth book, The Wolves of the Calla, I believe it is implied that the decay in the Dark Tower reality is causing multiple realities of the omniverse to bleed into each other and overlap. One character in the book apparently resembles Doctor Doom who uses weapons called sneetches, modified golden snitches from the Harry Potter series.




Michael Regan
Jun 1, 2012, 12:40 pm

Perhaps a bit of a stretch, but I just read one of the 90s comics promoting literacy, Adventures in Reading Starring the Amazing Spider-Man (1990) which had Spidey transported directly into the realities found within books. There is no reason why the story cannot be part of Earth-616 and the stories visited / connected to are:
The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle
War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott
Shogun - James A. Clavell
That Was Then, This Is Now - S. E. Hinton




Michael Regan
Jun 1, 2012, 01:49 pm

Correction, the Shogun novel is seen but not visited.




zuckyd1
Jun 15, 2012, 12:52 am

Stuart, you created InternationalHero? I LOVE that site.

You're probably already aware of some of the following sites for crossover information:
http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Pulp.htm
http://ratmmjess.tripod.com/wold.html
http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/wnu1.htm
http://www.televisioncrossoveruniverse.com/
http://crossover.bureau42.com/
http://www.reocities.com/tigertron007.geo/CROSS.html

Two very interesting comic-book threads can be found here:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources...-eggs-archive/
http://www.comicscube.com/2011/06/ea...ics-index.html

Other crossovers: Fantastic Four True Story, Infestation, Prophecy, Daemonstorm, Scarlet Traces, Lost Girls, Shi/Cyblaade: The Battle For Independents, Captain N: The Game Master, Tales of the Shadowmen, Thursday Next, Kingdom Hearts, Super Smash Bros., South Park: Imaginationland, and, if you want to get really ridiculous, The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

You mentioned the only link you could find for Ninja High School is Twilight Avenger. It also crossed over with Speed Racer and Gold Digger, if that’s any help.

Lastly, I’m a graphic designer, so perhaps I could help out with Photoshop?




Stuart V
Jun 15, 2012, 08:46 am

Michael Regan wrote:

As I was thinking of old cartoon, Defenders of the Earth (1986) came to mind and the King Features characters may be worth looking into as many have hit various publishers over the years for licensed usage, much like the use of Doc Savage and the Shadow. I don't know if a shared reality was originally implied, but the cartoon has counterparts in a shared reality.

Mandrake attended the Phantom's wedding in the comic strips I believe, so they, at least, already shared a reality. But the cartoon brings in the likes of Flash Gordon to the mix. And the Phantom has met Captain Action in a Moonstone crossover story, and Captain Action has met Green Hornet (Moonstone's Captain Action Winter Special), and Captain Action is in War of the Independents - thus confirming King's Features and Green Hornet are linked to the wider Omniverse.

Clay Olsen wrote:

Aww... no Tick Universe (NEC press) on the multiverse map.

If no links were found at the time, I usually left them off. But that said, there are links now...

Clay Olsen wrote:

Though now after last weeks Tick #100, its got a direct tie to Invincible.

And via War of the Independents to several others. 

Michael Regan wrote:

Perhaps a bit of a stretch, but I just read one of the 90s comics promoting literacy, Adventures in Reading Starring the Amazing Spider-Man (1990) which had Spidey transported directly into the realities found within books. There is no reason why the story cannot be part of Earth-616 and the stories visited / connected to are:
The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle
War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott
Shogun - James A. Clavell
That Was Then, This Is Now - S. E. Hinton

I concur. Some of these might be based on "real" events in 616, but even if they aren't, their presence here would count as links. And, though only a counterpart link, being able to link Marvel to the Jungle Book characters bring Fables into the Omniversal fold.

zuckyd1 wrote:

Stuart, you created InternationalHero? I LOVE that site.

Yes, that's my site. Glad you like it!

zuckyd1 wrote:

You're probably already aware of some of the following sites for crossover information:
http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Pulp.htm
http://ratmmjess.tripod.com/wold.html
http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/wnu1.htm
http://www.televisioncrossoveruniverse.com/
http://crossover.bureau42.com/
http://www.reocities.com/tigertron007.geo/CROSS.html

Two very interesting comic-book threads can be found here:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources...-eggs-archive/
http://www.comicscube.com/2011/06/ea...ics-index.html

Other crossovers: Fantastic Four True Story, Infestation, Prophecy, Daemonstorm, Scarlet Traces, Lost Girls, Shi/Cyblaade: The Battle For Independents, Captain N: The Game Master, Tales of the Shadowmen, Thursday Next, Kingdom Hearts, Super Smash Bros., South Park: Imaginationland, and, if you want to get really ridiculous, The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

I knew of some of these, but not all, so thanks! I seriously need to update the Omniverse pages. It's just finding the time to do so.

zuckyd1 wrote:

You mentioned the only link you could find for Ninja High School is Twilight Avenger. It also crossed over with Speed Racer and Gold Digger, if that’s any help.

I'd not counted Gold Digger since that and NHS kind of share a reality. On the other hand, I'd overlooked Speed Racer - so the question now is, have either Gold Digger or Speed Racer crossed with any other series?

zuckyd1 wrote:

Lastly, I’m a graphic designer, so perhaps I could help out with Photoshop?

Any help gratefully received. The current map is, unsurprisingly, a tangled mess, and that's before trying to add in links I've overlooked. So anyone who can suggest ways to fix it or has the ability to construct a better one is welcome to do so.




Michael Regan
Jun 20, 2012, 12:38 pm

There is also the "hint" that the Lone Ranger (John Reid) is ancester to the Green Hornet (Britt Reid) in the original radio play (IIRC) which was expanded on in the Now comic book series.

The "coming soon" film Wreck-it Ralph connects various video games into a shared reality including Mortal Combat, Pac-Man, Street Fighter, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros, etc. Funny how this list includes Super Mario Bros as the featured fictional game Wreck-it Ralph is an altered version of Donkey Kong.




Clay Olsen
Jun 23, 2012, 04:24 pm

Stuart V wrote:

And via War of the Independents to several others.

oh wow! I haven't been paying to much attention to the independent side of things lately... I wasn't aware that Tick (and Scud for that matter!) were playing a part in WotI. Maybe i'll have to check it out then.




Michael Regan
Jun 30, 2012, 03:18 pm

The Doctor Who story "The Mind Robber" ties the Doctor Who Universe in with various other works of fictions of the "The Land of Fiction" reality including Gulliver's Travels, Rapunzel, and stories from Greek mythology.




Stuart V
Jul 5, 2012, 01:40 pm

Though some might decry counting them as evidence, I'd say that the crossover adverts for several USA shows, such as Burn Notice / White Collar, count as evidence that they also coexist in a single universe. The ads tie in Psych, Fairly Legal and Royal Pains too. There's also an older ad that shows Monk encountering Dead Zone's Johnny Smith.




Zach Kinkead
Jul 5, 2012, 02:08 pm

Stuart V wrote:

Though some might decry counting them as evidence, I'd say that the crossover adverts for several USA shows, such as Burn Notice / White Collar, count as evidence that they also coexist in a single universe. The ads tie in Psych, Fairly Legal and Royal Pains too. There's also an older ad that shows Monk encountering Dead Zone's Johnny Smith.

Well if we count TV crossovers then …

All the old TGIF shows (Full House, Family Matters, Boy Meets World, ect) used to crossover on occasion. Sabrina the Teenage Witch was a TGIF show. Sabrina is part of the Archie Comics Universe. Now I sort of want to see what sort of mad science Dilton Doiley and Steve Urkel can get up to.

Then there’s the St. Elsewhere thing. I haven’t seen the show but I know how it ended. It isn’t much of a leap to say that every other show it crossed over with (and all the shows THEY crossed over with and so on) are part of the same fantasy. Frasier is probably also an autistic child’s daydream.




Stuart V
Jul 5, 2012, 02:34 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Well if we count TV crossovers then …

TV crossovers definitely count, though usually that's no big deal, as most are set in "the real world" and so it's easy to assume they would share a reality anyway. But, as your comment below illustrates, they also cross over with comic realities from time to time, which is very relevant to our discussion.

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Then there’s the St. Elsewhere thing. I haven’t seen the show but I know how it ended. It isn’t much of a leap to say that every other show it crossed over with (and all the shows THEY crossed over with and so on) are part of the same fantasy. Frasier is probably also an autistic child’s daydream.

Remember, such daydreams of other worlds are considered to be glimpses into "real" alternate realities. There's a lot of precedent for that.




Zach Kinkead
Jul 5, 2012, 03:21 pm

Stuart V wrote:

TV crossovers definitely count, though usually that's no big deal, as most are set in "the real world" and so it's easy to assume they would share a reality anyway.

The really depends on how you define “real world”. Eureka (which crossed over with Warehouse 13) was blatantly Sci-Fi from the beginning but you can do some hand waving and say that the fact that it’s a SECRET community means it could still be “real”. Then you have something like Family Matters – which started out fairly real – and went more and more Sci-Fi in later seasons. 

Also, I sort of feel like the things in most soap operas would be a bigger deal if they happened in the real world. A few years ago there was a local guy who tried to fake his own death and run off with some investor money; it made the national news. Stuff like that is an overused cliché in a soap opera. 

Stuart V wrote:

But, as your comment below illustrates, they also cross over with comic realities from time to time, which is very relevant to our discussion.

Speaking of which, did you read the Star Trek/Legion crossover? I’m not sure if Easter Eggs really count but, if the villain’s trophy room is any indication, everything from Dr. Who to HG Wells’ Time Machine are part of the same multiverse.

Stuart V wrote:

Remember, such daydreams of other worlds are considered to be glimpses into "real" alternate realities. There's a lot of precedent for that.

Only the Watcher knows for sure.




zuckyd1
Jul 5, 2012, 03:54 pm

For the glorious madness that the Tommy Westphall (St. Elsewhere) hypothesis can lead to, check out these two sites:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html
http://www.poobala.com/crossoverlist.html
Although, inevitably, conundrums arise. Seinfeld's Kramer once guested on fellow sitcom Mad About You. Yet in a later episode of Seinfeld, George talks about how he hated the show Mad About You! One inventive explanation I've heard is that, since Paul Reiser's character on Mad About You is a documentary filmmaker, what George was actually referring to was a TV documentary series Paul made about his own married life. (Give that person a No-Prize!)
Another explanation is that there are two parallel universes, one in which both Seinfeld and Mad About You "really exist" and another in which only Seinfeld is real and Mad About You is, as in our universe, merely a TV sitcom. The sitcom creators in the 2nd universe are undoubtedly subconsciously channelling actual events from the 1st universe when they create their "fictional" sitcom episodes.

My own personal theory is that, since we know that ALL fictional stories occur somewhere in the Omniverse, the trick is figuring out where/how they connect. Sometimes you have to settle for a "weak" link (TV adverts, easter eggs) until something stronger comes along and the map can be readjusted accordingly.




Stuart V
Jul 5, 2012, 05:40 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

The really depends on how you define “real world”.

Absolutely, and why I said "most" rather than "all." Obviously series where massively world changing events occur are harder to work in, but if you stick just to those without such elements, then there's generally no real reason why (for example) E.R. can't share a reality with shows as diverse as Desperate Housewives, the West Wing, How I Met Your Mother, Law and Order or Miami Vice. That said, even in stories set in the "real" world you can find problematic continuity that would prevent it being one reality - the West Wing would have a hard time fitting with 24, due to conflicting versions of the incumbent US President in office at what was supposed to be the same time.

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Eureka (which crossed over with Warehouse 13) was blatantly Sci-Fi from the beginning but you can do some hand waving and say that the fact that it’s a SECRET community means it could still be “real”. Then you have something like Family Matters – which started out fairly real – and went more and more Sci-Fi in later seasons.

And, as you note, SF and Fantasy elements don't preclude shows sharing a reality with "real world" shows that don't have such elements, so long as those SF or Fantasy elements are not something the general public would know about. 

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Also, I sort of feel like the things in most soap operas would be a bigger deal if they happened in the real world. A few years ago there was a local guy who tried to fake his own death and run off with some investor money; it made the national news. Stuff like that is an overused cliché in a soap opera.

Well, there's the real world and the "real" world of fiction, where nothing too impossible happens, but things are heightened, more dramatic, and "big" events happen more frequently than you'd expect.

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Speaking of which, did you read the Star Trek/Legion crossover? I’m not sure if Easter Eggs really count but, if the villain’s trophy room is any indication, everything from Dr. Who to HG Wells’ Time Machine are part of the same multiverse.

Not yet, but I am aware of it, and yes, the Easter Eggs do count, albeit as weaker proof of connections. That scene does bring a fair few additional movies and shows into the confirmed multiverse. Also worth checking out is the Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, which includes a map of the Earth's solar system which shows inhabitants of the various planets, amongst whom can be recognised a Mercurian next to Mercury, Treen and Theron next to Venus (last three races all from Dan Dare), Sea Devil and Silurian next to Earth (both Dr. Who), the Watcher (Marvel) and Selenite (H.G. Well's First Men on the Moon) next to the Moon, Barsoomian (Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom novels) alongside a Pfifltrigg & Sorn & Hross (C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet) next to Mars, and a H.G. Wells Martian next to the unnamed fifth planet that was destroyed to become the asteroid belt.

zuckyd1 wrote:

Although, inevitably, conundrums arise. Seinfeld's Kramer once guested on fellow sitcom Mad About You. Yet in a later episode of Seinfeld, George talks about how he hated the show Mad About You! One inventive explanation I've heard is that, since Paul Reiser's character on Mad About You is a documentary filmmaker, what George was actually referring to was a TV documentary series Paul made about his own married life. (Give that person a No-Prize!)
Another explanation is that there are two parallel universes, one in which both Seinfeld and Mad About You "really exist" and another in which only Seinfeld is real and Mad About You is, as in our universe, merely a TV sitcom. The sitcom creators in the 2nd universe are undoubtedly subconsciously channelling actual events from the 1st universe when they create their "fictional" sitcom episodes.

Both are valid options. Another is that, since we have evidence of realities shifting in and out of synch with one another (see Shattered Image for one such case), the two shared a reality for a while, then went out of synch, becoming fictional to one another.

zuckyd1 wrote:

My own personal theory is that, since we know that ALL fictional stories occur somewhere in the Omniverse, the trick is figuring out where/how they connect. Sometimes you have to settle for a "weak" link (TV adverts, easter eggs) until something stronger comes along and the map can be readjusted accordingly

Absolutely. The mapping of the links, and the noting of the strength of the links, is for the purpose of proving this to the naysayers who try to claim otherwise. The hardest core naysayers don't count Easter Eggs, don't count references, and won't even count outright crossovers unless the happen in "real" comics and not one-shots or miniseries - these include those who insist there is a separate Marvel Omniverse. But to them I point out the example of Invincible meeting Spider-Man - it took place in a "real" Marvel series, and we saw the other part of the story in Invincible the same month, plus Invincible referenced his encounter with Spider-Man in a later issue of Invincible, albeit obliquely, when he encountered a villain with spider powers - upon seeing the villain's massive web and glimpsing his appearance (which was somewhat similar to Spidey's), Invincible calls out "Peter?"




zuckyd1
Jul 5, 2012, 06:19 pm

Stuart V wrote:

That said, even in stories set in the "real" world you can find problematic continuity that would prevent it being one reality - the West Wing would have a hard time fitting with 24, due to conflicting versions of the incumbent US President in office at what was supposed to be the same time.

It just so happens that in the latest issue of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Century: 2009) Josiah Bartlet of The West Wing is succeeded as US President by David Palmer of 24!




zuckyd1
Jul 5, 2012, 07:32 pm

Stuart, as long as you’re accepting “weak links”, you might be interested in the following: In the Twilight Avenger story “The Centipede Crawls”, a character refers to Philo Vance in a way that suggests he might really exist. Philo Vance appears in Lin Carter’s novel “The Earth-Shaker”, along with two Doc Savage characters (Patricia Savage and Johnny Littlejohn). Doc Savage, of course, has crossed over with characters from both the Marvel and DC universes.




zuckyd1
Jul 5, 2012, 08:26 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Speaking of which, did you read the Star Trek/Legion crossover? I’m not sure if Easter Eggs really count but, if the villain’s trophy room is any indication, everything from Dr. Who to HG Wells’ Time Machine are part of the same multiverse.

Any idea what the other trophies in this image are? I recognize a Stargate, a DeLorean, a Time Tunnel, the machine from Time After Time, a Hot Tub, and Bill & Ted's phonebooth.

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/7559/stlegion.jpg




Zach Kinkead
Jul 5, 2012, 11:35 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

Any idea what the other trophies in this image are? I recognize a Stargate, a DeLorean, a Time Tunnel, the machine from Time After Time, a Hot Tub, and Bill & Ted's phonebooth.

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/7559/stlegion.jpg

I also recognize an old Legion Time Bubble (probably either belonging to a different incarnation of the Legion, Rip Hunter, or Booster Gold) and the Flash’s Cosmic Treadmill.

Some of the spaceships look familiar but I can’t place them.

(I’d like to think one of the smaller items on the pedestals is the Phoenix Gate from Gargoyles but there isn’t enough detail to know)




Stuart V
Jul 6, 2012, 07:30 am

Starting at the top middle, there's the Time Tunnel from the TV show of the same name, then to the right of that is H.G. Wells' time machine from Time After Time, and to the right of that is the Time Traveller's time machine from the 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells' Time Machine, and then to the right again is the time sled from Time Cop (movie and TV series).

Below the time sled is Doc Brown's DeLorean from Back to the Future. Angling left and diagonally up we have a Time Sphere (Rick Hunter, etc), and then left and up again is an Epoch class Federation timeship from Star Trek: Voyager. 
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Aeon
http://www.startrek.com/database_art...01-21-00-00-00

Directly to the left of that and under Lightning Lad is something I am not sure of - it might be a badly drawn Guardian of Forever (but the rest of the art is spot on, so I doubt it) or else a piece of the Man-Thing's swamp / Nexus of Realities, or Professor Hyatt's Time Pool (can't find a decent visual reference to confirm). If it is anything else, then I'm stumped. Below the Epoch class vessel is a 26th century Time Pod, of the same design as seen in ST:TNG's A Matter of Time. 
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Time-pod

To the left of the Time Pod is Lazarus' spaceship from ST:TOS "The Alternative Factor"
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Lazarus%27_spaceship
Beneath that is the Stargate from the movie of the same name and various spin-off series.

Underneath Chameleon Boy is the hot tub from Hot Tub Time Machine. Below the hot tub is Flash's Cosmic Treadmill. On a plinth below that is the Prince of Persia's Dagger of Time
http://princeofpersia.wikia.com/wiki/Dagger_of_Time

To the left of the hot tub is the Master's TARDIS in the form of a sandstone Doric column, a disguise it wore for three stories
http://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite....et-5th-doctor/
Below that is the Doctor's TARDIS in its traditional Police Call Box form, and below that is Bill and Ted's time-travelling phone booth. 

On the top plinth to the left of the Time Pod (and wedged between the top two word balloons emanating from the inset panel) is the Atavachron from ST:TOS "All Our Yesterdays" 
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Atavachron
and on the plinth below that is one of the Atavachron's data disks.
And on the final plinth is the Omni, a watch-like time travel device from Voyagers
http://www.forevergeek.com/wp-conten...11/07/omni.jpg

I'm told that a Time Agent Vortex Manipulator, as worn by the likes of Captain Jack, River Song and Captain John Hart in Doctor Who and Torchwood, shows up too, but I can't see it in this picture.




zuckyd1
Jul 6, 2012, 08:58 am

Wow. Nicely done. Guess that's why Marvel pays you those big bucks. LOL




captainswift
Jul 6, 2012, 09:23 am

The Seinfeld/Mad About You conundrum reminds me of the so-called "Hooterville Trilogy" of late 60s TV shows. It creates an odd shared universe situation in that:

1. Green Acres definitely shares a reality with Petticoat Junction. The regulars from Petticoat appeared frequently in the first season of Acres, and Sam Drucker was a regular on both shows simultaneously.

2. Beverly Hillbillies definitely shares a reality with Petticoat Junction. Several holiday episodes involved the Clampetts going to visit Junction, and Granny was notably smitten with Sam Drucker (which would lead one to conclude all three shows share a reality, since Sam was a regular on Acres, too. However...)

3. Beverly Hillbillies is definitely fictional on Green Acres. Eb mentions it as his favorite show several times, and once the town put on a "play" that was actually them acting out an episode of Hillbillies.

So, in conclusion... jokes are more important than continuity in Hooterville.




Stuart V
Jul 6, 2012, 11:04 am

captainswift wrote:

The Seinfeld/Mad About You conundrum reminds me of the so-called "Hooterville Trilogy" of late 60s TV shows. It creates an odd shared universe situation in that:

1. Green Acres definitely shares a reality with Petticoat Junction. The regulars from Petticoat appeared frequently in the first season of Acres, and Sam Drucker was a regular on both shows simultaneously.

2. Beverly Hillbillies definitely shares a reality with Petticoat Junction. Several holiday episodes involved the Clampetts going to visit Junction, and Granny was notably smitten with Sam Drucker (which would lead one to conclude all three shows share a reality, since Sam was a regular on Acres, too. However...)

3. Beverly Hillbillies is definitely fictional on Green Acres. Eb mentions it as his favorite show several times, and once the town put on a "play" that was actually them acting out an episode of Hillbillies.

So, in conclusion... jokes are more important than continuity in Hooterville.

Or else the Beverly Hillbillies was the first reality TV show, and that's what Eb watches. Or the Clampetts' real life rags-to-riches story provided the basis for a fictional series, just like, for example, we have TV series based (loosely) on the real world Untouchables.




Zach Kinkead
Jul 6, 2012, 12:29 pm

Beverly Hillbillies is one of my favorite old TV shows. Don’t ruin it by retconning at as reality TV. 




Stuart V
Jul 6, 2012, 12:48 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Beverly Hillbillies is one of my favorite old TV shows. Don’t ruin it by retconning at as reality TV.

If reality TV shows followed around the likes of the Beverly Hillbillies and the Addams Family, instead of the "people" it tends to follow, then I'd be more inclined to watch it. Instead we get individuals who are just and bizarre and outrageous as the Clampetts or Addams, but without the charm or sense of humour.




zuckyd1
Jul 6, 2012, 01:04 pm

Since we know that shows like Mad About You and Beverly Hillbillies can be fictional in some realities but not in others—and, in some realities, might even be a form of reality TV—does that mean that OUR reality tv programs are, somewhere out there in the Omniverse, purely fictional? That a show such as Survivor might be no more real than Gilligan's Island or Castaway? (And in some realities, perhaps even LESS real?)




Stuart V
Jul 6, 2012, 01:18 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

Since we know that shows like Mad About You and Beverly Hillbillies can be fictional in some realities but not in others—and, in some realities, might even be a form of reality TV—does that mean that OUR reality tv programs are, somewhere out there in the Omniverse, purely fictional? That a show such as Survivor might be no more real than Gilligan's Island or Castaway? (And in some realities, perhaps even LESS real?)

I guess it would depend on the specific type of reality TV show. Ones like Big Brother or Survivor are already presented in the context of being a TV show. However, shows like Dog the Bounty Hunter or The Osbornes? I could see them being fictionalised as an action series or a sitcom respectively. 

That said, my comment about Beverly Hillbillies is slightly misconstrued - I meant that the shows we saw were real events in the world of Green Acres, but that when Eb later mentions it as a TV show, he's referring to later events in the Clampett life we didn't see, where they had a camera crew follow them around. Much like the Cops-style episode of X-Files.




zuckyd1
Jul 6, 2012, 01:41 pm

By the way, Stuart, you never commented on my Twilight Avenger post. Is that something you can use?




Zach Kinkead
Jul 6, 2012, 02:22 pm

On the real vs fiction thing …

DC characters are fictional in the Marvel Universe.

Marvel characters are fictional in the DC Universe.

They’ve crossed over before many times both as part of the same world and as a meeting of alternate realities. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Spider-Man recognize Batman as a fiction character in any of those even though he’s mentioned watching Batman movies.

Invincible has crossed over with both universes (of course the DC thing was only one panel).

Also worth mentioning is that – within the MU and DCU – there are comics published with fictional stories about in-universe characters like the Justice League and the Fantastic Four. 

That might go a long way toward explaining how the Lee/Kirby monsters can be both fictional (Peter Parker used to read them as a kid and Reed Richards used them as a bluff to repel and alien invasion) and part of Mole Man’s army.


Back to TV …

The Office is supposed to be reality TV but I get the sense that no one (including the main characters) actually watches the show. Are they waiting until the series is over to air it in-universe or something? It seems like they’ve shot an awful lot of footage (especially in the American version) that no one has seen.




Michael Regan
Jul 6, 2012, 02:26 pm

How did I miss the Star Trek / Legion of Super-Heroes mini-series?!

Off to my LCS tomorrow :cross:




Zach Kinkead
Jul 6, 2012, 02:38 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

How did I miss the Star Trek / Legion of Super-Heroes mini-series?!

Off to my LCS tomorrow :cross:

It’s pretty good. It’s almost as fun to watch Brainiac and Spock play off each other as it is to see what happens when Kirk hits on Shadow Lass.




zuckyd1
Jul 6, 2012, 02:55 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

DC characters are fictional in the Marvel Universe.

Superman may be fictional in 616, but "Clark Kent" apparently isn't: http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/kentclrk.htm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

The Office is supposed to be reality TV but I get the sense that no one (including the main characters) actually watches the show. Are they waiting until the series is over to air it in-universe or something? It seems like they’ve shot an awful lot of footage (especially in the American version) that no one has seen.

This relates to part of what I was suggesting in an earlier post—that in some universe The Office might be the "real" reality show and Survivor or the Osbournes might be the fake one.




Zach Kinkead
Jul 6, 2012, 03:14 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

Superman may be fictional in 616, but "Clark Kent" apparently isn't: http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/kentclrk.htm

On that note: Peter Parker was in Crisis on Infinite Earths and recently rode the same subway train as Matt Murdock and James Howlett in the Doctor 13 stories. Maybe they were commuting to the Avengers Tower or something.




Stuart V
Jul 8, 2012, 11:41 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

By the way, Stuart, you never commented on my Twilight Avenger post. Is that something you can use?

I did comment on it, though it was hidden in the middle of a larger post. Yes, it is useful. Here's what I said in full "I'd not counted Gold Digger since that and NHS kind of share a reality. On the other hand, I'd overlooked Speed Racer - so the question now is, have either Gold Digger or Speed Racer crossed with any other series?"

Zach Kinkead wrote:

On the real vs fiction thing …

DC characters are fictional in the Marvel Universe.

Marvel characters are fictional in the DC Universe.

And, notably, Marvel is fictional in the New Universe, something Quasar discovered when he visited there, while DC Comics exist in the Milestone universe, resulting in comments along the lines of "but you're fictional" when DC heroes crossed into that universe. So, even without the examples of the Incompleat Enchanter or Kitty's Fairytale, we've got evidence that events in one reality may be accurately recorded as fictional stories in another.

Zach Kinkead wrote:

They’ve crossed over before many times both as part of the same world and as a meeting of alternate realities. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Spider-Man recognize Batman as a fiction character in any of those even though he’s mentioned watching Batman movies.

Two possibilities: 1) some interdimensional crossovers, and most interdimensional mergers, mess with history and / or memories, so it might be that for the duration of their encounter Spider-Man didn't recognise Batman as fictional because the Batman movies were temporarily erased from 616 history; 2) the 616 Batman movies are not based on DC's Batman, but on another character of the same name, and thus, though Bruce Wayne's alter ego shares the codename, he didn't look remotely like the movie character Spidey knew of, hence Spidey's lake of comment.

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Also worth mentioning is that – within the MU and DCU – there are comics published with fictional stories about in-universe characters like the Justice League and the Fantastic Four. 

That might go a long way toward explaining how the Lee/Kirby monsters can be both fictional (Peter Parker used to read them as a kid and Reed Richards used them as a bluff to repel and alien invasion) and part of Mole Man’s army.

Pretty much a given.

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Back to TV …

The Office is supposed to be reality TV but I get the sense that no one (including the main characters) actually watches the show. Are they waiting until the series is over to air it in-universe or something? It seems like they’ve shot an awful lot of footage (especially in the American version) that no one has seen.

It might be that they are waiting to air it. On the other hand, look at how reality TV shows in real life sometimes present their "stars", or even just shows like Jerry Springer. Given how most people on such shows come across in a very poor light, you'd think the people in ongoing shows and anyone new who was about to appear on such a show would either modify their behaviour or refuse to continue appearing. But they don't. Some people don't seem to mind being depicted as jerks or idiots, so long as they believe they are becoming "famous" in the process.




zuckyd1
Jul 8, 2012, 10:35 pm

StuartV wrote:

I did comment on it, though it was hidden in the middle of a larger post. Yes, it is useful. Here's what I said in full "I'd not counted Gold Digger since that and NHS kind of share a reality. On the other hand, I'd overlooked Speed Racer - so the question now is, have either Gold Digger or Speed Racer crossed with any other series?"

I had also posted a second time about the Twilight Avenger:

zuckyd1 wrote:

As long as you’re accepting “weak links”, you might be interested in the following: In the Twilight Avenger story “The Centipede Crawls”, a character refers to Philo Vance in a way that suggests he might really exist. Philo Vance appears in Lin Carter’s novel “The Earth-Shaker”, along with two Doc Savage characters (Patricia Savage and Johnny Littlejohn). Doc Savage, of course, has crossed over with characters from both the Marvel and DC universes.

ToddCam
Jul 9, 2012, 12:50 pm

The Office reality show: 

In the last episode with Michael Scott, he told the camera people to let him know if they ever aired it. So at least as of then it hadn't aired.

In the British version, it aired between the end of the series and the special.

Also, if it had aired, there would have to have been somebody in the show at some point having recognized one of the people from the show. I mean, a show being filmed entirely on location in Scranton (not exactly a bustling metropolis) and no one at all knowing about it?

If they ever do air that show in the show, at least one character (Pam) committed fraud (gleefully admitting it too calling herself "corrupt") in giving someone paid time off. Not to mention all the lies that would be revealed to be just that if the lie-ees ever saw it.

Last edited by zuckyd1 (2/08/2020 10:56 am)

More historical text from Comixfan:

Stuart V
Jul 9, 2012, 02:16 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

I had also posted a second time about the Twilight Avenger:
As long as you’re accepting “weak links”, you might be interested in the following: In the Twilight Avenger story “The Centipede Crawls”, a character refers to Philo Vance in a way that suggests he might really exist. Philo Vance appears in Lin Carter’s novel “The Earth-Shaker”, along with two Doc Savage characters (Patricia Savage and Johnny Littlejohn). Doc Savage, of course, has crossed over with characters from both the Marvel and DC universes.

Ah, you are right, I missed that one. A passing mention would count as a particularly weak link, but in the absence of any stronger ones it is certainly noteworthy. 

In other news, I notice a Glee / Archie crossover comic is coming. Since Archie has also met the Punisher, I personally now want to see a Glee / Punisher crossover.




zuckyd1
Jul 9, 2012, 04:27 pm

Stuart V wrote:

I don't think any Logan's Run world has been visited by anyone from an alternate reality, or vice versa.

Logan's Run easter eggs in Star Trek:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/in...nets.htm#matte




Stuart V
Jul 10, 2012, 08:06 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

Logan's Run easter eggs in Star Trek:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/in...nets.htm#matte

I don't think we can count shared architecture. 

One which might not mean a lot to the non-Brits, and not evidence towards the Omniverse, but rather of a shared reality. Blake's 7 and Doctor Who share a universe. Right back when Blake's 7 was airing, Terry Nation, creator of both Blake's 7 and the Daleks, had wanted to use the Daleks in the series (an alien force invades at the end of the second year, and Nation had intended them to be the Daleks), but producer David Maloney and script editor Chris Boucher overruled this. Tom Baker (the Doctor) and Gareth Thomas (Blake), who were friends and the lead character in each show at the time, also proposed that one or other of them should cameo in character in the other show, with Blake and the Doctor walking past one another in a corridor with little more than a nod of acknowledgement was also nixed. However, these ideas long lodged the possibility in fans' minds that the shows shared a universe. Some of the Doctor Who novels then ran with this, with companions of the Doctor both mentioning having seen Blake's 7 as a TV show, and then having one companion mention she'd met a member of Blake's 7, clarifying her statement by adding "the terrorist group, not the TV show." Big Finish, producers of licensed Dr. Who audio stories, also used some of the very distinctive Blake's 7 sound effects in one of their audios, set around the same sort of time period as Blake's 7 was. 

After hinting and making tongue-in-cheek references to Blake's 7, the link was firmly established when Chris Boucher used Carnell, a "psycho-strategist" who had been created for a B7 episode Boucher penned, in his Dr. Who spin-off series, Kaldor City, set on a former Earth colony that has lost contact with the wider universe, and which only recalls Earth as a legend. Carnell appeared alongside characters who had met the Doctor in the story Robots of Death, and another character, played by Paul Darrow (Avon in Blake's 7) confronts Carnell over being the only psycho-strategist on the planet, proof that Carnell is not native to the world. Carnell counters that Darrow's character can only know this if he comes from the Federation too, and Darrow admits that he too is a fugitive, on the planet hiding out from the Federation.




zuckyd1
Jul 10, 2012, 10:34 pm

Stuart V wrote:

I don't think we can count shared architecture.

But both buildings were OBVIOUSLY built by the same interplanetary architectural firm. 
I thought it might count as a legit egg since it's a fictional building and was reused deliberately as a nod to Logan's Run—is that really so different from the easter eggs in the Star Trek/Legion comic?

Speaking of Doctor Who crossovers: 





Stuart V
Jul 11, 2012, 05:08 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

But both buildings were OBVIOUSLY built by the same interplanetary architectural firm. 
I thought it might count as a legit egg since it's a fictional building and was reused deliberately as a nod to Logan's Run—is that really so different from the easter eggs in the Star Trek/Legion comic?

Speaking of Doctor Who crossovers: 

It's not a fictional building in the same place, nor even on the same planet. As such, while they are deliberate Easter Eggs, they aren't intended to be the same building within the confines of the stories themselves, just remarkably similar looking constructs. Conversely, the gadgets in the Star Trek / Legion comic could legitimately be argued to be the "real deal" and have travelled from their original universes to be collected together.



Michael Regan
Jul 11, 2012, 08:44 am

The same can be said for numerous props and costumes reused over the years for either budgetary reasons or simply due to original interest. Take a look at how many times the oscillation overthruster from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension was used in the Star Trek franchise over the years (http://www.figmentfly.com/bb/popculture3.html).

Certainly a good trivia site, but the appearance of a building in both realities in an in-universe context can only be taken as a building which looks like another building. There is no indication that one is meant to represent the other in any respect unlike the implication in the Star Trek / Legion of Super-Heroes cross-over.




Stuart V
Jul 11, 2012, 08:58 am

Michael Regan wrote:

The same can be said for numerous props and costumes reused over the years for either budgetary reasons or simply due to original interest. Take a look at how many times the oscillation overthruster from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension was used in the Star Trek franchise over the years (http://www.figmentfly.com/bb/popculture3.html).

Certainly a good trivia site, but the appearance of a building in both realities in an in-universe context can only be taken as a building which looks like another building. There is no indication that one is meant to represent the other in any respect unlike the implication in the Star Trek / Legion of Super-Heroes cross-over.

There's also a lot of costumes and props which got reused between various BBC SF shows, thanks to them sharing the same props and costume departments. Heck, part of a spaceship corridor used in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy also turned up in Alien, iirc.




zuckyd1
Jul 11, 2012, 11:59 am

I see the distinction you're making, and it's a valid one.

But here's another line of reasoning:
Just as writers, daydreamers, etc. are subconsciously channeling alternate realities, perhaps the architect within the Star Trek universe was subconsciusly inspired by design ideas originating from the Logan's Run reality?




Stuart V
Jul 11, 2012, 12:08 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

I see the distinction you're making, and it's a valid one.

But here's another line of reasoning:
Just as writers, daydreamers, etc. are subconsciously channeling alternate realities, perhaps the architect within the Star Trek universe was subconsciusly inspired by design ideas originating from the Logan's Run reality?

Feasible, certainly, but speculative, and as such too weak a link to use on the map. The reason we allow fiction or daydreams of a character in one world to be used as evidence of the existence of that fiction / daydream as a genuine reality is because we have multiple examples of this being the case. But architecture is harder - we've got pyramids all over the Earth, but, despite some people claiming this is evidence of past civilisations having unrecorded contact with one another (or, more dubiously, claims this is evidence that aliens came down in different parts of the Earth and taught different cultures to make pyramids), the truth seems to be simply that certain architectural designs just make sense - they are strong and durable, so multiple cultures discovered them independently and those structures have survived longer than others.




Michael Regan
Jul 11, 2012, 12:30 pm

Stuart V wrote:

There's also a lot of costumes and props which got reused between various BBC SF shows, thanks to them sharing the same props and costume departments. Heck, part of a spaceship corridor used in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy also turned up in Alien, iirc.

Not to mention Robbie the Robot which was such a great prop it could not simply be put in a back room to collect dust.

Fun really begins when things are reused in animation, simply to save some time. I think Disney did this in some older, pre-Little Mermaid movies.

An extention of this, take is as you may, are the cross-referenced items in many Pixar films: Pizza Planet, Buy'n Large, etc.

(All of which are fantastic bits of trivia which I treasure and would go mad if I tried to document... but make note of in any case.)

I like the subconscious reasoning (Earth-One and Earth-Two in the pre-Crisis DC Multiverse), but the problem is where to stop. The design of the American flag in multiple realities, the existence of MacDonald's in multiple realities, even the existence of a simple chair in multiple realities could then warrant a connection.




zuckyd1
Jul 11, 2012, 03:07 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

the problem is where to stop. The design of the American flag in multiple realities, the existence of MacDonald's in multiple realities, even the existence of a simple chair in multiple realities could then warrant a connection.

I'd argue that the evidence is SLIGHTLY stronger when we're dealing with two fictional building designs as opposed to two McDonalds.

Another explanation for the Logan's Run/Star Trek "connection": some architect in the 23rd/24th century watched the same Logan's Run movie that we've watched and dug the film's set design.

A related question: We know that all fictional realities exist in the "same" Omniverse (because, by definition, there is only one). Does it follow that a given reality must share some connection with at least one other fictional reality, even if we are currently unaware of the precise linking factor because it has yet to be sufficiently "documented"? Or can a fictional reality truly be completely isolated, drifting around aimlessly in the vast oceans of the Omniverse?
(Obviously all fictional realities are linked to OUR reality by virtue of the fact that our authors have been able to "discover" them.)




zuckyd1
Jul 11, 2012, 03:16 pm

Perhaps I should state the question another way:
A given reality cannot be TOTALLY isolated, assuming its inhabitants have the intellectual capacity to create fiction. So my new question is, can a reality, or "cluster" of realities, be completely disconnected from the "main" cluster that is illustrated on the Omniverse Map?




Stuart V
Jul 11, 2012, 03:27 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

I'd argue that the evidence is SLIGHTLY stronger when we're dealing with two fictional building designs as opposed to two McDonalds.

Another explanation for the Logan's Run/Star Trek "connection": some architect in the 23rd/24th century watched the same Logan's Run movie that we've watched and dug the film's set design.

A related question: We know that all fictional realities exist in the "same" Omniverse (because, by definition, there is only one). Does it follow that a given reality must share some connection with at least one other fictional reality, even if we are currently unaware of the precise linking factor because it has yet to be sufficiently "documented"? Or can a fictional reality truly be completely isolated, drifting around aimlessly in the vast oceans of the Omniverse?
(Obviously all fictional realities are linked to OUR reality by virtue of the fact that our authors have been able to "discover" them.)
Perhaps I should state the question another way:
A given reality cannot be TOTALLY isolated, assuming its inhabitants have the intellectual capacity to create fiction. So my new question is, can a reality, or "cluster" of realities, be completely disconnected from the "main" cluster that is illustrated on the Omniverse Map?

I suppose that theoretically somewhere could be totally isolated from other realities - not everywhere has to have developed fiction. If we take it that all fiction is generated by someone effectively psychically viewing somewhere else, then the realities they view can't be isolated, since telepathic viewing suggests astral plane contact between those realities - but then, there's no reason to believe all fiction comes from viewing other realities. It could instead be viewing other places or times within your own reality. Presumably however, any world whose fiction conceives of alternate realities, even in as simple a manner as creating fictional characters operating in the real world, must have some contact with other realities, even if only through the psychic planes. And yes, you could also have isolated reality "clusters".




zuckyd1
Jul 11, 2012, 03:32 pm

Stuart V wrote:

And yes, you could also have isolated reality "clusters".

I guess that's what fan fiction is for. LOL




Stuart V
Jul 13, 2012, 05:52 pm

Just noting that Dynamite's upcoming Masks series is a crossover story featuring the Green Hornet, Kato, the Shadow, the Spider, Zorro (presumably a modern day successor, as the original comes from a different time period than the 1930s), the Black Bat, Miss Fury, the Green Lama and the Black Terror.
http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/1...ver2_super.jpg
Unsurprisingly, given that once someone goes public domain anyone can use them, many of those already have links to the multiverse. However, they aren't all public domain, and this is very nearly the Spider's first crossover. 

The original Black Terror met other characters in the Standard/Better/Nedor universe, the Eclipse version participated in the Total Eclipse crossover alongside a wide variety of other heroes, another version exists in the Tom Strong universe, another counterpart is part of Project Superpowers, and yet another exists in the Americomics universe.

Green Hornet and Kato have met Batman (via the latter's TV show), Captain Action (via Moonstone's use of him), and, in a sneaky, can sadly only be counted as a weak link, way, ran into Captain America, the Shadow, Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan, Lois Lane and Clark Kent in Now's Sting of the Green Hornet. 

The Shadow has met Doc Savage (DC and Dark Horse) and Dark Horse's Ghost (another link to the multiverse for Comics' Greatest World).

Zorro has fewer links, but he's encountered Dracula and the Lone Ranger (the latter via Dynamite's comics again).

The Black Bat has fewer crossovers, largely because he's very much a lesser known Pulp hero, so even though he's been public domain for a while, few people thought to use him. However, Moonstone started taking advantage of all the unused pulp characters a few years ago, and Black Bat turns up in Return of the Originals, alongside Domino Lady, G8, Secret Agent X and the Phantom Detective. The Spider is in this story, but only in a separate tale available in the hardcover addition - and I think this is his very first crossover.

Miss Fury has a counterpart in the Marvel Universe - we saw her in the first pages of The Twelve. And the Green Lama also exists in Project Superpowers, Americomics, and made a cameo in Avengers #92 as one of the Golden Age heroes Rick Jones knew of - though whether he was only a comic book character Rick had read of, or a real person in 616, we can't say for certain.




zuckyd1
Jul 14, 2012, 01:35 am

Stuart V wrote:

Zorro (presumably a modern day successor, as the original comes from a different time period than the 1930s)

Writer Chris Roberson confirmed in an interview with Comic Book Resources that it will not be Don Diego de la Vega.

Stuart V wrote:

The Spider is in this story, but only in a separate tale available in the hardcover addition - and I think this is his very first crossover.

Lin Carter's second Prince Zarkon novel, Invisible Death, features the Spider, the Shadow, the Green Hornet, Batman, and others.

Philip José Farmer’s Greatheart Silver includes analogues of the Spider, the Shadow, the Black Bat, the Green Lama, the Phantom Detective, G-8, Secret Agent X, Doc Savage, the Lone Ranger, Fu Manchu, James Bond, and others.




Stuart V
Jul 14, 2012, 06:12 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

Lin Carter's second Prince Zarkon novel, Invisible Death, features the Spider, the Shadow, the Green Hornet, Batman, and others.

Philip José Farmer’s Greatheart Silver includes analogues of the Spider, the Shadow, the Black Bat, the Green Lama, the Phantom Detective, G-8, Secret Agent X, Doc Savage, the Lone Ranger, Fu Manchu, James Bond, and others.

In Zarkon's case, I believe those are "nod and wink" versions, rather than outright acknowledged, simply because most of them were still in copyright at the time Lin Carter was writing (but I've not read the stories, so I could be wrong - if I am, then yes, this might be his first crossover). On the analogue front, that wouldn't change my comment - there's a Spider analogue in Planetary, but he's not the Spider. 

It looks to me very much like crossovers come in distinct waves: first analogues, when characters become popular enough for others to either want to parody them or include homages to them; then, official, licensed crossovers; and finally, once into the public domain, widespread mash-ups as fans take advantage of the free rein to have their favourite characters meet one another. The analogues tend to overlap the licensed crossovers, but, apart from those analogues who prove enduring and/or distinctive enough to take on a life of their own, they usually dwindle away once the public domain phase arrives, because why use a pastiche of someone when you can use the actual character?




zuckyd1
Jul 14, 2012, 05:55 pm

I haven't read the Carter or Farmer stories; I'm going by the information in Win Scott Eckert's two-volume series Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the term "analogue". Eckert's description of Invisible Death gives no indication that the Spider is referred to by any different name. Spider supporting characters Nita Van Sloan and Ram Singh are apparently also mentioned.
Regarding Greatheart Silver, the Spider is referred to as "Dick Windworthy/The Arachnid", and all the other guest characters have equally-transparent pseudonyms (Fyu-men Chu, the Green Llama, etc.).
Additionally, the family tree that was published in Farmer's Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life indicates that the Spider is the half-brother of the Shadow and G-8 (although presumably there is no basis for this relationship other than Farmer's imagination).

Is the Devil Doctor in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen considered to be an actual appearance of Fu Manchu, or merely an analogue?




Stuart V
Jul 14, 2012, 07:18 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

I haven't read the Carter or Farmer stories; I'm going by the information in Win Scott Eckert's two-volume series Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the term "analogue". Eckert's description of Invisible Death gives no indication that the Spider is referred to by any different name. Spider supporting characters Nita Van Sloan and Ram Singh are apparently also mentioned.

It's possible the novel does name them - you tend to get away more with a novel if it is only a passing mention - but it was published when the Spider was very much in copyright, so until we get confirmation one way or another as to exactly what is said to identify him, I think the jury has to remain out.

zuckyd1 wrote:

Regarding Greatheart Silver, the Spider is referred to as "Dick Windworthy/The Arachnid", and all the other guest characters have equally-transparent pseudonyms (Fyu-men Chu, the Green Llama, etc.).

Analogues, nevertheless. Analogues can't really be taken as evidence of multiversal linkage because (1) the multiversal naysayers are stubborn enough about acknowledging unquestioned crossovers without trying to use analogues in the debate, and (2) because analogues can and have developed lives of their own, becoming distinct characters in their own right. 

zuckyd1 wrote:

Additionally, the family tree that was published in Farmer's Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life indicates that the Spider is the half-brother of the Shadow and G-8 (although presumably there is no basis for this relationship other than Farmer's imagination).

I love the Wold Newton concept, but in terms of mapping the multiverse we can't use too much of it - we know that the depicted realities that some individuals live in is incompatible with the depicted realities of some others, so we can't make an argument for fitting them all together. 

zuckyd1 wrote:

Is the Devil Doctor in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen considered to be an actual appearance of Fu Manchu, or merely an analogue?

Kind of a grey area in between - ironically, because he went unnamed, he's got more claim to being a counterpart than he otherwise would, simply because it wasn't stated that he was not Fu Manchu. Of course, had Fu Manchu's owners tried to pursue a lawsuit for the unlicensed use of their character, it would have been easy to say "no, that's not Fu Manchu, it might be Wu Fang (http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/w/wufang.htm) / Yen Sin (http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/y/yensin.htm) / the Yellow Claw."




zuckyd1
Jul 14, 2012, 07:45 pm

Stuart V wrote:

I love the Wold Newton concept, but in terms of mapping the multiverse we can't use too much of it - we know that the depicted realities that some individuals live in is incompatible with the depicted realities of some others, so we can't make an argument for fitting them all together.

The way I understand the Wold Newton Universe is that its proponents have tried to carefully construct a single coherent reality that includes as many crossovers as possible, and they've relegated the non-compatible ones to alternate universes. (There's a whole appendix of these alternate realities in the Crossovers books.) So I would argue then that there IS a WNU which legitimately exists in the Omniverse, and that in that universe it has been documented that the Spider is stepbrother to the Shadow and G-8.




Stuart V
Jul 14, 2012, 07:48 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

The way I understand the Wold Newton Universe is that its proponents have tried to carefully construct a single coherent reality that includes as many crossovers as possible, and they've relegated the non-compatible ones to alternate universes. (There's a whole appendix of these alternate realities in the Crossovers books.) So I would argue then that there IS a WNU which legitimately exists in the Omniverse, and that in that universe it has been documented that the Spider is stepbrother to the Shadow and G-8.

And that's perfectly reasonable.



Zach Kinkead
Jul 14, 2012, 08:16 pm

The comment made a while back about universes being created by daydreams got me thinking about Joe the Barbarian.

While he seems to live in “the real world”, Joe hallucinates – among other things – that his DC, GI Joe, Masters of the Universe, and Transformers toys are real.

That seems relevant here.




zuckyd1
Jul 14, 2012, 08:39 pm

Wondering where this fan-film might fall on the Omniverse map: 






Stuart V
Jul 15, 2012, 01:49 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

Wondering where this fan-film might fall on the Omniverse map: 

That's a great video - very well made! That said, I tend to avoid fan fic and fan videos as evidence of links, simply because otherwise pretty much everything would be immediately linked (and because the naysayers wouldn't count them anyway). 

On the video front, I still retain a fondness for this one


which I first saw back around 2000. Not as smooth as the one you linked to, but given how the technology has advanced, as a fan video the old one was pretty groundbreaking for its time, and it got the person who made it his break into the movies:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1209376/




zuckyd1
Jul 15, 2012, 04:20 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

I tend to avoid fan fic and fan videos as evidence of links, simply because otherwise pretty much everything would be immediately linked.

I agree—takes all the fun out of trying to "connect the dots".




zuckyd1
Jul 15, 2012, 04:25 pm

Although, when it comes to public-domain characters, where do you draw the line between fan fiction and "legitimate" fiction?




Eduardo M.
Jul 15, 2012, 05:07 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

Although, when it comes to public-domain characters, where do you draw the line between fan fiction and "legitimate" fiction?

I guess it comes down to whether said characters are being written by a professional writer in a professional setting.

Ex: If I were to write a story using publuc-domain characters and post on y Facebook it would be fan-fiction. If Dan Slott were to do so for a Marvel Comic its legitimate




zuckyd1
Jul 15, 2012, 06:25 pm

Looks like it's time for another Earth designation (Earth-PF?):
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/07...erb-crossover/




Stuart V
Jul 15, 2012, 07:24 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

Although, when it comes to public-domain characters, where do you draw the line between fan fiction and "legitimate" fiction?

Eduardo M. wrote:

I guess it comes down to whether said characters are being written by a professional writer in a professional setting.

Ex: If I were to write a story using publuc-domain characters and post on y Facebook it would be fan-fiction. If Dan Slott were to do so for a Marvel Comic its legitimate

Pretty much. It used to be fairly easy to tell, in the days before the internet and cheap(ish) self-publishing companies, what was fan fiction and what wasn't. In the old days, while being a published author didn't guarantee you were a good writer, it at least meant someone other than you liked your work enough to risk paying out good money to cover the printing and distribution costs, which winnowed out at least some of the worst efforts. Now that safety net has been removed. Someone once pointed out to me that the old adage "Every person has a book in them" should be amended to add "but the internet has shown that most people should keep it there." There is some great fan fic out there, but there's an awful lot of dross too. 

zuckyd1 wrote:

Looks like it's time for another Earth designation (Earth-PF?):
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/07...erb-crossover/

Yup.




Zach Kinkead
Jul 15, 2012, 08:52 pm

Eduardo M. wrote:

I guess it comes down to whether said characters are being written by a professional writer in a professional setting.

I’m not sure how you’d define “professional” (especially when it comes to writers).

Harry Potter was written by a homeless person. If I were to gather the greats of literature together in one room, chances are pretty good that it is because I wanted to hold an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Then there are the big name comic writers who have infamously bad spelling and grammar. 

I’d say you have to let the work speak for itself but it all comes down to personal preference. You either have to count everything or nothing once you get past the original owners of a character.




zuckyd1
Jul 15, 2012, 09:37 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

I’m not sure how you’d define “professional” (especially when it comes to writers).

Harry Potter was written by a homeless person. If I were to gather the greats of literature together in one room, chances are pretty good that it is because I wanted to hold an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Then there are the big name comic writers who have infamously bad spelling and grammar. 

I’d say you have to let the work speak for itself but it all comes down to personal preference. You either have to count everything or nothing once you get past the original owners of a character.

Rowling was poor, but I don't believe she was actually ever homeless.

Regardless, I think professionalism is defined, not by one's living conditions or sobriety (or even grammatical skills), but rather by whether one has earned compensation for the work he/she created.

That being said, I don't know that "professionalism" in the commercial sense need be an ABSOLUTE arbitrator in terms of what counts as "legitimate" for our purposes. There are plenty of examples of writers and artists who never achieved professional status while they were still alive. As Stuart said, there are amateurs out there whose skills and output outrank many of the pros. There are people who are content, especially in this age of free and instant global access, to create work without the expectation of financial reward. Some of these amateurs may even develop more of a following (and, eventually, influence) than some obscure "pro" who happened to have convinced someone to fork over some money. 

Nevertheless, professionalism as defined above is certainly the easiest way to objectively determine legitimacy, without having to resort simply to matters of personal taste.




Stuart V
Jul 16, 2012, 07:55 pm

Of course, there are fan films and then there are "fan films."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWpK0...layer_embedded

Warning - it gets pretty violent.




Eduardo M.
Jul 16, 2012, 08:32 pm

I will admit I've seen some fan works I would not mind being considered legitimate.

But also, I don't think I want to see a universe where the Juggernaut goes around telling people "I'm the Juggernaut, (w)itch!" (and YES, I am well aware they did that joke in Last Stand.)




Michael Regan
Jul 18, 2012, 07:26 pm

The Weyland-Yutani Corporation logo from the Alien franchise can be seen at the top of the heads up display on the anti-aircraft gun Mal uses in "Serenity", the pilot episode of Firefly.




zuckyd1
Jul 18, 2012, 07:47 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

The Weyland-Yutani Corporation logo from the Alien franchise can be seen at the top of the heads up display on the anti-aircraft gun Mal uses in "Serenity", the pilot episode of Firefly.

Joss Whedon, the creator of Firefly, wrote the screenplay for Alien Ressurection.

A few other appearances:http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Weyland-Yutani#Note




Michael Regan
Jul 19, 2012, 09:09 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

Joss Whedon, the creator of Firefly, wrote the screenplay for Alien Ressurection.

A few other appearances: http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Weyland-Yutani#Note

Angel and V... interesting.




Michael Regan
Jul 19, 2012, 12:24 pm

Stuart,

When looking at certain publisher lines which are unique to the publisher (non-licensed), such at the super hero comics of Charlton and Dell, would it be best to assume seperate realities/continuities or shared realities/continuities (assuming, of course, no such link is evident in the published issues)?




Michael Regan
Jul 23, 2012, 06:56 pm

"Run, Layla, Run" in X-Factor #240 includes an analog of Lola from Run, Lola, Run (1998)




zuckyd1
Jul 23, 2012, 07:10 pm

Power Pack #60 had analogs of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.




zuckyd1
Jul 29, 2012, 04:20 pm

My nomination for Earth-199999.9 http://memosfromfury.tumblr.com/tagged/nick-fury




Michael Regan
Jul 29, 2012, 08:02 pm

An analog of the Brady Bunch appears as a television show on Monk.




Michael Regan
Jul 30, 2012, 08:43 am

What appears to be an analog of Judge Dredd appears as a teaser on the last page of Dark Avengers #177.




Sidney Osinga
Aug 1, 2012, 02:20 am

I don't know if anyone has pointed this http://www.cracked.com/article_19323...wing-ways.html out yet, but here it is.




Michael Regan
Aug 1, 2012, 09:22 am

Fringe season 2, episode one ("A New Day in the Old Town"), makes a mentions an "an old 'X' designation" of the FBI suggesting an X-Files analog withinin the Fringe reality.

Strangely, a scene from the X-Files season six episode "Dreamland" can briefly be seen on a television a the beginning of the episode indicating that the X-Files television series is also a fictional reality withinin the Fringe reality.




Zach Kinkead
Aug 2, 2012, 06:53 pm

Sidney Osinga wrote:

I don't know if anyone has pointed this http://www.cracked.com/article_19323...wing-ways.html out yet, but here it is.

I didn’t know about the Tarantino thing but I know most (maybe all) of Kevin Smith’s movies are in the same universe.

The Id software one got me thinking about video game universes; specifically Kingdom Hearts.

For those that don’t know KH is a game series that combines Final Fantasy and Disney.

Now I’m not sure which Final Fantasy; I’m no expert on the series but I read that most of the games exist in their own universe.

However it’s the Disney part that interests me. I know the game universe includes Mickey and his pals as well as the Disney versions of characters like Hercules. Theoretically Kingdom Hearts could include everything from Muppets to Marvel* to Miramax (probably not but it would tie it to the Smith and Tarantino universes).

*I want a crossover between Darkwing Duck and Spider-Man so badly.

Also my first exposure to the series is in the most recent game for 3DS. I’ve barely played the game but I’ve already seen an appearance by a character from one of my all-time favorite video games; the World Ends With You.


And we’d be here a while if we went into the connections between the various “core” Nintendo properties that existed even BEFORE Smash Bros. 


The DD/TMNT one just reminds me of the Hulkpool story from Hulked Out Heroes where Wade has a hand in preventing just about everyone’s origin.




zuckyd1
Aug 2, 2012, 08:23 pm

A few more fun links:
https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-unofficial-theory-of-sci-fi-connectivity-5115301
http://io9.com/5116962/just-how-is-everything-connected
http://crossover.bureau42.com/x.html
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources...k-six-degrees/




Michael Regan
Aug 3, 2012, 06:37 pm

The odd thing about the Final Fantasy series is that each game release is technically a new reality... for the most part.




Zach Kinkead
Aug 5, 2012, 05:08 pm

Speaking of Video game multiverses; have you seen the trailer for the Wreck-It Ralph movie?

Ralph, King Bowser, the Pac-Man ghosts, and several others are all part of the same villain support group




Stuart V
Aug 6, 2012, 07:08 am

Michael Regan wrote:

What appears to be an analog of Judge Dredd appears as a teaser on the last page of Dark Avengers #177.

Analogues can be tricky things, which is one of the reasons for counting them as looser proof of multiversal connections - some are stronger analogues than others. We've already kind of got Dredd analogues in Marvel via Justice Peace and the Justicer Bull (and their ilk), but how far you can hypothesis a connection via people of similar appearance and attitude who otherwise don't match up is hard to say. Still noteworthy though, especially in cases where stronger links aren't available.

Michael Regan wrote:

Fringe season 2, episode one ("A New Day in the Old Town"), makes a mentions an "an old 'X' designation" of the FBI suggesting an X-Files analog withinin the Fringe reality.

Strangely, a scene from the X-Files season six episode "Dreamland" can briefly be seen on a television a the beginning of the episode indicating that the X-Files television series is also a fictional reality withinin the Fringe reality.

Three possibilities:
1) discount what we saw on TV as a topical reference (the same way we do for sliding timescale things, or if a show set in a given time period accidentally mentions or uses something that wasn't yet invented as a non-pivotal part of the story (e.g. a slightly anachronistic car or TV aerials visible on buildings in the background in a period drama). They aren't really there, "art error."
2) someone in Hollywood heard rumours of the X-Files analogue agency and turned it into a TV show (cf Wormhole X-Treme). And it presumably suited the FBI to let this happen, because it either would have drawn too much attention to try and stop it, or because it makes the general public less inclined to believe any whistle-blowers who try and expose the real agency. (White Wolf's Vampire posited that the real vampire Count Dracula was behind Bram Stoker's novel and then worked to encourage stage and later movie adaptations, because he was being hunted by both vampire slayers and fellow vampire; by making himself a household name, he encouraged copycats and impersonators (mad humans and real vampires), thus providing his pursuers countless false leads, and also meant that even those who believed in vampires would scoff at hunters saying they were chasing the "fictional" Dracula.)
3) temporary reality merger. When the realities were not merged, X-Files was a TV show in Fringe (like DC Comics existed in Milestone), then when the two realities merged thanks to "reality drift" the TV show presumably vanished or altered to be something else, accommodating the X-Files now being "real" in Fringe's universe (again, as in the DC / Milestone merges).

Sidney Osinga wrote:

I don't know if anyone has pointed this http://www.cracked.com/article_19323...wing-ways.html out yet, but here it is.

Zach Kinkead wrote:

I didn’t know about the Tarantino thing but I know most (maybe all) of Kevin Smith’s movies are in the same universe.

Its not uncommon for creators to create subtle links between their works, not just in movies. Alexandre Dumas, Sax Rohmer, "Kenneth Robeson," etc. all did so too. In the comics, certain creators have carried favourite characters, subtly altered to avoid copyright issues, from one company to the next. 

Zach Kinkead wrote:

The Id software one got me thinking about video game universes; specifically Kingdom Hearts.

For those that don’t know KH is a game series that combines Final Fantasy and Disney.

Now I’m not sure which Final Fantasy; I’m no expert on the series but I read that most of the games exist in their own universe.

However it’s the Disney part that interests me. I know the game universe includes Mickey and his pals as well as the Disney versions of characters like Hercules.

Disney already tied many of their characters together - their comics of old treated all the characters seen in any of their films and cartoons as one big smorgasbord, available for use in the comic strips, 

Zach Kinkead wrote:

The DD/TMNT one just reminds me of the Hulkpool story from Hulked Out Heroes where Wade has a hand in preventing just about everyone’s origin.

Yes, Wade diverged an alternate reality. Mind you, Bug of the Microns also interacted with a lot of those origins - just see his one-shot.

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Speaking of Video game multiverses; have you seen the trailer for the Wreck-It Ralph movie?

Ralph, King Bowser, the Pac-Man ghosts, and several others are all part of the same villain support group

I have now! Cool! And that scene ties Marvel to it as well, since we can see some of the Street Fighter characters in the support group, who in turn met the Marvel characters in the various Marvel vs. Capcom games. So we it ties all of those game realities to the wider multiverse.




Zach Kinkead
Aug 8, 2012, 10:36 pm

Stuart V wrote:

Disney already tied many of their characters together - their comics of old treated all the characters seen in any of their films and cartoons as one big smorgasbord, available for use in the comic strips,

While its true that a lot of their properties are known to coexist (the Duck Tales/Darkwing Duck comic crossover was great), I never would have even considered a link between Fantasia and Tron if not for Kingdom Hearts.

Stuart V wrote:

Yes, Wade diverged an alternate reality. Mind you, Bug of the Microns also interacted with a lot of those origins - just see his one-shot.

Wade’s dialogue after he saves Dr Strange is hilarious. That’s not really relevant here but it needs to be said.

I’d forgotten about the Bug thing though.

Stuart V wrote:

I have now! Cool! And that scene ties Marvel to it as well, since we can see some of the Street Fighter characters in the support group, who in turn met the Marvel characters in the various Marvel vs. Capcom games. So we it ties all of those game realities to the wider multiverse.

Didn’t even think about that connection. The Capcom link gives us Megaman (and its various spin-offs). Megaman gives us the Captain N: Gamemaster cartoon and comics. Captain N gives us … pretty much every major Nintendo franchise from the 80s.

And, like I said, we could be here forever talking about the links between old Nintendo games.




Stuart V
Aug 9, 2012, 05:08 am

Here's an old one, in terms of when it happened, but which I've only just become aware of. Bear with me for the preamble. 

The most common variety of British comics, the weekly anthology, usually has a fairly fast and loose sense of shared universes - within a given comic, especially the humour strips, it's fairly common for characters from one strip to turn up for a cameo or guest shot in another. And when a British weekly cancelled, it was usually merged into a stronger sibling, so the more popular strips could continue and hopefully you'd combine the readerships. For our purposes though, this also meant that rather than just having a shared universe within a given title, you ended up with shared universes within a given company. To give you an example of this in action, when the title Whoopee! (the exclamation is part of the title) was cancelled, the surviving characters moved to Whizzer and Chips, and the first post-merger issue, the literal infant terrible Sweeny Toddler turned up in almost every other strip, looking for where they'd moved his strip; he wasn't too happy to find out he'd ended up on the back page.

One of the two biggest British companies was IPC (International Publishing Corporation), which was formed via the merger of various other companies such as Odhams Press and Hulton Press (original publishers of the Eagle, where Dan Dare debuted). These days IPC is owned by Time Warner, who also own DC, which is why DC (via Wildstorm) published Albion, which briefly revived a bunch of IPC characters. Up until now the only Omniversal link I could find for the IPC characters, barring analogues, was that one of them, Steel Claw, also turned up in US reprints that tied him, through shared backgrounds but not actual direct encounters, to Dez Skinn's Big Ben character, and that a Big Ben counterpart was in Marvelman's universe, and Marvelman had met various heroes from other realities during Eclipse Comics' Total Eclipse crossover event. However, now I've got a much more direct link.

In Pow!, published by Odhams Press (one of those that later joined to form IPC), strips were a mix of UK original material and licensed reprints of Marvel characters, specifically Spider-Man and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. One of the original strips was "Dare-a-Day Davy," a lad who would take on reader challenges to perform dangerous dares. During the run of his strip, Davy occasionally met other characters from within Pow!, as was perfectly normal, but then, on September 2nd, 1967, we got this encounter...
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6Sn_q64fqA...POW_33_104.jpg




Zach Kinkead
Aug 10, 2012, 12:45 am

A couple more TV ones…

Futurama appears to take place in the same world as the PJs. The Simpsons appears to be fictional in the Futurama show … but they’ve crossed over in the comics. I’m not going to even try to go into 20+ seasons of the Simpsons just to look for Omniverse links.

(Besides, Matt Groening tends more toward thinly veiled parody than actually naming, say, James Bond or Alley McBeal.)

All of Seth McFarline’s Fox cartoons (Family Guy, American Dad, and the Cleveland Show) take place in the same word (I wouldn’t be surprised if Ted took place there too). The throwaway references in Family Guy alone link those series to countless other TV shows, movies, comics, ect. 

My Name is Earl and Raising Hope have a weird relationship. The shows were created by the same person so many writers and actors carried over from the first to the second. They’ve even used the same characters on occasion. But My Name is Earl is repeatedly mentioned in Raising Hope as a fictional TV show (starring “that guy from Mallrats” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Lee_(actor) )) so the reality TV show handwave doesn’t work.




Michael Regan
Aug 10, 2012, 09:55 am

Picket Fences and X-Files were meant to have a cross-over but the were arrangements finalized. Planning progressed far enough to have an episode on each show focused on the same subject matter as it was planned to be a part one / part two scenerio. The clincher is that Picket Fences makes reference to the events of the X-Files episode as having happened.

On a more solid note, Picket Fences did cross-over with Chicago Hope on at least two occassions.

Does anyone remember a show called Strange Luck? It starred D.B. Sweeney and was actually quite good, cancelled at the end of one short season. Without detailing the entire plot of the seires, in the final episode, D.B. Sweeney character finds his brother whom he had thought had been killed and tells him that if anything were to happen to them to contact Fox Mulder at the FBI.




Eduardo M.
Aug 10, 2012, 01:03 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

My Name is Earl and Raising Hope have a weird relationship. The shows were created by the same person so many writers and actors carried over from the first to the second. They’ve even used the same characters on occasion. But My Name is Earl is repeatedly mentioned in Raising Hope as a fictional TV show (starring “that guy from Mallrats” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Lee_(actor) )) so the reality TV show handwave doesn’t work.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Raising Hope had a mention that Earl had finished his list.




Michael Regan
Aug 21, 2012, 01:44 pm

Abram's fictional Slusho has appeared in many of his works starting with Alias and including Cloverfield, Fringe and a mention in Star Trek.

An Oceanic Airlines billboard can be seen in FlashForward, which it the ill-fated airline which crashed in Lost.

Fictional brands do not indicate a shared universe specifically, but 'may' indicate a link between realities unlike real world brands.




Zach Kinkead
Aug 21, 2012, 06:16 pm

On fictional brands:

Didn’t early issues of Generation X name-drop the same cereal that Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) ate? I think it was “Frosted Sugar Bombs” or something like that.

(Calvin being a Franklin Richards-type reality manipulator would explain a lot)

Syndicated comic strips are another one we haven’t really explored. There’s the occasional crossover (mostly as an April fools gimmick or something). Then you have strips like Pearls Before Swine that us guest stars frequently (the cast of Family Circus are basically regulars at this point). Then there’s the weird relationship between the Spider-Man strip and the comics (they were loosely linked for a while but now they treat everything in the past decade or so as a very bad dream).

Eduardo M. wrote:

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Raising Hope had a mention that Earl had finished his list.

Obviously Raising Hope takes place in a utopian world where MNiE got a proper ending.

Seriously, I don’t recall that being mentioned but – if true – that just complicates things even more. Of course, I don’t think they’ve ever actually mentioned MNiE by name (though the actors, characters, and premise frequently come up) so I suppose it’s possible that Jason Lee plays a fictional version of the “real” Earl while others (the prostitute) play fictional versions of themselves. Maybe the show caused Crab Man to get his cover blown and witness protection set him up with a new identity living near the Chances (you’d think Bert’d notice). Maybe the neighbor that looks like Randy but clearly isn’t Randy is a “How I Met Your Mother” type of doppelganger (you’d think Bert’d notice). 

Yeah, there’s a crazy amount of hand waving involved in reconciling those two shows.




Michael Regan
Aug 22, 2012, 08:35 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

On fictional brands:

Didn’t early issues of Generation X name-drop the same cereal that Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) ate? I think it was “Frosted Sugar Bombs” or something like that.

(Calvin being a Franklin Richards-type reality manipulator would explain a lot)

I had not thought of that, a very good point. I think that Calvin and Hobbs (as you mention in part) blurs the edges of reality and allows for an expanded sense of continuity regardless of what sillyness they display. Many of the similar mold strips follow the same concept and the same can be stated for Merrie Melodies / Looney Tunes cartoons and the likely inclusion of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (discussed previously in this thread) into general continuity... arguably of course.




Clay Olsen
Aug 22, 2012, 12:15 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Abram's fictional Slusho has appeared in many of his works starting with Alias and including Cloverfield, Fringe and a mention in Star Trek.

An Oceanic Airlines billboard can be seen in FlashForward, which it the ill-fated airline which crashed in Lost.

Fictional brands do not indicate a shared universe specifically, but 'may' indicate a link between realities unlike real world brands.

Oceanic has appeared in the background of most of Abrams works... at least the ones i've scene... it even predated LOST when it appeared in the background of ALIAS.

I'm not sure, but it may even have prior appearances before Abrams, and be one of those standard fictional companies that appear in the background of many movies and TV series. I seem to remember something being said about that in one of the episode commentaries of LOST on the DVDs.




Zach Kinkead
Aug 22, 2012, 02:35 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

blurs the edges of reality and allows for an expanded sense of continuity regardless of what sillyness they display… the same can be stated for Merrie Melodies / Looney Tunes cartoons and the likely inclusion of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (discussed previously in this thread) into general continuity... arguably of course.

The Looney Tunes universe is what it is because of malevolent animators; just ask Daffy Duck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Amuck

I’d forgotten about Roger Rabbit. That movie connects classic Disney cartoon characters with classic Warner Bros cartoon characters without having to resort to using their comic companies in a “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” kind of way.




zuckyd1
Aug 23, 2012, 09:12 pm

Regarding fictional brands:
Slusho also appeared on Heroes.
Some highlights from the sordid history of Oceanic Airlines:http://www.worldmate.com/travelog/20...airlines-ever/ There is a company called Independent Studio Services which is a major supplier of props for Hollywood productions. They have created several fictional brands which pop up repeatedly in film and television (Heisler Beer, Playpen Magazine). They even have their own line of comic books: http://issprops.com/graphics/product...ry/comic_books

Regarding comic strip crossovers:
During Blondie’s 75th anniversary celebration, numerous comic strip characters made guest appearances. (Pearls Before Swine made fun of the fact that they were not invited.) 
Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter was a 1972 animated TV special that featured characters from most of the King Features Syndicate comic strips.
And then there’s John Byrne’s contribution: http://www.comicscube.com/2010/08/easter-eggs-in-comics-john-byrnes.html




Zach Kinkead
Aug 24, 2012, 12:42 am

I wish there was a comic strip equivalent to this webcomics crossover index …

http://www.dragoneers.com/crossovers/

Incidentally, that site is REALLY comprehensive. They even have hilarious abandoned sprite comics with very low standards on guest writers (http://www.dragoneers.com/crossovers/Xsprites.html)




Zach Kinkead
Aug 27, 2012, 06:53 pm

If you’re a fan of alternate realities or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles then you owe it to yourself to check out the Turtles Forever movie. It’s for TMNT what I wish Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions had been for Spidey (at least I’ve been hearing good things about Spider-Men and the old 616/2099 crossover was great). Every incarnation of the TMNT at least gets a cameo though the focus is on the classic cartoon and most recent (I think) cartoon versions.

As for the larger Omniverse … well at the very least there’s the current comic’s loose ties to the other IDW properties (including D&D) via the second Infestation crossover and the original comic’s connection with Usagi Yojimbo (who was also in the first cartoon) and Cerebus.

Kind of a shame there were no crossovers – that I recall anyway – during my favorite TMNT incarnation; the Archie Comics run. Mutanimals don’t count.




zuckyd1
Aug 27, 2012, 10:03 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Kind of a shame there were no crossovers – that I recall anyway – during my favorite TMNT incarnation; the Archie Comics run. Mutanimals don’t count.

The Turtles actually did meet Archie and the gang: http://crossover.bureau42.com/zArchieTurtles.html

Other TMNT crossovers have included: Flaming Carrot, Savage Dragon, Panda Khan, Miami Mice, Power Rangers in Space, the Big Bang universe, CreeD, Last of the Viking Heroes, Sonic the Hedgehog, Garfield, Munden’s Bar (Grimjack), Gizmo (not the gremlin), Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa, Rabbids, Nestor (Howard and Nestor), World of Warcraft, Sherlock Holmes.

They appeared in Quest For Dreams Lost along with characters from The Trollords, Silent Invasion, The Realm, Wordsmith, Reacto Man, Eb'nn, and Tales From The Aniverse. (This one-shot comic also included references to Dorian Gray, the Maltese Falcon, H. G. Wells’ Time Machine, the Shadow, and L. Frank Baum’s Oz.)

They appeared in Equine the Uncivilized #6 along with Panda Khan, Captain Jack, Crow of the Bear Clan, Usagi Yojimbo, and Duncan & Mallory.

They appeared in Gen¹³ #13B along with Fone Bone, Madman, Mr. Spook and Professor Garbanzo (Beanworld), Savage Dragon, and Spawn.

They appeared in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue along with characters from ALF, Alvin and the Chipmunks, DuckTales, Winnie the Pooh, Muppet Babies, Garfield, The Real Ghostbusters, Smurfs, and Looney Tunes.

They appear in Nickelodeon’s Super Mini Puzzle Heroes game along with characters from Fairly OddParents, Kung Fu Panda, Invader Zim, Winx Club, SpongeBob SquarePants, Jimmy Neutron, T.U.F.F. Puppy, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, Danny Phantom, Power Rangers, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Monkey Quest, Fanboy and Chum Chum, and The Penguins of Madagascar.

Additional info:
https://turtlepedia.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Crossover_characters
http://www.televisioncrossoveruniverse.com/2011/11/pass-pizza-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles.html




Zach Kinkead
Aug 28, 2012, 02:02 am

I don’t remember the train of thought that made this come to mind so I feel like I’m missing something pivotal but the other day I was thinking about Hannah Barbera.

Specifically, Scooby Doo. That dog has met everyone from Batman to Blue Falcon to the Globetrotters.

He was once represented by Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. Harvey’s other clients include the the Jetsons, Apache Chief, and Dr. Quest.

Several Jonny Quest characters have had good-sized roles on Venture Bros. That’s a bit strange because (a) usually Venture Bros just parodies classic comics and adventure cartoons rather than having the “real” version and (b) the Venture family is a deconstruction of the Quest family.

zuckyd1 wrote:

The Turtles actually did meet Archie and the gang: http://crossover.bureau42.com/zArchieTurtles.html

I had no idea that existed. Radical!

zuckyd1 wrote:

Other TMNT crossovers have included: …Garfield, …Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa

I’m assuming this is the cartoon versions but I’d completely forgotten about those crossovers and I watched all three of those as a kid.

zuckyd1 wrote:

Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock crosses over with EVERYONE… which is great for the purposes of this thread.

Also his brother was among the literary characters in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

zuckyd1 wrote:

Muppet Babies,

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if you told me they used TMNT clips in the actual Muppet Babies cartoon.




Sidney Osinga
Aug 28, 2012, 02:15 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

The Turtles actually did meet Archie and the gang: http://crossover.bureau42.com/zArchieTurtles.html

And of course, Archie had a crossover with the Punisher. And in THAT crossover, it also mentioned that the X-Men and the Howling Commadoes existed in the same world.




zuckyd1
Aug 28, 2012, 11:21 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

I’m assuming this is the cartoon versions but I’d completely forgotten about those crossovers and I watched all three of those as a kid.

The crossovers did not take place within the original cartoon series.
Garfield made an appearance in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Magazine: http://tmnt.wikia.com/wiki/Garfield
The C.O.W.-Boys showed up in two issues of Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and one episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fast Forward: https://turtlepedia.wikia.com/wiki/Wild_West_C.O.W.-Boys_of_Moo_Mesa#Other_appearances




Zach Kinkead
Aug 29, 2012, 03:04 am

So here are a few links between two different thieves from French literature, an English detective, and modern comics and animation (eastern and western).

Maurice Leblanc’s gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin, has meet Sherlock Holmes…which annoyed Sir Conan Doyle so much that later editions of the story changed his name.

Arsène Lupin is the grandfather of the main character in the Lupin the 3rd anime. 

Also IIRC there was an episode of Lupin the 3rd that featured a cameo one of Holmes’ decedents…or maybe it was Lupin is disguise. Half the one-shot characters turn out to be Lupin in disguise. Either way, the fact that Zenigata thought the character might be a real Holmes means that the original early 1900s crossover continuity is still intact.

Arsène Lupin’s ghost shows up as a one-shot villain in an episode of the Soul Eater anime.

I don’t know much about Fantomos (mostly because he isn’t nearly as fun as Lupin). I do know that …

Both Fantomos and Lupin had cameos in the second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen* mini.

In the Venture Bros universe Fantomos is a founder of the Guild of Calamitous Intent and the grandfather of Phantom Limb.

*Moore’s LoEG is great for this type of thing. Plus one of the main characters has a history with Dracula and Dracula is a crossover magnet.

Sidney Osinga wrote:

And of course, Archie had a crossover with the Punisher. And in THAT crossover, it also mentioned that the X-Men and the Howling Commadoes existed in the same world.

Yeah, that Punisher crossover idea is even more out there than the one with KISS. I used to think Archie had weird crossovers all the time. That site only lists the three we’ve mentioned here. Apparently I’m just living in the golden age of inappropriate Archie crossovers. That a shame because the world needs more oddball Archie crossovers. 

Who will Archie take to the dance? Betty? Veronica? Wonder Woman?

zuckyd1 wrote:

The crossovers did not take place within the original cartoon series.
Garfield made an appearance in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Magazine: http://tmnt.wikia.com/wiki/Garfield

Garfield must not know they eat earthworm, jellybean, and onion pizza. Not even he’d eat that. He’s a cat; those onions could kill him. 

zuckyd1 wrote:

The C.O.W.-Boys showed up in two issues of Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and one episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fast Forward: http://turtlepedia.wikia.com/wiki/Wild_West_C.O.W.-Boys_of_Moo_Mesa#Other_appearances

I actually thought Moo Mesa only existed as a cartoon. I’ll have to check out Tales at some point. Didn’t that series open with a Peter David arc?

I missed out on Fast Forward. I saw the original cartoon as a kid and saw sporadic episodes of the Fox series (which are the two universes most represented in Turtles Forever).

Then there was Next Mutation. That series was so terrible that it’s entertaining. Apparently that that show had a crossover with one of the Power Rangers shows.




zuckyd1
Aug 29, 2012, 10:57 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Maurice Leblanc’s gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin, has meet Sherlock Holmes…which annoyed Sir Conan Doyle so much that later editions of the story changed his name.

The name was changed, variously, to "Herlock Sholmes" or "Holmlock Shears”.
Lupin and Holmes show up in one of Boris Akunin’s Erast Fandorin stories. They also face off in a recent video game.
Lupin (or an analogue) has also met Fantômas, Rouletabille, Belphégor, the Phantom of the Opera, Les Vampires, the Shadow, Sexton Blake, Modesty Blaise, Number Six, Harry Lime, Kogoro Akechi, and Scrooge McDuck.
One of the characters from the manga/anime Aria the Scarlet Ammo is a descendent of Lupin.

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Both Fantomos and Lupin had cameos in the second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen* mini.

Fantômas has also met Sherlock Holmes, Raffles, Maigret, Les Vampires, Diabolik, the Green Hornet, and Iris Wildthyme.
He appears in Kim Newman’s The Bloody Red Baron along with Dracula, Count Orlok, Dr. Caligari, Dr. Mabuse, Dr. Moreau, Robur, Judex, the Shadow, Bulldog Drummond, Mycroft Holmes, Monk Mayfair, Simon Templar, Herbert West, Lord Peter Wimsey, Jay Gatsby, Biggles, the Heap, and many others
The grandson of Lupin encountered the grandson of Fantômas in the Lupin III episode “The Mad Fantoma Mark III”.

Zach Kinkead wrote:

*Moore’s LoEG is great for this type of thing. Plus one of the main characters has a history with Dracula and Dracula is a crossover magnet.

Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula series (of which The Bloody Red Baron is one volume) is likewise a great crossover trove.




Zach Kinkead
Aug 29, 2012, 02:26 pm

Another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen one I forgot. The title of M has been held by the following characters in LoEG…

Prof James Moriarty and Mycroft Holmes (from Sherlock Holmes)
Harry Lime (from the Third Man)

They employ a guy named “Bond”. The modern M is James Bond’s boss. Its generally assumed the first Bond is the grandfather of the second but I’m not sure it has been verified.

zuckyd1 wrote:

The name was changed, variously, to "Herlock Sholmes" or "Holmlock Shears”.

Yeah, the “Herlock Sholmes” change is kind of hilarious.

zuckyd1 wrote:

Lupin (or an analogue) has also met Fantômas, Rouletabille, Belphégor, the Phantom of the Opera, Les Vampires, the Shadow, Sexton Blake, Modesty Blaise, Number Six, Harry Lime, Kogoro Akechi, and Scrooge McDuck.

I wasn’t counting analogues partly because I don’t think characters like the X-Men’s Fantomex should be counted just because their creation was inspired by Fantômas and partly because any fictional gentleman thief could be counted as a Lupin knockoff. 

Still, there are a couple Phantoms (not the purple-clad African adventure hero from the comic strips) of note that were inspired by Fantômas. The Phantoms from the movie versions of the Pink Panther and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are Fantomex in everything but name. Granted the guy from LXG turned out to be Moriarty.

zuckyd1 wrote:

Jay Gatsby,

There are Great Gatsby crossovers?

zuckyd1 wrote:

The grandson of Lupin encountered the grandson of Fantômas in the Lupin III episode “The Mad Fantoma Mark III”.

Forgot about that. That was a good one.

Last edited by zuckyd1 (2/12/2020 3:04 pm)

Historical text from Comixfan.



zuckyd1
Aug 29, 2012, 03:59 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

I wasn’t counting analogues partly because I don’t think characters like the X-Men’s Fantomex should be counted just because their creation was inspired by Fantômas and partly because any fictional gentleman thief could be counted as a Lupin knockoff.

I try to distinguish between those analogues who are “in all but name” and those who are merely inspired by the original character. But it’s often tricky, especially when one must rely on second-hand sources. 
However, as far as I can tell, the real Lupin legitamately met (or at least appeared in the same story as) Fantômas, Rouletabille, Belphégor, the Phantom of the Opera, Les Vampires, Modesty Blaise, Number Six, Harry Lime, and Kogoro Akechi (The Tales of the Shadowmen books).
Scrooge McDuck’s Arpine Lusène? Maybe not so much. LOL

Zach Kinkead wrote:

There are Great Gatsby crossovers?

Yup. It seems that these days no one’s immune. Writers like Moore and Newman tend to pull in esoteric references from the most unexpected of sources. A few more Gatsby connections:
In LXG: Black Dossier, Orlando is a guest at Gatsby’s wild parties.
The Case of the Philosopher's Ring by Randall Collins is a Sherlock Holmes mystery with references to Gatsby, Inspector "Clouzot”, and "Phineas" Fogg. 
Another novel, Nick & Jake by Tad Richards and Jonathan F. Richards, stars Gatsby's Nick Carraway and references The Sun Also Rises, The Quiet American, The Razor’s Edge, The Shadow, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and A Mighty Wind.

Although not a crossover per se, Gatsby has inevitably fallen victim to the current literature/horror mashup craze: https://www.amazon.com/Late-Gatsby-F-Scott-Fitzgerald-ebook/dp/B008U17O7S
And of course, there’s Gatsby: The Video Game: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2011/02/great_gatsby_nintendo_game_rel.html




Zach Kinkead
Aug 30, 2012, 02:57 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

I try to distinguish between those analogues who are “in all but name” and those who are merely inspired by the original character. But it’s often tricky, especially when one must rely on second-hand sources.

Yeah, its tricky. Plus, if the character isn’t named then I’m never actually sure if the similarities are intentional. Granted sometimes the authorial intent is pretty obvious based on their work.

Samurai Jack has met the “Lone Wolf and Cub” and the Frank Miller version of the 300 but neither was named (probably for legal reasons).

If you see something or someone in Terry Pratchett book that seems familiar then chances are good that it was meant to be even if it isn’t the “real” version. He’s very much a “story about stories” guy. 

Speaking of stories about stories; have any of you guys read the Unwritten? The comic exists in a world where many literary characters are real. Likewise with Fables and, well, fables and other folklore. Frankenstein’s monster is a character in both comics. 

Frankenstein’s monster is another crossover magnet. He’s even meet Abbott and Costello.

zuckyd1 wrote:

However, as far as I can tell, the real Lupin legitamately met …Harry Lime,

I really hope that the entirety of that story was Lupin kicking Lime in the ribs.

zuckyd1 wrote:

Scrooge McDuck’s Arpine Lusène? Maybe not so much. LOL

Yeah, Disney loves those. I read on the wiki page that a Fantômas analogue showed up in a Donald Duck story. Mickey, Goofy, and Donald are the Three Musketeers in the new Kingdom Hearts* game I mentioned. I remember an episode of Rescue Rangers that had a parody of Cyrano de Bergerac**.

And everyone has done something with the Phantom of the Opera even if it isn’t the “real” Phantom*** and it may not necessarily be a Opera.

*Does the existence of Organization XII indicate the Kingdom Hearts is part of the Final Fantasy XII universe? Seriously, I know very little about the Final Fantasy multiverse beyond the fact that most of the numbered games are reboots.

**The fictional version, of course.

***Also not the guy with the skull ring. ;-)

zuckyd1 wrote:

Yup. It seems that these days no one’s immune. Writers like Moore and Newman tend to pull in esoteric references from the most unexpected of sources. A few more Gatsby connections:
In LXG: Black Dossier, Orlando is a guest at Gatsby’s wild parties.

I forgot about that one. Then again, the third LoEG story was kind of a chore to get through.




Michael Regan
Sep 4, 2012, 12:30 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Abram's fictional Slusho has appeared in many of his works starting with Alias and including Cloverfield, Fringe and a mention in Star Trek.

An Oceanic Airlines billboard can be seen in FlashForward, which it the ill-fated airline which crashed in Lost.

Fictional brands do not indicate a shared universe specifically, but 'may' indicate a link between realities unlike real world brands.

MacCutcheon Scotch Whiskey from Lost is briefly seen in a third season episode of Fringe and also an episode of Once Upon a Time, interestingly titled "Sheppard". Fringe and Lost are by Abrams, but Once Upon a Time is not.




zuckyd1
Sep 4, 2012, 02:48 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

MacCutcheon Scotch Whiskey from Lost is briefly seen in a third season episode of Fringe and also an episode of Once Upon a Time, interestingly titled "Sheppard". Fringe and Lost are by Abrams, but Once Upon a Time is not.

Once Upon a Time was created by two former writers of Lost, and a number of easter eggs appear such as Apollo candy bars and Geronimo Jackson: https://seriable.com/once-upon-a-time-1-01-pilot-lost-easter-eggs/
Also making appearances in Rumplestiltskin's castle are the scythe from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the magician's hat from Fantasia.




Eduardo M.
Sep 4, 2012, 05:03 pm

i don't know if this has been mentioned yet but a Japanese cartoon that Charlie Sheen's "Two and a Half Men" character worked on was mentioned in a scene in an episode of Big Bang Theory




zuckyd1
Sep 4, 2012, 10:48 pm

Eduardo M. wrote:

i don't know if this has been mentioned yet but a Japanese cartoon that Charlie Sheen's "Two and a Half Men" character worked on was mentioned in a scene in an episode of Big Bang Theory

Both shows share the same producer.
Two and a Half Men has also crossed over with CSI.




Michael Regan
Sep 5, 2012, 08:34 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

Once Upon a Time was created by two former writers of Lost, and a number of easter eggs appear such as Apollo candy bars and Geronimo Jackson: https://seriable.com/once-upon-a-time-1-01-pilot-lost-easter-eggs/
Also making appearances in Rumplestiltskin's castle are the scythe from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the magician's hat from Fantasia.

Ah, that explains the wiskey and I thought I saw an Apollo bar but forgot about it. Buffy is also Abrams' and Fantasia goes withough saying since the fairy tale connections slant towards the Disney versions rather than classic. ABC is part of Disney.




zuckyd1
Sep 5, 2012, 09:31 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Ah, that explains the wiskey and I thought I saw an Apollo bar but forgot about it. Buffy is also Abrams' and Fantasia goes withough saying since the fairy tale connections slant towards the Disney versions rather than classic. ABC is part of Disney.

Buffy was actually by Whedon. I sometimes get the two confused myself. 




Michael Regan
Sep 6, 2012, 09:15 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

Buffy was actually by Whedon. I sometimes get the two confused myself.

Crap, yes... I do as well it appears 




Zach Kinkead
Sep 9, 2012, 03:40 pm

Remember what I said about the Simpsons and Futurama being a weird case where one person’s closely related properties DON’T coexist? The Simpsons are fictional in Futurama and vice versa.

That’s all still true. However they still have had a sort of crossover in comic form.

I sort of have a hard time seeing it as a “real” crossover. It takes place firmly in the Futurama universe. The Brains invade again and transport the Planet Express staff into a fictional world. This time the Brains sent them into a Simpsons comic* instead of sending them to deal with Moby Dick and Jane Austen novels. After the crew got home they discovered that the borders between reality and fiction had broken down. Soon New New York was full of characters from Springfield and various other worlds. 

*A Simpsons comic that had such fictional British characters as Harry Potter, Doctor Who, the Avengers (the other ones), and the guy from the Ministry of Silly Walks.

There are really too many mini-crossovers in the second half of that story to mention. Bender shared a panel with Inspector Javert from Les Misérables. Dracula became mayor as a throwaway gag. And then there’s a hilarious page where we see Bart and Fry confronted by the shadowy “Copyright Protected” images of various Marvel and DC heroes.




Michael Regan
Sep 10, 2012, 06:33 pm

As I catch up on cartoons I have missed, I've taken some time to watch episodes of Lunatics Unleashed featuring decendands of the original Looney Tunes set in the year 2772. Ignoring the credit sequence of Duck Dodgers which is set in the 24½ century, is it possible that Dodgers is a decendant of Daffy and ancester to Danger Duck? As such, they could all be connected to Green Lantern given his appearance in the Duck Dodgers series (mentioned previously in the thread)




captainswift
Sep 10, 2012, 07:36 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

As I catch up on cartoons I have missed, I've taken some time to watch episodes of Lunatics Unleashed featuring decendands of the original Looney Tunes set in the year 2772. Ignoring the credit sequence of Duck Dodgers which is set in the 24½ century, is it possible that Dodgers is a decendant of Daffy and ancester to Danger Duck? As such, they could all be connected to Green Lantern given his appearance in the Duck Dodgers series (mentioned previously in the thread)

Canonically, in the Looney Tunes universe, the characters are actors who play (usually) themselves in various animated shorts. Which cartoons, if any, feature their everyday lives vs. "performances" are arguable, but undoubtedly, in canon, Duck Dodgers is a character Daffy plays.

Of course, since we're using the Marvel Comics model for the Omniverse, there is also a Duck Dodgers universe where the events Daffy portrays in his role as Dodgers actually occur. So, I suppose it's possible that in Earth-Dodgers' past, there lived a Daffy Duck who is the ancestor of Daffy... And then we've got Robin Hood Daffy, Drip-Along Daffy, Duck Twacey, Stupor Duck, the Scarlet P-p-pumpernickel...

The Looney Tunes multiverse could get complicated fast.




Michael Regan
Sep 17, 2012, 05:22 pm

I tend to use a logical view of the Omniverse in that any fictional reality is potentially a real reality somewhere.

I'm not sure if this was asked before (I cannot see any mention of if) but if we look at comic book adaptations we could be not only looking at the reality of the original work (barring any great differences presented in the adaptation), but could we actually be seeing an entry in the comic book's multiverse?

For example, everyone should be familiar with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) which was adapted into comic form the same year by Marvel twice. The first publication was in the magazine Marvel Super Special #33 and later that year as a two part Backaroo Banzai mini-series. 

There are no great differences between the adaptation or the original movie so they should both be considered part of the same reality, but could the comics be part of the Marvel Multiverse... or perhaps more easily acceptable as part of the Marvel Megaverse?



zuckyd1
Sep 19, 2012, 06:09 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

I tend to use a logical view of the Omniverse in that any fictional reality is potentially a real reality somewhere.

I'm not sure if this was asked before (I cannot see any mention of if) but if we look at comic book adaptations we could be not only looking at the reality of the original work (barring any great differences presented in the adaptation), but could we actually be seeing an entry in the comic book's multiverse?

For example, everyone should be familiar with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) which was adapted into comic form the same year by Marvel twice. The first publication was in the magazine Marvel Super Special #33 and later that year as a two part Backaroo Banzai mini-series. 

There are no great differences between the adaptation or the original movie so they should both be considered part of the same reality, but could the comics be part of the Marvel Multiverse... or perhaps more easily acceptable as part of the Marvel Megaverse?

I'm not sure I follow you. Absent any crossovers, what would qualify BB as being part of the Marvel Megaverse? Simply the fact that it was published by Marvel?




Michael Regan
Sep 19, 2012, 06:57 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

I'm not sure I follow you. Absent any crossovers, what would qualify BB as being part of the Marvel Megaverse? Simply the fact that it was published by Marvel?

Yes.




zuckyd1
Sep 19, 2012, 08:48 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Yes.

So then does it follow that the various stories of a particular author also automatically constitute their own megaverse, even if there is nothing else to connect the stories? Is there a “Charles Dickens megaverse”, a “Michael Crichton megaverse”, a <shudder> “Danielle Steel megaverse”?
What about non-comic publishers? Is there a “Random House megaverse”? A “Paramount Pictures megaverse”?
Can a single universe/multiverse belong to more than one megaverse? Wouldn’t Buckaroo Banzai also be part of the “Moonstone megaverse”, along with Airboy, Bulldog Drummond, Dracula, Frankenstein, Hack/Slash, Kolchak, the Phantom, Sherlock Holmes, the Spider, etc?
And what about Classics Illustrated???




Michael Regan
Sep 20, 2012, 02:18 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

So then does it follow that the various stories of a particular author also automatically constitute their own megaverse, even if there is nothing else to connect the stories? Is there a “Charles Dickens megaverse”, a “Michael Crichton megaverse”, a <shudder> “Danielle Steel megaverse”?
What about non-comic publishers? Is there a “Random House megaverse”? A “Paramount Pictures megaverse”?
Can a single universe/multiverse belong to more than one megaverse? Wouldn’t Buckaroo Banzai also be part of the “Moonstone megaverse”, along with Airboy, Bulldog Drummond, Dracula, Frankenstein, Hack/Slash, Kolchak, the Phantom, Sherlock Holmes, the Spider, etc?
And what about Classics Illustrated???

Personally, I would say that all of that is very possible depending on your point of view. I would not include non-comic publishers but comic publishers certainly would have a Mega-Verse since so many titles potentially cross over into standard titles (at which point they would move from a Megaversal classification to a Multiversal classification).

Your mention of Moonstone was actually where I was going with this train of thought, essentially connecting Marvel with Moonstone with not just a dotted line, but a very faint dotted line 

This all depends on ones view of the use of the concept of a Megaverse.




Eduardo M.
Sep 20, 2012, 08:36 pm

Would it be rcazy to assume fighting games have their own megaverses based on the concept of multiple endings?




zuckyd1
Sep 20, 2012, 09:43 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Personally, I would say that all of that is very possible depending on your point of view. I would not include non-comic publishers but comic publishers certainly would have a Mega-Verse since so many titles potentially cross over into standard titles (at which point they would move from a Megaversal classification to a Multiversal classification).

Your mention of Moonstone was actually where I was going with this train of thought, essentially connecting Marvel with Moonstone with not just a dotted line, but a very faint dotted line 

This all depends on ones view of the use of the concept of a Megaverse.

This publisher-based megaverse theory would also provide an (admitedly-weak) solution to Stuart’s Ninja High School problem. NHS is published by Antarctic Press. They also have published Airboy, DNAgents, Strangers in Paradise, and Warrior Nun Areala—all of who can solidly be linked via crossovers to the main portion of the Omniverse Map.
For me it’s not a terribly satisfying way to draw connections (especially when considering publishers as opposed to individual writers), but it’s better than nothing (and IMO better than “stooping” to fan-fiction).




zuckyd1
Sep 20, 2012, 09:57 pm

Eduardo M. wrote:

Would it be rcazy to assume fighting games have their own megaverses based on the concept of multiple endings?

The term "multiverse" would probably be more appropriate, given that the multiple endings all occur in universes that share common basic features. The endings would constitute divergent realities within that multiverse. (What if Spider-Man had joined the Fantastic Four? What if I had moved left instead of right?)




Eduardo M.
Sep 20, 2012, 11:28 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

The term "multiverse" would probably be more appropriate, given that the multiple endings all occur in universes that share common basic features. The endings would constitute divergent realities within that multiverse. (What if Spider-Man had joined the Fantastic Four? What if I had moved left instead of right?)

That's what I meant. sry about that. move related stress




Michael Regan
Sep 21, 2012, 09:09 am

Another odd example of links would short stories and books adapted into television series, something common with The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits.

A simple example is the pilot episode for the 1995 series of The Outer Limits based on "The Sandkings" by George R. R. Martin. Obviously part of The Outer Limits Universe/Multiverse it would have to be considered part of a "Sandkings" Multiverse or perhaps even a "George R. R. Martin" Megaverse.

An extended example would be the short story "Steel" by Richard Matheson which was adapted into a The Twilight Zone episode in 1963 and as the more recent theatrical release Real Steel. Unless we simply define a Steel Multiverse, we may need a Richard Matheson Multiverse.

It all comes down to interpretation and how complex everyone wants the links to be.

At some point we could even discuss Philip K. Dick.




Eduardo M.
Sep 21, 2012, 12:01 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

At some point we could even discuss Philip K. Dick.

That brings up a frightening thought. Imagine a multiverse based off different versions of different movies. You could have a world where Decker is not a replicant and one where he is. 

There could be world where Han shot first and Anakin's spirit did not appear to Luke as a young man




Michael Regan
Sep 21, 2012, 12:19 pm

Eduardo M. wrote:

That brings up a frightening thought. Imagine a multiverse based off different versions of different movies. You could have a world where Decker is not a replicant and one where he is. 

There could be world where Han shot first and Anakin's spirit did not appear to Luke as a young man

Ah, the complications of things! Some of those could be attributed to retcon but others cannot. The Star Wars changes I think would be an unfortunte retcon, but as the Blade Runner change is a Director's Cut... and still not completely definitive in the truest sense.

Going back to Philip K. Dick for a moment, if we ignore the various production companies involved, could all of the feature films (and television shows for that matter) fit within a single timeline or Universe? I think it could be possible...




zuckyd1
Sep 21, 2012, 12:50 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

An extended example would be the short story "Steel" by Richard Matheson which was adapted into a The Twilight Zone episode in 1963 and as the more recent theatrical release Real Steel. Unless we simply define a Steel Multiverse, we may need a Richard Matheson Multiverse.

I would propose the following definitions:
Steel multiverse: the similar yet non-identical versions of the story "Steel".
Richard Matheson megaverse: the collection of otherwise-unreleated stories of Richard Matheson.




Michael Regan
Sep 21, 2012, 02:58 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

I would propose the following definitions:
Steel multiverse: the similar yet non-identical versions of the story "Steel".
Richard Matheson megaverse: the collection of otherwise-unreleated stories of Richard Matheson.

That would be my take on it as well. The Twilight Zone episode is also part of the Twilight Zone Universe or Multiverse




zuckyd1
Sep 21, 2012, 05:22 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

For example, everyone should be familiar with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) which was adapted into comic form the same year by Marvel twice. The first publication was in the magazine Marvel Super Special #33 and later that year as a two part Backaroo Banzai mini-series. 

There are no great differences between the adaptation or the original movie so they should both be considered part of the same reality, but could the comics be part of the Marvel Multiverse... or perhaps more easily acceptable as part of the Marvel Megaverse?

If both the movie and the comics inhabit the same universe, wouldn't that mean that the movie is part of the Marvel Megaverse as well?




zuckyd1
Sep 21, 2012, 05:30 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Going back to Philip K. Dick for a moment, if we ignore the various production companies involved, could all of the feature films (and television shows for that matter) fit within a single timeline or Universe? I think it could be possible...

I've always been partial to the idea that all of an author's works inhabit the same reality unless there is evidence indicating that they can't.
For example, AFAIK there is nothing within Charles Dickens' novels to suggest that they inhabit the same reality. But there is also nothing to suggest that they don't. Therefore I like to think that they do.
(Of course my Dickens example ignores the many later authors who have indeed crossed over various Dickens characters.)




Michael Regan
Sep 21, 2012, 05:36 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

I've always been partial to the idea that all of an author's works inhabit the same reality unless there is evidence indicating that they can't.
For example, AFAIK there is nothing within Charles Dickens' novels to suggest that they inhabit the same reality. But there is also nothing to suggest that they don't. Therefore I like to think that they do.
(Of course my Dickens example ignores the many later authors who have indeed crossed over various Dickens characters.)

I was looking at the possible continuing themes which could have one film be somewhat connected to or branch into another.




Michael Regan
Sep 22, 2012, 09:34 pm

In the Fringe episode "The Firefly", Walter puts on an off pair of glasses with one red lense and one blue lense. He mentions that they were invented by a friend named Dr. Jacoby in Washington State.

Doctor Jacoby was a character in Twin Peaks who wore the same type of glasses. This suggests either a shared reality, or at least a parallel of the character within the Fringe reality.




zuckyd1
Sep 23, 2012, 08:48 pm

Two of Steve Niles' comics, Criminal Macabre and 30 Days of Night, will be crossing over in a 4-issue series jointly published by Dark Horse and IDW.




Michael Regan
Sep 24, 2012, 11:52 am

The television series Once Upon a Time is based on various stories attributed to the Brother Grimm and is therefore part of a Brothers Grimm Multiverse. It also includes elements from The Adventures of Pinocchio and therefore part of a Pinocchio Multiverse.

As many of the fairy tale characters are also given various traits which originated in the Disney adaptations of the classic Grimm stories, they could likely be part of the Disney Animated Multiverse.

As more "Disney" additions are added to the show the root connections grow. With the addition of Belle from Beauty and the Beast, there is also a connection to a La Belle et la Bête Multiverse.

Have I missed some? I have yet to see all of season one and would likely miss something anyway.




Zach Kinkead
Sep 24, 2012, 02:33 pm

The Brothers Grimm namedrop reminds me of something. This is less of a multiverse thing and more about the nature of certain universes.

The TV show “Grimm” seems to take place in a world where the general public has never heard of the Brother’s Grimm.

Robert Kirkman has confirmed that the various Walking Dead universes take place in worlds where no one had heard of zombies prior to the zombie apocalypse. (That sort of raises some interesting religion-related questions.)

Oh, and just to tie it back into the multiverse thing, IIRC it was strongly implied that Invincible visited the Walking Dead universe (along with the DCU, Marvel Universe, and others)




Michael Regan
Sep 24, 2012, 02:58 pm

That is a good point, once worth keeping in mind in many respects.

Similarly, it is easy to relate to many of the characters in shows when reality is similar to our own but we can never forget that the realities, obviously, are not our own. In such instances certain "mistakes" can likley be forgiven.

Not the best example, but one that comes to mind at the moment, is the Captain American film of 1990. Captain America is activated in WWII he displays an American Flag with 50 stars. In our reality the flag should only have 48 stars but perhaps Alaska and Hawaii had joined earlier in this reality.




zuckyd1
Sep 24, 2012, 03:23 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

That is a good point, once worth keeping in mind in many respects.

Similarly, it is easy to relate to many of the characters in shows when reality is similar to our own but we can never forget that the realities, obviously, are not our own. In such instances certain "mistakes" can likley be forgiven.

Not the best example, but one that comes to mind at the moment, is the Captain American film of 1990. Captain America is activated in WWII he displays an American Flag with 50 stars. In our reality the flag should only have 48 stars but perhaps Alaska and Hawaii had joined earlier in this reality.

That's a really cool way of looking at things. I remember one of the very first movie "goofs" that was ever pointed out to me was from Raiders of the Lost Ark. A map shows Indy's plane flying over Thailand on the way to Nepal. In 1936, when the movie takes place, Thailand was still called Siam. But who's to say...




Zach Kinkead
Sep 24, 2012, 04:04 pm

Now that I think about it; that happens a lot. If anyone in most horror movies had actually SEEN a horror movie (or even an episode of Scooby Doo) they’d know better than to split up.

When the Watchmen movie came out there were some critics who clearly knew nothing about the comic and apparently expected it to another Spider-Man or something. They complained about EVERYTHING from explicit content (did they not see the rating?) to left-wing bias (because everything has to have an agenda) to “historical inaccuracies”.

Yes, apparently some people can’t wrap their head around the fact that a story with a bunch of superheroes is set in a universe other than our own.




zuckyd1
Oct 5, 2012, 04:32 pm

A few additional crossovers that I don't think have been mentioned so far:
Ghost/Batgirl
Witchblade/Darkchylde
Lady Death/Medieval Witchblade
Warrior Nun Areala and Glory: also includes analogues of Spawn, Hellboy, Lady Death, Purgatori, and Dr. Doom
Dethklok versus the Goon
Martha Washington Stranded in Space: Big Guy

and some easter egg cameos:
Nexus #50: Magnus and A-1, Mr. Spock and Capt. Kirk, Jace, Jan and Blip from Space Ghost (as well as Nexus creators Steve Rude and Mike Baron)
WildC.A.T.s #8: Scott Summers & Jean Grey, Clark Kent & Lois Lane, and older versions of Beavis & Butthead




Michael Regan
Oct 5, 2012, 05:34 pm

Some of those bring up an interesting question, hinted at on marvunapp but not explored for obvious reasons. How many of those could possibly occur on Madison Carter's Earth-Crossover (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/earthcrossoverall.htm) (Earth-7642) ignoring the fact that most do not include Marvel characters?

Anyone want to take on the task?




zuckyd1
Oct 5, 2012, 05:51 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Some of those bring up an interesting question, hinted at on marvunapp but not explored for obvious reasons. How many of those could possibly occur on Madison Carter's Earth-Crossover (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/earthcrossoverall.htm) (Earth-7642) ignoring the fact that most do not include Marvel characters?

Anyone want to take on the task?

I would, but I might end up looking like your profile pic! 




Michael Regan
Oct 8, 2012, 07:35 pm

There are quite a few connections that never were as well; one specifically just came to mind.

The sequel to Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Atlantis: Milo's Return was originally meant to be the first few episodes of a television series to be called Team Atlantis. The team would investigate various items in the realms of "?mythology/fact". One episode was to feature the appearance of Demona from the cartoon series Gargoyles.

Even if it did air, questions of being valid canon would still come into question.




Michael Regan
Oct 10, 2012, 11:51 am

A quick reminder, mentioned by Stuart a while back, is that a new version of an old favourite is not necessarily a new reality.

If we consider Sherlock Holmes, we have been treated with the Robert Downy Jr movies, the brilliant Benedict Cumberbatch series, and the American version Elementary. These are most certainly alternate realities of the original works.

Conversely, of the multitude of Jane Austen and William Shakespear adaptations, many are adapted faithfully enough from the original works that they should be considered part of the same reality with the possibility of some minor changes which could be considered ret-con.




Andy E. Nystrom
Oct 21, 2012, 05:06 pm

Another interesting, headache producing area to look at in terms of the multiverse is the godzilla movies. Many use the first movie at a starting point but then go their own direction or only allow for the most recent few movies plus the original, suggesting something happened to cause history to diverge in multiple directions (this being the Godzilla Earth, one might speculate that radiation is involved). And of course Marvel-616 has its own Godzilla

Interestingly, the American Godzilla movie may exist in one of the Toho universes as a misidentified monster. In one movie, in reference to a sighting in New York the dialogue goes something like this:
"Was that really Godzilla?"
"They say it is, but our experts aren't so sure."




Angelicknight
Oct 21, 2012, 05:17 pm

In Godzilla: Final Wars from Toho the aliens pit the American Godzilla simply know as Zilla against the Japanese Godzilla who kills Zilla with one blast of his atomic breath to which the alien says "Good for nothing Tuna eating monster!"




Michael Regan
Oct 21, 2012, 06:14 pm

Interesting. In many cases continuity, canon, and same reality can often be subjects of debate with fans and creators alike.

Doctor Who is a big one where only the television series can easily be considered to be canon. Everything else is up to the fan.

Star Wars is a strange one where everything is canon, but may correspond to a particular level of canon. Lucas only considers the main six films to be canon but allow everything else to be slotted into defined levels of canon. This, after many years of insisting that the Star Wars Holiday Special did not even exist 

I find it funny when a creator later decides that a work, typically a bad sequel, either does not exist or is not canon.




Andy E. Nystrom
Oct 21, 2012, 06:32 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

I find it funny when a creator later decides that a work, typically a bad sequel, either does not exist or is not canon.

The animated Star Trek has been an issue there as well. Gene Roddenberry's company insists that it's not canon (I'm not sure about Roddenberry's own thoughts) despite the fact that many of the shows writers worked on it, most of the cast voiced their characters on it, and some of the episodes were sequels to the live shows. For that reason some fans of the cartoon (myself included) perceive it as canon even though official policy states otherwise.




Eduardo M.
Oct 21, 2012, 08:19 pm

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

The animated Star Trek has been an issue there as well. Gene Roddenberry's company insists that it's not canon (I'm not sure about Roddenberry's own thoughts) despite the fact that many of the shows writers worked on it, most of the cast voiced their characters on it, and some of the episodes were sequels to the live shows. For that reason some fans of the cartoon (myself included) perceive it as canon even though official policy states otherwise.

I could've sworn seeing something that stated the animated series is now in-canon.




Michael Regan
Oct 22, 2012, 02:11 am

The Star Trek animated series was removed from official canon by Gene himself. Paramount has unofficially changed its view of the series since as many canon (and non-canon) works have referenced many things first introduced in the animated series.




zuckyd1
Oct 25, 2012, 09:58 pm

Speaking of Star Trek: TAS, the episode "The Slaver Weapon" features the Kzin from Larry Niven's Known Space universe. (Niven was the writer of the episode.)




Michael Regan
Oct 26, 2012, 10:43 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

Speaking of Star Trek: TAS, the episode "The Slaver Weapon" features the Kzin from Larry Niven's Known Space universe. (Niven was the writer of the episode.)

I believe they are Kzinti (although I have not seen the episode in a while so I may be wrong), but I was not aware that they existed elsewhere which I really like. That places them, and the episode I guess within a Known Space/Larry Niven Multiverse reality and arguably the Star Trek Universe. Nice.




Sidney Osinga
Oct 26, 2012, 01:27 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

I believe they are Kzinti (although I have not seen the episode in a while so I may be wrong), but I was not aware that they existed elsewhere which I really like. That places them, and the episode I guess within a Known Space/Larry Niven Multiverse reality and arguably the Star Trek Universe. Nice.

They were also revealed to an offshoot of the Caitian race, the same species as Lt. M'Ress.




Michael Regan
Oct 26, 2012, 01:47 pm

Sidney Osinga wrote:

They were also revealed to an offshoot of the Caitian race, the same species as Lt. M'Ress.

More than simply an appearance, a solid connection to a regular member of the crew.

Time to dig out the DVDs...




zuckyd1
Oct 26, 2012, 03:25 pm

The Kzinti reappeared in the Star Trek comic strip "The Wristwatch Plantation" (co-written by Niven), which also includes references to Niven's Draco Tavern stories and to his and Jerry Pournelle's novel The Mote in God's Eye—which is set in Pournelle's CoDominium universe.




Stuart V
Oct 26, 2012, 04:48 pm

Chris Claremont and John Byrne are both Niven fans, and have worked Niven's aliens into titles they have produced.

One of the Imperial Guard is Kzin (iirc, it's Kzin singular, and Kzinti plural) - N'rill'irēē
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/nrillireeimperialguard.htm

Plus, we've seen Pierson's Puppeteers 
http://www.larryniven.net/puppeteer/nessus.shtml
http://www.larryniven.net/images/rin...teer_model.jpg
in the Marvel universe at least twice:
once on the Shi'ar homeworld 
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZI2JuKzBqd...600/popeye.jpg
(the arrow added to the picture is pointing out Popeye, who was included by inker Terry Austin, not penciller John Byrne) seen here in the middle of the picture;
and once in the interstellar Star Stop diner
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/starstop.htm
(4th picture down, bottom left of the picture - also note the Treen from Dan Dare).
And there are Puppeteers in the DC universe too, if the cover of Larry Niven and John Byrne's Ganthet's Tale is to be believed
http://images.marketplaceadvisor.cha...ganthettpb.jpg
Look at the top right corner's Green Lantern.




Zach Kinkead
Nov 13, 2012, 12:30 am

Here’s another TV one ..

Was watching an episode of Fresh Prince today. There was a cameo by two characters from Diff'rent Strokes.




Eduardo M.
Nov 13, 2012, 12:01 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Here’s another TV one ..

Was watching an episode of Fresh Prince today. There was a cameo by two characters from Diff'rent Strokes.

I think the Jeffersons also appeared




Zach Kinkead
Nov 18, 2012, 12:14 am

I’m currently reading Dodger (a rare non-Discworld Terry Pratchett novel). The cast includes both the fictional Sweeny Todd and various real-world Victorian figures like Charles Dickens, Robert Peel, Henry Mayhew, and Benjamin Disraeli.




Michael Regan
Nov 20, 2012, 01:03 pm

Fictional brands are always fun to look at, but perhaps none as in depth as the Morley cigarrette appearances. Featured as the brand of Cancer Man in the X-Files, Morley cigarrettes have made numerous appearances in unrelated works, although the appearance of a fictional item in them all suggests some kind of Omniversal connection although only slight.

Rather than list appearances of Morleys, wikipedia actually have a pretty good list: Morley's cigarrettes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morley_cigarettes).

I don't know the original source of the brand, but in many cases fictional brands are created and stocked for later reuse without paying for a product a second time.




zuckyd1
Nov 20, 2012, 04:05 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Fictional brands are always fun to look at, but perhaps none as in depth as the Morley cigarrette appearances. Featured as the brand of Cancer Man in the X-Files, Morley cigarrettes have made numerous appearances in unrelated works, although the appearance of a fictional item in them all suggests some kind of Omniversal connection although only slight.

Rather than list appearances of Morleys, wikipedia actually have a pretty good list: Morley's cigarrettes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morley_cigarettes).

I don't know the original source of the brand, but in many cases fictional brands are created and stocked for later reuse without paying for a product a second time.

I think I posted this here before, but there is a company called Independent Studio Services which is a major supplier of props for Hollywood productions. They have created several fictional brands which pop up repeatedly in film and television (Heisler Beer, Playpen Magazine). They even have their own line of comic books:  http://issprops.com/graphics/product...ry/comic_books

Here's someone's top 10 list of fictional brands: https://www.toptenz.net/top-ten-fictional-brands-from-movies-and-tv.php




Michael Regan
Nov 21, 2012, 08:18 am

That's the company, I could not remember the name. Thanks!




Michael Regan
Dec 11, 2012, 02:58 pm

In the season 6 premiere of The X-Files we briefly see a nuclear plant worker named Homer who is caught sleeping on the job before he is killed by an alien hybrid. An obvious homage to The Simpsons, which could be interpreted as an alternate reality (and live action) version of Homer Simpson.




zuckyd1
Dec 11, 2012, 07:38 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

In the season 6 premiere of The X-Files we briefly see a nuclear plant worker named Homer who is caught sleeping on the job before he is killed by an alien hybrid. An obvious homage to The Simpsons, which could be interpreted as an alternate reality (and live action) version of Homer Simpson.

Mulder and Scully of course had already appeared on an episode of the Simpsons.




Michael Regan
Dec 12, 2012, 08:34 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

Mulder and Scully of course had already appeared on an episode of the Simpsons.

Ah, very true. The Simpsons episode was in 1997, and season 6 of The X-Files was in 1998.




Michael Regan
Dec 24, 2012, 11:31 am

Here is another Multiverse observation:

"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" was origianlly published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1966.

This short story was the basis for the 1990 movie Total Recall, which was also recently remade in 2012. Both of these I would tag as being part of a "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" Megaverse, and the 2012 movie possibly part of a Total Recall Multiverse.

The tricky part of this comes into play when taking the 1996
television series Total Recall 2070 into account. The series merges elements from both Total Recall and Blade Runner into a single reality, making it potentially part of a Total Recall Megaverse and perhaps a Blade Runner Megaverse (avoiding Multiverse for the sake of simplicity... where possible).

Realities (Universes, Multiverses, Megaverses) overlaping :dizzy:




zuckyd1
Jan 3, 2013, 12:21 am

In the Simpsons episode “Moonshine River”, listed among Mary Spuckler’s New York City neighbors are Holly Golightly (Breakfast at Tiffany’s), Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver), Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City), and Ann Marie (That Girl).




Zach Kinkead
Jan 6, 2013, 10:37 pm

If the upcoming crossover between the last two shows is any indication, Frisky Dingo/The Xtacles (Cartoon Network), Arrested Development (Fox), Archer (FX) and Bob’s Burgers (also Fox) all take place in the same universe. 

This doesn’t actually make much sense to me though there’s a fair amount of crossover between the people who MAKE the shows.




zuckyd1
Jan 6, 2013, 11:11 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

If the upcoming crossover between the last two shows is any indication, Frisky Dingo/The Xtacles (Cartoon Network), Arrested Development (Fox), Archer (FX) and Bob’s Burgers (also Fox) all take place in the same universe. 

This doesn’t actually make much sense to me though there’s a fair amount of crossover between the people who MAKE the shows.

How does Arrested Development connect to the other three shows?




Zach Kinkead
Jan 7, 2013, 09:10 pm

The shows are all mostly linked by Archer. Granted Archer and Frisky could be completely different except that they both have similar Mr. Fords…which makes more sense because I’d think the spies in Archer would have referenced the aliens in Frisky…and none of the other shows ever mentioned that the Cold War never ended in Archer. 

(Now that I’ve seen the trailer for the new season I wonder if the Bob’s Burgers crossover will actually be a crossover. The Archer version of Bob looks like Sterling Archer with a bad fake mustache so it could just be a cover ID that happens to be similar to one of Jon Benjamin’s other characters.)

zuckyd1 wrote:

How does Arrested Development connect to the other three shows?

Creative: Many of the voice actors in Archer played similar roles in Arrested Development.

Character: I actually got that one wrong. As far as I know there is no in-universe connection between Arrested Development and the other shows. Jessica Walter plays Mallory Archer and Lucille Bluth. My Arrested Development knowledge is pretty spotty and I thought Trudy Beekman (the unseen neighbor that Mallory Archer hates) was the same person as the neighbor that Lucille Bluth hates (that’s actually “Lucille Austero”).




Michael Regan
Jan 9, 2013, 09:30 am

Of course, these suggest a shared universe but likely contain counterparts of the same character(s) at best.




Zach Kinkead
Jan 20, 2013, 09:30 pm

Spoilers for last week’s Archer / Bob’s Burgers crossover:

In the Archer universe Sterling Archer IS Bob. He gets amnesia and ends up marring a single mother of three with a family restaurant.




zuckyd1
Mar 17, 2013, 03:58 pm

The DC series Unwritten and Fables will be crossing over for a five-issue storyline.




Michael Regan
Mar 19, 2013, 03:15 pm

Not exactly an Omniversal observation, but it is remarkable how the X-Files, a series that played heavily with cloning and / or human replication, regularly employed actors to play multiple roles over the course of its 9 year run.




Michael Regan
Mar 25, 2013, 01:28 pm

I'm surprised that this one has not been mentioned yet:

A Firefly class spaceship from the short-live series Firefly can be seen briefly in the sky above Caprica in the first episode of the Battlestar Galactica mini-series. If I remember correctly, some of the special effects team from Firefly worked on Battlestar Galactica.

On the surface, this could suggest a shared reality, but essentially only indicates that Firefly class starships exist in the Battlestar Galactica reality.




Michael Regan
Mar 26, 2013, 06:03 pm

Scott Baio played Charles in the series Charles in Charge. His mother was played by Ellen Travolta, John Travolta's older sister.

Scott Baio previously Chatchi in the series Happy Days. Ellen Travolta also played his mother. Chatchi's real name was Charles.

Charles' last name in Charles in Charge was never revealed.




Zach Kinkead
Mar 26, 2013, 08:23 pm

Reminds me of speculation that Patrick McGoohan’s John Drake (Danger Man) and Patrick McGoohan’s Number Six (The Prisoner) were the same person…which certainly seems possible.




Andy E. Nystrom
Mar 27, 2013, 01:37 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Reminds me of speculation that Patrick McGoohan’s John Drake (Danger Man) and Patrick McGoohan’s Number Six (The Prisoner) were the same person…which certainly seems possible.

IIRC McGoohan said no but someone else involved in the show said yes. If 6 isn't Drake he'd probably get along well enough with Drake. The Prisoner of course fits in well with the Omniverse concept because many Earths have locations which aren't the Village but which are Village-like. So such locations could be that world's counterpart to the Village.




Michael Regan
Mar 27, 2013, 12:19 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Reminds me of speculation that Patrick McGoohan’s John Drake (Danger Man) and Patrick McGoohan’s Number Six (The Prisoner) were the same person…which certainly seems possible.

Although never answered definitively, giving Number 6 the name of John Drake created a connection regarding rights, which was likely the reason for avoidance.

Conversely, one of the novelisations for The Prisoner indicates that Number 6's name is John Drake.




Zach Kinkead
Mar 27, 2013, 03:29 pm

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

IIRC McGoohan said no but someone else involved in the show said yes. If 6 isn't Drake he'd probably get along well enough with Drake.

Or they’d try to kill each other. 
The Prisoner of course fits in well with the Omniverse concept because many Earths have locations which aren't the Village but which are Village-like. So such locations could be that world's counterpart to the Village.
TV shows like Lost and comics like Morning Glories certainly draw a lot of inspiration from the Prisoner.




Andy E. Nystrom
Mar 27, 2013, 04:49 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

TV shows like Lost and comics like Morning Glories certainly draw a lot of inspiration from the Prisoner.

One other very good use of the concept on TV, though short-lived, was Nowhere Man. It didn't take place in a mysterious location, but Thomas Veil was obviously meant to be a persecuted cipher like Number 6. Prisoner references got sprinkled throughout (like Veil being sixth in a line-up).




Stuart V
Mar 29, 2013, 04:42 pm

More evidence that people's dreams can be them subconsiously witnessing events in alternate realities - Wolverine #50/2, '07 shows 616 Wolverine dreaming of events that occurred to 1610 Wolverine in Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk #1, '06.




captainswift
Mar 29, 2013, 05:36 pm

Stuart V wrote:

More evidence that people's dreams can be them subconsiously witnessing events in alternate realities - Wolverine #50/2, '07 shows 616 Wolverine dreaming of events that occurred to 1610 Wolverine in Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk #1, '06.

Alternately, the entirety of the 1610 universe is just the result of a couple of undercooked borritos Wolverine had the night before.




Andy E. Nystrom
Mar 29, 2013, 10:38 pm

captainswift wrote:

Alternately, the entirety of the 1610 universe is just the result of a couple of undercooked borritos Wolverine had the night before.

No, that's the explanation for *our* universe!




Michael Regan
Apr 1, 2013, 03:06 pm

The 9th Wonders comic books in Heroes could be considered an alternate reality, but essentially are not. Drawn by Isaac Mendez using his visions of future events, they are interpretations of actual events of the series. The only oddity would be that events became dependant on the characters being able to follow a certain 'destiny' by reading the comic books.

Since the future is changed from what was witness first hand by the time travelling characters (and from what Isaac drew), the future events become an alternate future, or simply a future that does not come to pass if alternates timelines do not exist within this universe.




Michael Regan
Apr 4, 2013, 07:14 pm

Two episodes of Rocket Robin Hood were recycled into Spider-Man episodes. Spider-Man replaced Rocket Robin Hood in the animation footage.

The situations are virtually identical and would represent feature potentially multiversal connections between the two series.




Zach Kinkead
Apr 5, 2013, 12:16 am

Tonight’s Archer had what appears to be an appearance by Captain Murphy from Sealab 2021 (an earlier Adam Reed production). This is a multipart episode so here’s hoping we’ll see the other characters next week.




Michael Regan
Apr 5, 2013, 08:58 pm

Lilo and Stich had crossovers with both The Proud Family and Kim Possible.




Andy E. Nystrom
Apr 5, 2013, 09:05 pm

Of course the Imaginationland storyline in South Park brought in a large number of characters. It could even be argued that some of them (though obviously not all) were the versions we know brought in temporarily.




zuckyd1
Apr 5, 2013, 10:00 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Lilo and Stich had crossovers with both The Proud Family and Kim Possible.

as well as Recess and American Dragon: Jake Long




Zach Kinkead
Apr 5, 2013, 10:58 pm

An early episode of the new Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated cartoon has a cameo by the Griswolds from the National Lampoon movie series. The series also has enough Easter Egg references to the original Scooby Doo cartoon that it is reasonable to think the shows exist in very similar universes (if not the same one). The original SD was crossover central (Batman, Speed Buggy, Josie and the Pussy Cats, Addams Family. 3 Stooges, ect).

Personally I’ve always been partial to “A Pup Named ‘Scooby Doo’” but I assume that’s just an alternate universe.




zuckyd1
Apr 5, 2013, 11:11 pm

The original SD was crossover central
Six Degrees of Scooby-Doo: http://crossover.bureau42.com/x.html




Michael Regan
Apr 6, 2013, 11:10 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

as well as Recess and American Dragon: Jake Long

Wow, I was not aware of those two.




Michael Regan
Apr 6, 2013, 11:28 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

An early episode of the new Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated cartoon has a cameo by the Griswolds from the National Lampoon movie series. The series also has enough Easter Egg references to the original Scooby Doo cartoon that it is reasonable to think the shows exist in very similar universes (if not the same one). The original SD was crossover central (Batman, Speed Buggy, Josie and the Pussy Cats, Addams Family. 3 Stooges, ect).

Personally I’ve always been partial to “A Pup Named ‘Scooby Doo’” but I assume that’s just an alternate universe.

I am not familiar with all the Scooby-Doo series (this being the eleventh I believe), but is there anything solid to indicate that they do or do not share a common continuity/reality?




captainswift
Apr 6, 2013, 05:01 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

I am not familiar with all the Scooby-Doo series (this being the eleventh I believe), but is there anything solid to indicate that they do or do not share a common continuity/reality?

Everything from the original series to What's New, Scooby-Doo, with the exception of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and probably Laff-a-Lympics, are close enough to consider the same reality, although they seldom reference each other, and characters like Scooby-Dum or Flim Flam are prominent in one series but never appear in any others. (Although the unfortunate rash of series and direct to video movies where Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy drive around not solving mysteries could be argued as non-canon because of the mood shift, there's no real reason not to include them besides them being terrible).

Pup Named Scooby-Doo can't really be the past, since it was clearly set in the 90s, what with Velma's computer skills and similar things. However, certain events in later series indicate it might parallel the past of the Scooby gang.

Shaggy and Sooby-Doo Get a Clue is absolutely a new reality, as is Mystery Inc. (Each is its own reality). The circumstances are too different to reconcile with earlier series.

Laff-A-Lympics takes place on what might be called an "Earth-Crossover" for Hanna-Barbara characters, where characters as dispirate as Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear, and Fred Flintstone (who guest judged a couple of episodes) all co-exist. And, as all of them appear to be celebrities, it seems like all of their shows air in this world as well, so Scooby is, I guess, an actor playing himself on a TV show where events from his actual life are chronicled. Or something.




zuckyd1
Apr 6, 2013, 05:06 pm

I assume the live-action films occupy their own reality?




Michael Regan
Apr 6, 2013, 05:47 pm

captainswift wrote:

Everything from the original series to What's New, Scooby-Doo, with the exception of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and probably Laff-a-Lympics, are close enough to consider the same reality, although they seldom reference each other, and characters like Scooby-Dum or Flim Flam are prominent in one series but never appear in any others. (Although the unfortunate rash of series and direct to video movies where Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy drive around not solving mysteries could be argued as non-canon because of the mood shift, there's no real reason not to include them besides them being terrible).

Pup Named Scooby-Doo can't really be the past, since it was clearly set in the 90s, what with Velma's computer skills and similar things. However, certain events in later series indicate it might parallel the past of the Scooby gang.

Shaggy and Sooby-Doo Get a Clue is absolutely a new reality, as is Mystery Inc. (Each is its own reality). The circumstances are too different to reconcile with earlier series.

Laff-A-Lympics takes place on what might be called an "Earth-Crossover" for Hanna-Barbara characters, where characters as dispirate as Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear, and Fred Flintstone (who guest judged a couple of episodes) all co-exist. And, as all of them appear to be celebrities, it seems like all of their shows air in this world as well, so Scooby is, I guess, an actor playing himself on a TV show where events from his actual life are chronicled. Or something.

From what I remember of Laff-A-Lympics, the majority of the events of the show are so non-influencial, other than the need for time travel in the case of the Flintstones, that they could be considered canon. I have not seen Mystery Inc (the new series, right?) but the references I have read would indicate the same reality. I would have to see them myself to be certain (and I'm tempted to actually go out and get the original series boxed set which is packaged in the van ) . A Pup Named Scooby Doo being set in the 90s is not really a firm indicator of non-continuity, which we have learned from Marvel continuity. Consider Tony Stark originally being wounded in Vietnam, which is no longer the case in general understanding.

zuckyd1 wrote:

I assume the live-action films occupy their own reality?

The live-action, as I remember it (and would not look forward to watching again, really) is likely a separate reality due to the villain of the first movie.




Michael Regan
Apr 6, 2013, 09:33 pm

The New Scooby Doo Movies (2nd or 3rd series, can't remember completely and I want to work from memory rather than consult other sources which may be incorrect) included may real-world personalities including Tim Conway, Phylis Diller, The Harlem Globetrotters, Laurel and Hardy, Sonny and Cher, Three Stooges, as well as the previously mentioned Batman and Robin, Josie and the Pussycats, and Speed Buggy.

Hannah Barbara later produced the Super Friends series so Batman and Robin may be from the same continuity. Hannah Barbara also created Speed Buggy and had the rights to Archie and related characters, so the latter two may fit their individual established continuities as well.




Zach Kinkead
Apr 7, 2013, 01:21 am

captainswift wrote:

Pup Named Scooby-Doo can't really be the past, since it was clearly set in the 90s, what with Velma's computer skills and similar things. However, certain events in later series indicate it might parallel the past of the Scooby gang.

Also dog years make adult Scooby pretty old to be running around haunted houses.

captainswift wrote:

Shaggy and Sooby-Doo Get a Clue is absolutely a new reality, as is Mystery Inc. (Each is its own reality). The circumstances are too different to reconcile with earlier series.

Not familiar with Get a Clue. Mystery Inc is a little problematic continuity-wise (also thematically)* but the museum filled with Where Are You? villains make me think the events of the old show still happened … though maybe differently. Perhaps the Mystery Inc gang meet the Batman from the Brave and the Bold cartoon instead of the Adam West-inspired cartoon.

*I’m really enjoying bad-ass Scooby but “bad-ass” and “Scooby” don’t seem like they belong in the same sentence. Also this and Pup are the only shows I’ve seen where the cast have much in the way of individual personalities; I can’t decide which Fred I like better.

Michael Regan wrote:

The New Scooby Doo Movies (2nd or 3rd series, can't remember completely and I want to work from memory rather than consult other sources which may be incorrect) included …Josie and the Pussycats,

Hannah Barbara …. had the rights to Archie and related characters, so the latter two may fit their individual established continuities as well.

Well, considering Josie and the Pussycats (and Sabrina the Teenage Witch) are in the shared Archie Comics universe, I’m a little surprised Shaggy hasn’t challenged Jughead to an eating contest yet.

Michael Regan wrote:

The live-action, as I remember it (and would not look forward to watching again, really) is likely a separate reality due to the villain of the first movie.

I’d just as soon declare “discontinuity” and forget about it. I will admit that I was a bit amused that they used “you know who” as the villain. I always hated that individual.

(If you don’t know who we’re talking about then look up the spoiler online. Don’t subject yourself to those terrible movies.)




Stuart V
Apr 12, 2013, 01:55 pm

Eduardo M. wrote:

As far as adaptations are concerned, is there any case where we can say that one could simply be treated as a fictional work and not a true reality? For ex: Can any of the aforementioned Logan's Run comics be treated as just a story and not an alternate reality?

The DC universe is a fictional world to the people of Milestone, but they still crossed over. Kitty's Fairy Tale world is a fiction within 616, but Nightcrawler still visited it. Barry Allen knew of the Earth 2 Flash as a fictional character, but then he met him. Harold Shea of the Incompleat Enchanter regularly visited worlds which were considered fictional in his own reality. The world seen in 1985 considered the Marvel universe (616) characters to be fictional, but that didn't stop characters from 616 showing up there. The Nth Man universe had Marvel comics, with Alfie O'Meagan being a huge fan, but that didn't stop the Nth Man visiting 616.
Adding in: in Doctor Who, his companions have referenced Star Trek as fictional, but he's also met the Star Trek cast in the recent IDW crossover. 

Depending on your viewpoint, either it comes down to infinite realities meaning that any reality someone can conceive of will actually match a genuine alternate reality just by the laws of probability, or people in one reality are subconsciously accessing visions of what is happening in other realities, usually in dreams, and then transcribing those dreams into stories thinking they are fiction while actually unwittingly recording true events.

Michael Regan wrote:

Another, possibly the ultimate example, is that the pre-Crisis Earth-Two was only a fictional reality existing in comic books on Earth-One. Barry Allen read about the adventures of Jay Garrick which prompted him to take on the name of the Flash. Quite the surprise for him when he actually managed to get to Earth-Two and meet his fictional hero. If I remember correctly, the comics Barry read were also noted as being written by Gardner Fox who actually wrote the real world comics.

Exactly right, and why I have resurrected this bit of the thread, having just found these panels to illustrate the point:
http://sphotos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphoto...16509664_n.jpg
As explicit as you can get - Barry says Gardner Fox dreamed of Earth-2's Flash, and must have been tuning in to actual events happening in that world in those dreams.

Last edited by zuckyd1 (2/14/2020 2:51 pm)

Loki wrote:

Loki wrote:

I'd dearly like to re-do and update the map. 

However, what I'd really like is to find a program, if one exists, that allows someone to automatically map connections between entries. In other words, you could enter (for example) "Twilight Avenger" and then "Ninja High School" and then one or both entries put in a note on how they have interacted. And then, once you've done that for a bunch of entries, you could ask the program to automatically do a map showing all the connections. Does anyone know of any program even remotely like this? Or am I just hoping for too much?

Bump. 

I don't know if there's anything quite as automated as what you're suggesting. However, various "mapping" software might make the process of editing the chart easier. For example if you want to rearrange some entries in order to make room for new ones, you just drag the old entries to their new places and the software will automatically readjust all the connecting lines accordingly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Mindmaps

More historical text from Comixfan:


Micheal Regan
Apr 12, 2013, 02:32 pm

One question I have been pondering for a while now, which would be subject to personal interpretation, is how multiverse and megaverse exist within the DC system of realities.

The original, Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Earth-Two does not exist within the current multiverse. I consider it part of the DC Megaverse as would any pre-Crisis reality.

This can arguably be used for the Watchmen mini-series as it was published after Crisis and was not impacted by the event. Elseworld stories not referenced post-52 would also be part of the DC Megaverse. Essentially any non-New Earth story published or produced (adaptations included) following the Crisis on Infinite Earths and before Infinite Crisis and 52 would be part of the Megaverse.


Andy E. Nystrom
Apr 12, 2013, 02:52 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

One question I have been pondering for a while now, which would be subject to personal interpretation, is how multiverse and megaverse exist within the DC system of realities.

The original, Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Earth-Two does not exist within the current multiverse. I consider it part of the DC Megaverse as would any pre-Crisis reality.

This can arguably be used for the Watchmen mini-series as it was published after Crisis and was not impacted by the event. Elseworld stories not referenced post-52 would also be part of the DC Megaverse. Essentially any non-New Earth story published or produced (adaptations included) following the Crisis on Infinite Earths and before Infinite Crisis and 52 would be part of the Megaverse.

Well, for a short while DC had the concept of Hypertime, which cited that every version of a DC character existed somehow unless something catastrophic happened to removed all versions of a character entirely (I read somewhere this happened to Black Zero). This is pretty close to what you just described. However, Hypertime hasn't been mentioned in quite some time so it's debatable whether it fits within the current DC framework.


Andy E. Nystrom
Apr 12, 2013, 03:00 pm

One other interesting thing that fits the Omniverse model pretty well is one episode of Extras. In one episode, Ricky Gervais' actor character Andy Millman appears on Doctor Who as a villain, facing David Tennant's Doctor. Despite the satirical nature of the short scene (the villain is named Shlong, among other sexual references), David Tennant plays the Doctor the way he would in his own show in the sequence and the scene could therefore also fit into the Doctor's own continuity fairly easily.


Michael Regan
Apr 12, 2013, 07:24 pm

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

Well, for a short while DC had the concept of Hypertime, which cited that every version of a DC character existed somehow unless something catastrophic happened to removed all versions of a character entirely (I read somewhere this happened to Black Zero). This is pretty close to what you just described. However, Hypertime hasn't been mentioned in quite some time so it's debatable whether it fits within the current DC framework.

I believe that DC moved away from the hypertime concept as too confusing, but I am not certain overall.

It is interesting the differences between the Marvel and DC Multiverses. As we know, the Marvel Multiverse concept is built on the 'decision' framework: turn left Earth-a or turn right Earth-b. The DC Multiverse is created at the onset of the creation of all reality, originally by Krona and the new by Mr. Mind.

Altering history within a Marvel Universe creates an alternate universe (for the most part), but altering history within the DC Universe alters the reality.


zuckyd1
Apr 12, 2013, 10:48 pm

On a recent episode of CSI a character, after finding a secret bunker in the middle of a desert, says "What is this, Lost?" However, Morley cigarettes have appeared on both of these shows, suggesting they might share a common reality.


Michael Regan
Apr 13, 2013, 09:15 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

On a recent episode of CSI a character, after finding a secret bunker in the middle of a desert, says "What is this, Lost?" However, Morley cigarettes have appeared on both of these shows, suggesting they might share a common reality.

Although it is possible that a Lost television program had been based real-life events from the CSI reality, it is more likely that Morley cigarettes exist in both realities much like the X-Men could, at some point, eat at McDonalds. The appearance of Morley cigarettes presents a minor omniversal link between the two.


Michael Regan
Apr 13, 2013, 01:44 pm

After reviewing the Logan's Run list I was inspired to review a similar situation (as I do not have all the Logan's Run media available).

The Time Bandits (1981) movie being the prime release depicts events of the prime Time Bandits Universe.

The Marvel comic book adaptation, although showing some minor deviations, depicts the main events as close to as shown in the movie as to be considered part of the same reality. The same can be said for the novelisation. Therefore, no alternate realities in my opinion.


zuckyd1
Apr 13, 2013, 03:45 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Although it is possible that a Lost television program had been based real-life events from the CSI reality, it is more likely that Morley cigarettes exist in both realities much like the X-Men could, at some point, eat at McDonalds. The appearance of Morley cigarettes presents a minor omniversal link between the two.

You mean 90210, Californication, ER, Everybody Hates Chris, Friends, Judging Amy, The L Word, Malcolm in the Middle, Nash Bridges, and That 70's Show DON'T all co-exist in the same reality?
My mind has just been un-blown.


Michael Regan
Apr 13, 2013, 05:38 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

You mean 90210, Californication, ER, Everybody Hates Chris, Friends, Judging Amy, The L Word, Malcolm in the Middle, Nash Bridges, and That 70's Show DON'T all co-exist in the same reality?
My mind has just been un-blown.

SALTS

24, American Horror Story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dick Van Dyke Show, Heroes, Lost, Mission: Impossible, Warehouse 13, X-Files, ...

The general rule (to me) is to assume a shared reality when evidence is solid, such as presented with the mentioned Lilo and Stitch connections (all being Disney helps), but product placement, even fictional products, are slight connections at best.

On another note, the appearance of Red Apple cigarettes leads more to a shared universe concept due their use in Quentin Tarantino productions only, but even then only slightly more likely than with Morley cigarettes.


zuckyd1
Apr 13, 2013, 07:05 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

On another note, the appearance of Red Apple cigarettes leads more to a shared universe concept due their use in Quentin Tarantino productions only, but even then only slightly more likely than with Morley cigarettes.

Red Apple cigarettes (as well as Big Kahuna Burger) also appear in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. (I believe Quentin Tarentino was dating Mira Sorvino at the time.)
Aside from Red Apple and some other fictional brands, there are many other clues that suggest that all of Tarentino's films take place in the same universe.

There is a short story by Wold Newton scholar Win Scott Eckert in the anthology Lance Star—Sky Ranger which contain allusions not only to Red Apple but also to Doc Savage, Fu Manchu, Indiana Jones, K’un-L’un, and a host of other works of fiction, suggesting that there is at least one reality (presumably the Wold Newton reality) where they all coexist.


Michael Regan
Apr 13, 2013, 07:58 pm

Continuing my random review of old shows and movies, the British release of Max Headroom: 20 minutes into the Future was re-recorded with mostly American actors for the pilot of the Max Headroom television series. Despite the cast changes, the story is virtually the same and both versions can be considered representations of the same reality.


zuckyd1
Apr 13, 2013, 08:40 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Continuing my random review of old shows and movies, the British release of Max Headroom: 20 minutes into the Future was re-recorded with mostly American actors for the pilot of the Max Headroom television series. Despite the cast changes, the story is virtually the same and both versions can be considered representations of the same reality.

There also was a Max Headroom video game.
And then there's this:

 


Michael Regan
Apr 14, 2013, 10:09 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

There also was a Max Headroom video game.
And then there's this: 

and a music video or two, a music video presentation show, commercials... and the Doctor Who pirating incident 

Wait... a video game? Have to look that up now.


Zach Kinkead
Apr 14, 2013, 11:44 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Tonight’s Archer had what appears to be an appearance by SPOILER! Captain Murphy from Sealab 2021 (an earlier Adam Reed production). This is a multipart episode so here’s hoping we’ll see the other characters next week.

Er, never mind. The guy in Archer is A Captain Murphy from Sealab but not THE Captain Murphy from Sealab. Archer seems to be an alternate past for Sealab 2021 (if Murphy went mad with power instead of just mad)


Michael Regan
Apr 14, 2013, 02:15 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Er, never mind. The guy in Archer is A Captain Murphy from Sealab but not THE Captain Murphy from Sealab. Archer seems to be an alternate past for Sealab 2021 (if Murphy went mad with power instead of just mad)

Ah, alternates that are almost exactly the originals. I would love to watch all the Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law episodes and compare to the original Hanna-Barbera shows used to see if there are any indications that the appearances cannot be within a single continuity, but who has that kind of time and budget?

Maybe some day...


zuckyd1
Apr 14, 2013, 04:20 pm

Two new listings in the latest issue of Previews:

Rocketeer and the Spirit (IDW)
Army of Darkness vs. Hack/Slash (Dynamite)


Michael Regan
Apr 14, 2013, 04:34 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Ah, alternates that are almost exactly the originals. I would love to watch all the Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law episodes and compare to the original Hanna-Barbera shows used to see if there are any indications that the appearances cannot be within a single continuity, but who has that kind of time and budget?

Maybe some day...

Given the manor Harvey Birdman is presented in the series, and the suggestions that his real name is Gary Cole (his true identity in the original show) the lead character is likely meant to be the same character. If this can be extended to include the other characters seen in the run of the show, almost every Hanna-Barbara show shares a common continuity. The only hold-out's would be the Flintstones (from the past) and the Jetsons (from the future), and even the Jetsons are referred to as being time travellers (IIRC)


Michael Regan
Apr 14, 2013, 08:23 pm

Latest issues of Sonic the Hedgehog and Megaman are having a cross-over event. Both are published by Archie Comics but were originally distributed by Sega and Capcom respectively. They do not exist in the same Universe but clearly exist within a shared Multiverse within a larger Archie Megaverse. 


Zach Kinkead
Apr 14, 2013, 10:41 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Given the manor Harvey Birdman is presented in the series, and the suggestions that his real name is Gary Cole (his true identity in the original show) the lead character is likely meant to be the same character. If this can be extended to include the other characters seen in the run of the show, almost every Hanna-Barbara show shares a common continuity. The only hold-out's would be the Flintstones (from the past) and the Jetsons (from the future), and even the Jetsons are referred to as being time travellers (IIRC)

The Jetsons in the Birdman episode are from the “future year” of 2002. I’m going to go ahead and say “alternate reality”. Clearly technology had more time to progress because they live in a universe where cavemen coexisted with dinosaurs like in the Flintstones. 

zuckyd1 wrote:

Two new listings in the latest issue of Previews:

Rocketeer and the Spirit (IDW)

What is the creative team? That sounds fantastic.

Michael Regan wrote:

Latest issues of Sonic the Hedgehog and Megaman are having a cross-over event. Both are published by Archie Comics but were originally distributed by Sega and Capcom respectively. They do not exist in the same Universe but clearly exist within a shared Multiverse within a larger Archie Megaverse.

And the last Mega Man game was a PC-only crossover with Street Fighter.


zuckyd1
Apr 15, 2013, 12:08 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

What is the creative team? That sounds fantastic.

Mark Waid and Paul Smith
https://www.midtowncomics.com/product/1268350


Michael Regan
Apr 15, 2013, 09:04 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

And the last Mega Man game was a PC-only crossover with Street Fighter.

Given the random nature of most video games I am reluctant to include them an omniversal visions, although I should.


zuckyd1
Apr 15, 2013, 09:55 am

Michael Regan wrote:

Given the random nature of most video games I am reluctant to include them an omniversal visions, although I should.

But that leaves out so much crossover goodness.
Perhaps if fiction stories come from visions into other realities then video games come from particularly murky visions where the outcome is unclear.


Michael Regan
Apr 15, 2013, 01:18 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

But that leaves out so much crossover goodness.
Perhaps if fiction stories come from visions into other realities then video games come from particularly murky visions where the outcome is unclear.

Very true. I speak more of classic gaming such as Donkey Kong or Pac Man which have no true storyline or script. More modern games have more specific scripting which would typically result in the same outcome. The path taken to reach the outcome could be different according to the player. It may be assumed that the full 100% completed game represents the true game reality.

One situation where a possible alternate reality is presented would be with various Mario games when using a warp pipe. In such a case it is likely best to ignore wap pipes in favour of the full game experience and all possible levels.

Another situation would be games such as Infamous where the main character is developed towards different ends as the story progress depending on his actions. In such a case it is likely that the game is presented as two potential realities, but then the question of which is the prime reality may be in question (in the case of Infamous, I believe the side of 'good' is the prime reality)


zuckyd1
Apr 15, 2013, 02:33 pm

Well I am no expert on video games. In fact, just the opposite.
I was thinking of the All-Stars Racing type games, which could be seen as analogous to Laff-A-Lympics (albeit with presumably much less of a story).
I assume all the Mario games can't exist in the same reality, so perhaps there is a Mario multi-verse

Last edited by zuckyd1 (2/15/2020 10:27 am)

historical text from Comixfan:


Andy E. Nystrom
Jun 14, 2013, 12:22 pm

One other interesting show from an Omniverse perspective is Mystery Science Theatre 3000. For the uninitiated, the premise of the TV series is that a guy (Joel in early seasons, Mike in later seasons) is held hostage in a satellite and with his robot friends is forced to watch bad movies.

If all the movies are considered different worlds, then it could be argued that we have two realities (the MST3K world and our own) viewing the same third reality (the movie within the show).




Michael Regan
Jun 14, 2013, 03:48 pm

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

One other interesting show from an Omniverse perspective is Mystery Science Theatre 3000. For the uninitiated, the premise of the TV series is that a guy (Joel in early seasons, Mike in later seasons) is held hostage in a satellite and with his robot friends is forced to watch bad movies.

If all the movies are considered different worlds, then it could be argued that we have two realities (the MST3K world and our own) viewing the same third reality (the movie within the show).

I have not seen the series, I only know of it due to reputation (it does not air here). Does Joel/Mike watch the original movies or are they altered in some way? We do have a show which had aired where they condensed a movie to about half-an-hour and redubed it, essentially creating a new movie.




captainswift
Jun 14, 2013, 10:26 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

I have not seen the series, I only know of it due to reputation (it does not air here). Does Joel/Mike watch the original movies or are they altered in some way? We do have a show which had aired where they condensed a movie to about half-an-hour and redubed it, essentially creating a new movie.

The movies are trimmed for time (and sometimes content, cutting out swears and content that didn't meet standards for daytime TV), but are not altered in terms of story or dialogue. The movie is aired as-is (aside from cuts), with Joel and the 'bots talking over the film with their riffing.

Note, however, that events of the movies --despite being movies in the MST3K reality-- sometimes also have happened in their universe, as Joel and the 'bots often meet characters from the films in the framing segments.




Michael Regan
Jun 15, 2013, 11:13 am

captainswift wrote:

The movies are trimmed for time (and sometimes content, cutting out swears and content that didn't meet standards for daytime TV), but are not altered in terms of story or dialogue. The movie is aired as-is (aside from cuts), with Joel and the 'bots talking over the film with their riffing.

Note, however, that events of the movies --despite being movies in the MST3K reality-- sometimes also have happened in their universe, as Joel and the 'bots often meet characters from the films in the framing segments.

Unaltered is great, but cross-appearances is... odd. Would the movies be based on events that occur within the MST3K universe or could they be actual accounts of events? Either way, with the cross-over aspect in place it may be possible to either place the respective movies within a singular reality or conclude that, although they are altered only in minor ways that the movies are alternate versions of the original productions allowing the characters to exist in a shared reality.




Andy E. Nystrom
Jun 15, 2013, 01:03 pm

captainswift wrote:

Note, however, that events of the movies --despite being movies in the MST3K reality-- sometimes also have happened in their universe, as Joel and the 'bots often meet characters from the films in the framing segments.

I'm a more recent convert so haven't run across any of those ones. Can you cite specific cases of this? Many episodes are on YouTube so with a bit of context we might be able to figure this out from an omniverse perspective (acknowledging this disregards the show's wishes: the theme song specifically says "Just repeat to yourself it's just a show / I really must relax").

Regardless I think in most cases it can be seen as two different realities viewing the same third one: even just from the first box set it was clear that the characters had opinions on the works of specific directors and were perceiving the works as fiction created by less than stellar artists.

Actually come to think of it, the simplest explanation, beyond the one offered in the theme, is that the MST3K world draws in aspects of other realities for brief periods before they return to their native world, hence, for example, the characters being able to respond to letters mailed from our world.




Michael Regan
Jun 15, 2013, 05:12 pm

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

Actually come to think of it, the simplest explanation, beyond the one offered in the theme, is that the MST3K world draws in aspects of other realities for brief periods before they return to their native world, hence, for example, the characters being able to respond to letters mailed from our world.

So, a Watcher type deal viewing alternate realities and possibly having a portal to have the characters physically visit... all through unknown means. Without seeing the series, this makes sense and I like.




Andy E. Nystrom
Jun 15, 2013, 10:35 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

So, a Watcher type deal viewing alternate realities and possibly having a portal to have the characters physically visit... all through unknown means. Without seeing the series, this makes sense and I like.

It also helps that at first there were two mad scientists; both eventually left but one remained for many years, acquiring a henchman for quite some time after his partner left. Once you put one or two mad scientists into a comedy show, pretty much anything is up for grabs, particularly since they were the ones conducting the whole torture by bad movies experiment.




Zach Kinkead
Jun 15, 2013, 11:21 pm

Edits are alternate realities? 

So now we have to keep track of which Star Wars universe Han shot first in? 

That does raise some interesting questions about special editions, tv edits, and extended/directors cuts of movies and the tendencies of comic companies (especially DC lately) to edit collected and digital editions.




Andy E. Nystrom
Jun 16, 2013, 02:00 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Edits are alternate realities? 

So now we have to keep track of which Star Wars universe Han shot first in? 

That does raise some interesting questions about special editions, tv edits, and extended/directors cuts of movies and the tendencies of comic companies (especially DC lately) to edit collected and digital editions.

If it's a minor edit (and most MST3K changes are minor) or if the added scenes don't contradict the original version in any big way, I tend to see it as one reality. Just as we tend to ignore minor dialogue changes in flashbacks or between the end of one issue and the start of the next. Perhaps there's some cosmic filter that sometimes misinterprets looks and sounds a little.

If however an edit changes the story somehow then it might be an alternate reality. But I also like the idea (postulated by Mark Waid with Hypertime) that sometimes an alternate reality can be merged back into the original. A good example is Daredevil (the movie). In the Director's Cut he makes at least one notable different decision, suggesting a divergence. However, by the end of the movie things have started to realign enough that by the time of the Elektra movie things have merged.




Michael Regan
Jun 16, 2013, 09:21 am

Exactly. In many cases an edit can be considered a retcon. Consider writing summary of the original film, then writing a summary of a director's cut of the same movie. Then review them to see if they can overlap and perhaps certain parts can be inserted or removed to fit the corresponding version. If they can fit together, they should be considered the same reality. the Star Wars versions should be considered the same reality, Blade Runner versions are debatable.




Michael Regan
Jun 16, 2013, 05:05 pm

Another possible consideration is that any licensed character appearances in various multiple realities could be considered to be the same character unless conflictions are evident.

Stepping away from obvious characters, consider all the appearances of Santa Claws. He is a magic being and may actually not only traverse the entire globe during one night, but perhaps due to the speed required actually traverses the multiverse.




captainswift
Jun 16, 2013, 05:57 pm

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

I'm a more recent convert so haven't run across any of those ones. Can you cite specific cases of this?

In "The Brain That Wouldn't Die", they meet the bodyless head of Jan (whom they call "Jan in the Pan"), the victim in the movie they're watching.

In "Prince of Space", Krankor, the villain from the movie, comes to visit.

In MST3K: The Movie (where they watch "This Island Earth"), they call one of the aliens from the movie on video phone.

And most importantly, in "Manos: The Hands of Fate" (MST3K's most notorious movie), the deformed handyman Torgo visits Deep 13. He shows up again in a few later episodes as well.

If you can track any of the Thanksgiving Day bumpers from "Night of the Blood Beast", several characters from different movies (sort of) drop by Dr. Forrester's for Thanksgiving.

(This isn't an exhaustive list, but it includes only episodes readily available commercially)




Michael Regan
Jun 16, 2013, 06:14 pm

Are the bumpers also available? 

I may try to hunt these down if I can figure out a series/DVD list.




captainswift
Jun 16, 2013, 06:20 pm

The bumpers are included as a bonus feature on the DVD release of that episode.

Also: after a quick look on the MST3K wiki, I may actually have listed all the movie characters who appeared in the host segments. Go my memory!




Michael Regan
Jun 16, 2013, 06:43 pm

captainswift wrote:

The bumpers are included as a bonus feature on the DVD release of that episode.

Also: after a quick look on the MST3K wiki, I may actually have listed all the movie characters who appeared in the host segments. Go my memory!

and jumping into the wiki it is evident that not all episode are available and appear to be in a unique order 




captainswift
Jun 16, 2013, 07:09 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

and jumping into the wiki it is evident that not all episode are available and appear to be in a unique order

It's true not all episodes are available (they have to negotiate DVD rights for movies individually, and often the copyright-holders don't want to license it for home distribution), but the order isn't terribly important. They make callbacks to old jokes and episodes, but continuity isn't really a thing.




Michael Regan
Jun 16, 2013, 08:25 pm

captainswift wrote:

It's true not all episodes are available (they have to negotiate DVD rights for movies individually, and often the copyright-holders don't want to license it for home distribution), but the order isn't terribly important. They make callbacks to old jokes and episodes, but continuity isn't really a thing.

Rights, true, although many are likely beyond copyright at this point I would guess.

BTW, does anyone know how Elvira's Movie Macabre compared to this series?




Michael Regan
Jun 23, 2013, 01:11 pm

What should the standard be regarding anthology shows like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Tales from the Darkside, etc.?

Although there is no real reason to have a shared reality, my view is that all the episodes should be contained within a single reality (unless events suggest otherwise). This would, using The Twilight Zone as an example, place the three series within a single reality and potentially place other media releases (comic books, novels) within the same reality. One glaring inconsistency may be with Twilight Zone: The Movie which revamps classic stories from the original series, but considering the overall premise of the show it is not beyond reason to have similar events occur more than once within the same reality.




Stuart V
Jun 23, 2013, 01:37 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

What should the standard be regarding anthology shows like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Tales from the Darkside, etc.?

Although there is no real reason to have a shared reality, my view is that all the episodes should be contained within a single reality (unless events suggest otherwise). This would, using The Twilight Zone as an example, place the three series within a single reality and potentially place other media releases (comic books, novels) within the same reality. One glaring inconsistency may be with Twilight Zone: The Movie which revamps classic stories from the original series, but considering the overall premise of the show it is not beyond reason to have similar events occur more than once within the same reality.

Some episodes clearly preclude being part of a shared reality - generally those set in the future, such as I, Robot (told in two different versions in The Outer Limits) or Time Enough At Last (a Twilight Zone tale with a last man on Earth, post-apocalypse, setting). However, any that are set "modern day" in the "real world" could potentially be a shared reality, so long as the events depicted don't end up having world-wide ramifications that couldn't be ignored in other stories - incidents like The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street can fit, as there's no evidence that the alien invasion plot there got further than a single town, and we can allow the similarly titled and themed The Monsters Are on Maple Street from the 2002 series. There's even some stories in later series that are sequels to ones in older series - It's Still a Good Life follows on from It's a Good Life. 

There's even strong evidence in one series that many of its stand-alone episodes are all taking place in the same reality - The 1990s Outer Limits story The Voice of Reason features Army Intelligence reporting on several of the alien incursions seen in prior episodes of the series, and a subsequent episode involving a time traveller shows her on trial for meddling, mostly involved with interfering with some of the incidents seen in earlier episodes.




Michael Regan
Jun 23, 2013, 03:15 pm

Stuart V wrote:

There's even strong evidence in one series that many of its stand-alone episodes are all taking place in the same reality - The 1990s Outer Limits story The Voice of Reason features Army Intelligence reporting on several of the alien incursions seen in prior episodes of the series, and a subsequent episode involving a time traveller shows her on trial for meddling, mostly involved with interfering with some of the incidents seen in earlier episodes.

The only problem with the overlaying Outer Limits episode (flashback episode) was that the specifics of the event(s) were altered to fit a singular reality. Even thought the changes were sizable, they could be attributed to retcon.




Stuart V
Jun 23, 2013, 03:48 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

The only problem with the overlaying Outer Limits episode (flashback episode) was that the specifics of the event(s) were altered to fit a singular reality. Even thought the changes were sizable, they could be attributed to retcon.

Were the specifics changed, or did the Army report just mess up some of the details? Unreliable narrator syndrome is a great get-out-of-jail card for continuity problems.




Michael Regan
Jun 23, 2013, 03:55 pm

Stuart V wrote:

Were the specifics changed, or did the Army report just mess up some of the details? Unreliable narrator syndrome is a great get-out-of-jail card for continuity problems.

It has been a while since I watched them, but one specific story had to do with a prison on either an alien planet or at some point in a dystopian future.




Stuart V
Jun 24, 2013, 04:10 pm

Working on defining crossover types. Here's what I have thus far:

1) Appearance type
Analogues and pastiches – not genuine intereality crossovers, but the appearance of characters who are clearly based on ones from other realities. While they don’t provide strong evidence of inter-reality connections, they can be seen (at least by those not determined to try and keep things artificially separated) as weak evidence, showing that events and beings seen in one reality are mirrored in another.

Unofficial cameos – characters who go unnamed but are clearly intended to be the heroes and villains from other comic series; generally present without explanation of how they got there, and, per the unofficial bit, always without permission. May or may not have dialogue which hints at their identity.

Official cameo – characters from another comic present as faces in the crowd, but with official permission from whoever owns them (indicia can usually confirm this). Distinguished from the next category in that they don’t have any dialogue.

Guest appearance – characters officially present as a face in crowd, but they have dialogue, though no major role in the adventure.

Guest star – character officially present and they play a main role in the story. 

2) How they got there – since many times the established realities of characters doesn’t fit the realities established for other characters. 

One world – they all do share a world, apparently. Sometimes hard to distinguish from the below, at least until you get an chain of such connected characters and finally find that different ends of the chain can’t share a reality. 

Counterpart, slips and overlaps– no explanation is given for how they could all be together, they just share a world, despite their solo milieus appearing to preclude this. Either one or other characters seen is a counterpart to the one normally seen in solo stories, or someone has slipped out of their own reality and not noticed it, or two realities have temporarily overlapped – in the last example people tend not to notice the discrepancies between their realities because histories and / or memories get altered to fit.

Reality jump – at least one participant has skipped from their native reality to another one, and is well aware of it.

Colliding Amalgamated Crises – realities have been violently overlapped, causing character histories to change to fit. In more dangerous cases, individual characters from one reality can also be overlapped with individual characters from another. These tend to be depicted as dangerously unstable mergers, and if they aren’t separated then it risks a disastrous collapse of the local multiverses.

A few examples of the above:
Hellboy's origin in Hellboy: Seed of Destruction depicts John Byrne's Torch of Liberty being present, and then Hellboy's ally Abe Sapien appears in Babe 2 (taking on Monkeyman and O'Brien's foe, the Shrewmanoid, which brings in yet another creator's characters). But later series of Hellboy and BPRD really aren't all that compatible with the world of superheroes that includes Babe, Danger Unlimited, etc - where were these heroes during the War on Frogs, for example? Not only that, but Hellboy has teamed up with the TMNT, without, iirc, any evidence of dimensional travel - they all appear to share a single world (Hellboy also met the Savage Dragon, but I haven't read that one so no idea how they came to co-exist). Since that seems improbable, the most likely options are that Hellboy's world has a counterpart of Torch of Liberty, and that there are Hellboy counterparts in Byrne's world, a TMNT world, etc; alternatively, if "main Mignolaverse" Hellboy ever refers back to acknowledge these other crossovers, then we may have slips and overlaps, temporary and unnoticed reality mergers.

A crossover that encompasses multiple crossover types listed above, despite being relatively small, is Savage Dragon vs Savage Megaton Man. Megaton Man (and later his allies, the Megatropolis Quartet) travel from their own reality, the Megahero Universe, to the Image Universe (which name the characters actually use, having first seen it as an image on a scanning device). So we've got reality jumping. But we also have pastiches, as "Johnny Redbeard's Nixed Men" are the villains of the piece (John Byrne's Next Men, if you couldn't work it out), with members who are clearly intended to be She-Hulk, Namor and Superman.




Michael Regan
Jun 24, 2013, 08:24 pm

I guess "mentions" could fit in somewhere as well, that is a character from a "supposed" alternate reality is mentioned but does not specifically appear. This could also count in the analogue category if you consider the final episode of the short lived series Strange Luck which makes reference to an FBI agent named Muldur [sic]. I would expect that this would be rare, as with some other categories, but still valid.




Stuart V
Jun 25, 2013, 12:07 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

I guess "mentions" could fit in somewhere as well, that is a character from a "supposed" alternate reality is mentioned but does not specifically appear. This could also count in the analogue category if you consider the final episode of the short lived series Strange Luck which makes reference to an FBI agent named Muldur [sic]. I would expect that this would be rare, as with some other categories, but still valid.

Yes, I'd agree. But you might even want to split that further - mentions where the character is clearly intended to be a real person, vs mentions where it might be referencing a real person but equally might be referencing popular culture, vs pop culture references (which don't count as crossovers, but are noteable as they sometimes seem to clash with later crossovers - e.g. characters in Dr. Who have mentioned Star Trek as a TV show, yet they've also recently had a crossover). Iirc, an example of the middle type was an early episode of Charmed where the characters encounter vampires and wonder aloud where Buffy is when you need her - intended as a pop culture reference, it could be taken as a real world reference, hinting at an unseen prior adventure where the Charmed trio met the Slayer. An example of the first is in the BBC TV show Luther, when the title character tells a subordinate to get in touch with Detective Munch in New Yorks Special Victims Unit.




Michael Regan
Jun 25, 2013, 01:12 pm

Stuart V wrote:

Yes, I'd agree. But you might even want to split that further - mentions where the character is clearly intended to be a real person, vs mentions where it might be referencing a real person but equally might be referencing popular culture, vs pop culture references (which don't count as crossovers, but are noteable as they sometimes seem to clash with later crossovers - e.g. characters in Dr. Who have mentioned Star Trek as a TV show, yet they've also recently had a crossover). Iirc, an example of the middle type was an early episode of Charmed where the characters encounter vampires and wonder aloud where Buffy is when you need her - intended as a pop culture reference, it could be taken as a real world reference, hinting at an unseen prior adventure where the Charmed trio met the Slayer. An example of the first is in the BBC TV show Luther, when the title character tells a subordinate to get in touch with Detective Munch in New Yorks Special Victims Unit.

Of course, using silver age DC Comics as a template for this oddity, the fictional reality could actually be the same "real" reality as detailed in the classic Flash #123 (September 1961). This may actually work in the case of the Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover as well.




Stuart V
Jun 25, 2013, 01:36 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Of course, using silver age DC Comics as a template for this oddity, the fictional reality could actually be the same "real" reality as detailed in the classic Flash #123 (September 1961). This may actually work in the case of the Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover as well.

Almost certainly.




Stuart V
Jun 25, 2013, 04:09 pm

Another crossover story that features multiples levels of involvement: Shi / Cyblade: The Battle for Independents has Shi and Cyblade team up, so on the level of interaction we are looking at them both being Guest Stars. After initially meeting in what seems like a shared reality, they are brought to another place by unknown entities, where they encounter Cerebus, who has reality jumped and knows it. Cyblade and Shi then realise they've now reality jumped too. However, when Cerebus makes them both fly (using some magical energy he's been given by whoever brought him there), Shi is shocked to be flying (people just don't fly), and Cyblade more blase (she knows plenty of people who fly); comparing notes they conclude that when they first met, prior to the reality jump that brought them to this new realm, they didn't share a common reality after all, but that "we're from entirely different realities that intersected for a moment...and now we're in a place that's different from either!" So we have a definite case of a temporary reality overlap that wasn't noticed by the residents of the two worlds. 

The two heroines enter a once verdant land now turned into swamp, dubbed "Wallace Woods" and discover the remains of other heroes who came here before them, only to be destroyed - clearly visible, but not identified, is Captain America's shield, Batman's mask, Iron Man's helmet, Thor's hammer Mjolnir and a robot head that I feel I should recognise but don't (C3PO?) - Shi makes some unsubtle comments that are a metatextual jab at company-owned characters. The heroines encounter Beanworld's Mr Spook, just before being absorbed by an entity that feeds off creativity (another heavy-handed metatextual poke at corporate-owned comics), and wake to find themselves being absorbed, with nearby monitors showing images of other realms, including a character from Maus (I believe - definitely a humanoid mouse in a style like Maus) and Omaha, Cat Dancer. Luckily other heroes from different independent comics arrive to help, and they all work together to defeat the villain - one of this group is clearly an unidentified Spider-Man (in black costume), swinging by on a web while noting "these guys are a lot cooler than the people I usually hang with!"

By the end of the issue we have
Guest stars: Cyblade, Shi, Atomik Angels, Cerebus

Guest appearances: Fone Bone (he has no dialogue, but his appearance is bigger than a cameo, though not enough to get to guest star status imo), Mr. Spook, the Tick, Megaton Man, Ginny from Stray Bullets, Johnny Blowtorch from Crusade, Kid Death and Gabriel from Event Comics, Katchoo from Strangers in Paradise, Eudaemon, Wolff and Byrd, Milk and Cheese, Cascade fromn Sovereign Seven, Scud the Disposable Assassin, Madman and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac - all of whom have dialogue, though in many cases it is a single line and a single panel appearance.

Official cameos include: Grifter from Wildstorm, Hellboy, Glory, Hellshock, Kabuki, Samaritan from Astro City, Seth from A Distant Soil and Usagi Yojimbo - mostly single panels, and no dialogue, but all officially there with disclaimers noted regarding appearance with creator permission. 

Unofficial cameos - Spider-Man, Omaha the Cat Dancer and someone from Maus

Unofficial nods - Iron Man, Thor, Batman, Captain America




Michael Regan
Jun 25, 2013, 06:16 pm

Well done! I can't find Spider-Man, personally, but I don't doubt that he is there somewhere.

I agree the robot head looks like C3PO, but he would be an odd addition. The expression on the face reminds me of something else though. Just for the heck of it I asked for clarification through the Bill Tucci website.



zuckyd1
Jun 25, 2013, 07:29 pm

This site suggests some additional cameos, although I don't know if they're accurate: https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=151341




Michael Regan
Jun 25, 2013, 07:33 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

This site suggests some additional cameos, although I don't know if they're accurate: https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=151341

Ah, there's Spider-Man 




Stuart V
Jun 25, 2013, 07:33 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

Well done! I can't find Spider-Man, personally, but I don't doubt that he is there somewhere.

He's on the top right of the two page spread of heroes attacking the villain of the story.




Michael Regan
Jun 28, 2013, 08:58 am

What should the standard be regarding anthology shows like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, 
Tales from the Darkside, etc.?
Part of the oddity in classifying of these episodes, other than putting them into a single Twilight Zone universe (where applicable), is there are many which are multiversal in relation to original short stories previously published.




Zach Kinkead
Jun 29, 2013, 02:17 am

I don’t know why anyone would assume episodes of the Twilight Zone and similar shows take place on the same world unless it was shown otherwise. If anything I’d assume the opposite. Likewise for old-school anthology comics like Amazing Adventures / Amazing (Adult) Fantasy; the Dr. Droom (aka Dr. Druid), Spider-Man, and a smattering of the monster stories about creatures now inhabiting Monster Island are “real” but I doubt the validity of stories about things like the shape shifting alien clouds turning into a common household item, a major NYC landmark defending the city from attack, and the alternate conclusion to the cold war. 

I guess we can add this week’s Project X Zone for 3DS to the list of crossover video games. As with PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, I don’t actually know much about most of the properties represented but the Mega Man and Street Fighter franchises alone give us plenty of links to other things. Heck, once the new Smash Bros comes out next year, Mega Man will have a link to the larger “Nintendo Universe” that extends beyond old episodes of “Captain N: Gamemaster”




Michael Regan
Jun 29, 2013, 10:27 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

I don’t know why anyone would assume episodes of the Twilight Zone and similar shows take place on the same world unless it was shown otherwise. If anything I’d assume the opposite. Likewise for old-school anthology comics like Amazing Adventures / Amazing (Adult) Fantasy; the Dr. Droom (aka Dr. Druid), Spider-Man, and a smattering of the monster stories about creatures now inhabiting Monster Island are “real” but I doubt the validity of stories about things like the shape shifting alien clouds turning into a common household item, a major NYC landmark defending the city from attack, and the alternate conclusion to the cold war.

Well, with Twilight Zone it is easier in a classification sense to have a handful of realities than over a hundred. With some episodes referencing others it suggests links as well. Oh, and it is Twilight Zone, Twilight Zones 

Zach Kinkead wrote:

I guess we can add this week’s Project X Zone for 3DS to the list of crossover video games. As with PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, I don’t actually know much about most of the properties represented but the Mega Man and Street Fighter franchises alone give us plenty of links to other things. Heck, once the new Smash Bros comes out next year, Mega Man will have a link to the larger “Nintendo Universe” that extends beyond old episodes of “Captain N: Gamemaster”

Mega Man just crossed over with Sonic in comic books.




Zach Kinkead
Jun 29, 2013, 12:30 pm

Its "What If", not "What Ifs" but no one is saying THOSE are all the same world. I see the Twilight Zone the same way.

All this video game stuff reminded me of something; in the 90s there was a fighting game with Iron Man and X-O Manowar. Its strange to me that - as far as i know - these two comic characters have only crossed over in games.




Stuart V
Jun 29, 2013, 01:06 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

Its "What If", not "What Ifs" but no one is saying THOSE are all the same world. I see the Twilight Zone the same way.

The difference is that most of the What If worlds are unquestionably different from one another. Many of the Twilight Zone episodes appear to take place in "the real world", so the only thing preventing them sharing a reality are the events within the stories themselves. 

Zach Kinkead wrote:

All this video game stuff reminded me of something; in the 90s there was a fighting game with Iron Man and X-O Manowar. Its strange to me that - as far as i know - these two comic characters have only crossed over in games.

http://www.comics.org/issue/273728/cover/4/

Zach Kinkead wrote:

I don’t know why anyone would assume episodes of the Twilight Zone and similar shows take place on the same world unless it was shown otherwise. If anything I’d assume the opposite. Likewise for old-school anthology comics like Amazing Adventures / Amazing (Adult) Fantasy; the Dr. Droom (aka Dr. Druid), Spider-Man, and a smattering of the monster stories about creatures now inhabiting Monster Island are “real” but I doubt the validity of stories about things like the shape shifting alien clouds turning into a common household item, a major NYC landmark defending the city from attack, and the alternate conclusion to the cold war.

But that's exactly the point - ALL the stories from the old-school anthology comics take place in 616, EXCEPT where the events depicted wouldn't fit with established 616 history (and even those may have happened, just not quite as depicted). And this isn't just based on wishful thinking, as way more of those monster stories have been confirmed as being 616 by other stories than you realise. Writers and artists keep working them into later stories.




zuckyd1
Jun 29, 2013, 06:48 pm

Stuart V wrote:

But that's exactly the point - ALL the stories from the old-school anthology comics take place in 616, EXCEPT where the events depicted wouldn't fit with established 616 history (and even those may have happened, just not quite as depicted). And this isn't just based on wishful thinking, as way more of those monster stories have been confirmed as being 616 by other stories than you realise. Writers and artists keep working them into later stories.

How broadly does this principle apply, particularly to modern day comics? For example, are the Jane Austen and Marvel Illustrated adaptations to be considered 616? There's nothing really to prevent them from being so.




Michael Regan
Jun 29, 2013, 11:08 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

How broadly does this principle apply, particularly to modern day comics? For example, are the Jane Austen and Marvel Illustrated adaptations to be considered 616? There's nothing really to prevent them from being so.

That is an excellent question, and I look forward to Stuart's view. Personally I would say they are not as they are specific adaptations rather than general adaptations. Specific, meaning self contained as opposed to general which are essentially worked into the existing reality.

That being said, as they are published by Marvel they could be considered part of the Marvel Universe, of perhaps the wider Marvel Megaverse, at the very least.




Stuart V
Jun 30, 2013, 05:11 am

zuckyd1 wrote:

How broadly does this principle apply, particularly to modern day comics? For example, are the Jane Austen and Marvel Illustrated adaptations to be considered 616? There's nothing really to prevent them from being so.

Michael Regan wrote:

That is an excellent question, and I look forward to Stuart's view. Personally I would say they are not as they are specific adaptations rather than general adaptations. Specific, meaning self contained as opposed to general which are essentially worked into the existing reality.

That being said, as they are published by Marvel they could be considered part of the Marvel Universe, of perhaps the wider Marvel Megaverse, at the very least.

At first glance you'd think they wouldn't be, as they are adaptations of novels. But we gladly accept that other novels are part of 616 - Dracula and Frankenstein most notably. At least some of the events of The War of the Worlds took place in 616. The Fu Manchu novels took place in 616 in some form, as do the Solomon Kane and Conan novel to comic adaptations. So did the Raffles and Sherlock Holmes stories. The conceit is always that the novels are slightly inaccurate accounts of real events. Ironically, it's easier to work older (public domain) stuff in, not just because copyright issues don't arise, but because in a world of colourfully clad superhumans, it is easier to explain their absence in historical stories - they just didn't exist yet. 

So, are they 616? Maybe. Certainly, in most cases there are no reasons they couldn't and shouldn't be, other than it seeming a little weird at first glance to have Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy co-existing alongside superheroes...when everyone knows they should be fighting zombies instead.




zuckyd1
Jun 30, 2013, 04:41 pm

What is Raffles' connection to 616?




Stuart V
Jun 30, 2013, 05:02 pm

zuckyd1 wrote:

What is Raffles' connection to 616?

He met the Whizzer back in All-Winners Comics #8.




Michael Regan
Jun 30, 2013, 06:54 pm

I had, oddly enough, forgotten about Conan and his solid connection with the Earth-616 reality, so that detailed explanation makes perfect sense. Thanks Stuart.




Zach Kinkead
Jul 1, 2013, 10:51 pm

Thanks, Stuart. I didn’t know that Iron Man/X-O comic existed.

I’ve been reading the Dresden Files books lately. It mostly avoids crossovers. Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and various comics (mostly Spider-Man) are all mentioned as being fictional. However the world does draw on a lot of the classic fantasy and horror that EVERYONE does and we’re told that the works of people like the Grimms and Lovecraft are at least partially true. Dracula is an especially interesting case; the monster existed in the Dresden universe but the Stoker book – which might be complete fiction – was commissioned by one group of vampires (incubi and succubi) as an instruction manual on how to kill a rival vampire species that were similar to the literary Dracula. 

PS: The Statue of Liberty from Amazing Adult Fantasy should totally join the Mighty Avengers since apparently that story is in continuity now.




Michael Regan
Jul 2, 2013, 08:26 am

Zach Kinkead wrote:

PS: The Statue of Liberty from Amazing Adult Fantasy should totally join the Mighty Avengers since apparently that story is in continuity now.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the Statue of Liberty fought off a race of giant aquatic humanoids which can be read about here: Undersea Giants (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/underseagiantsamfan.htm). The action was likely a one time event produced by unknown external forces.




Michael Regan
Jul 2, 2013, 12:38 pm

As I listen to the Doctor Who audio productions, I've just finished the 8th Doctor Adventure Sword of Orion where there has been an android war progressing in the Orion system. This may suggest a link to the film Blade Runner, but is more likely an homage to the 1982 film.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time ... to die"




Stuart V
Jul 2, 2013, 01:23 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

As I listen to the Doctor Who audio productions, I've just finished the 8th Doctor Adventure Sword of Orion where there has been an android war progressing in the Orion system. This may suggest a link to the film Blade Runner, but is more likely an homage to the 1982 film.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time ... to die"

It is unquestionably a reference to Blade Runner. Sword of Orion was originally recorded as a fan audio play with Nick Briggs as the Doctor (this version of the Doctor was later seen in the comics in Party Animals). And the audio visuals fan site (http://www.justyce.org/) has an interview with Nick Briggs regarding the story which includes this quote:
"That was very much in the flavour of Blade Runner... the idea of human beings rejecting androids and persecuting them. I thought, What if the androids got organized? The answer was, The Orion War!"




Michael Regan
Jul 2, 2013, 02:17 pm

And, asside from no solid references to indicate a shared reality, the time frame of the war is obviously a little to lengthy given that the events of Blade Runner take place in 2019 (Roy's action, at most 4 years earlier in 2015) and the events of Sword of Orion are in 2495, which believe led to the Cyber Wars which began in 2526. It is possible that the uprising took almost 500 years but not likely.




Stuart V
Jul 2, 2013, 03:01 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

And, asside from no solid references to indicate a shared reality, the time frame of the war is obviously a little to lengthy given that the events of Blade Runner take place in 2019 (Roy's action, at most 4 years earlier in 2015) and the events of Sword of Orion are in 2495, which believe led to the Cyber Wars which began in 2526. It is possible that the uprising took almost 500 years but not likely.

Yes, the mention is a homage rather than an attempt to link the two series. 

Thinking of the above reminds me that a solid link exists between Blake's 7 and Doctor Who. Chris Boucher, who wrote the Doctor Who story Robots of Death and script edited Blake's 7 for a while did a novel and then audio series sequel to Robots of Death called Kaldor City which featured a character called Carnell, a "psycho-strategist" - but Carnell previously appeared in a Blake's 7 story Boucher wrote, and in the audio plays he is portrayed by the same actor. In the audios another character, Kaston Iago, realises Carnell is an offworlder hiding out in Kaldor City from the Federation because there are no other psycho-strategists on Kaldor; it's an occupation peculiar to the Federation, something Iago knows because he is also a fugitive hiding out from them. Iago is played by Paul Darrow, who played Avon in Blake's 7, and he plays the character identically to how he played Avon, and he claims he killed the Butcher Of Zircaster, something Avon did in Blake's 7. Whether or not Iago is Avon, Carnell in Kaldor City is unquestionably the Carnell from Blake's 7.




Michael Regan
Jul 2, 2013, 03:22 pm

I've just barely gotten into the Big Finish audios, and for novels I have only read the first season's worth of adaptations, but that bit or trivia will certainly spur me on for more.

I have to watch Blake's 7 again as it is... been too long.




Zach Kinkead
Jul 2, 2013, 07:03 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

For those unfamiliar with the story, the Statue of Liberty fought off a race of giant aquatic humanoids which can be read about here: Undersea Giants (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/underseagiantsamfan.htm). The action was likely a one time event produced by unknown external forces.

...like the Ghostbusters 




Michael Regan
Jul 2, 2013, 07:27 pm

Zach Kinkead wrote:

...like the Ghostbusters

At least that had an explanation and was not completely random :stars:




Zach Kinkead
Jul 2, 2013, 07:34 pm

I figure the French gave us a giant copper golem as a Trojan horse and it decided it liked America better anyway … even if we did leave it out in the elements where it turned green.

USA! USA! USA!

Last edited by zuckyd1 (2/23/2020 9:55 am)

In Doctor Who Magazine #292, the Doctor encounters Esterath the Gatherer, "Keeper of the Omniversal Spectrum":

Note the "this is every multiverse, the totality of existence, the Omniversal Spectrum", which reinforces that the Omniverse is every reality; also note on the left that we've got an image from Amazing Spider-Man I#12, confirming 616 as part of said Omniverse. I know this isn't the first (or last) time the Doctor has crossed with 616 (heck, I've tried to document all of those, and there are a lot), but the context for this one is significant.