THE
WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE
Part II
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I own nearly all of J.T. Edson's novels and a brief glance revealed the following crossovers. I will have to re-read the books for further crossovers. All 135 novels occur in the same universe so I will list each series and any links between each other and any additional crossovers.
OLE DEVIL HARDIN SERIES (5 Books) The adventures of Ole Devil Hardin, Dusty Fog's uncle, during the Texan War of Independence (1836). No Crossovers.
THE CIVIL WAR SERIES (13 Books) The adventures of Ole Devil Hardin and the members of the Floating outfit during the American Civil War (1861 -1865). No Crossovers.
THE FLOATING OUTFIT SERIES (65 Books) The exploits of the Floating Outfit. This group consists of Dusty Fog, Mark Counter and the Ysabel Kid. This trio is joined by various others during the ten year span of the novels (1870 - 1880) such as Waco, Doc Leroy and Red Blaze. The Floating Outfit has had numerous crossovers and can be seen in the following novels:
The Ysabel Kid (1870) The Floating Outfit meet Cheyenne Bodie from the TV series Cheyenne.
Decision For Dusty Fog (1871) There is a reference to Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke. (Thanks to Mark Brown.)
Diamond, Emeralds, Cards and Colts (1871) The Floating Outfit meet Lord James Roxton, the father of Lord John Roxton.
The Code of Dusty Fog (1871) The Floating Outfit encounter Edmund Fagin, grandson to the Fagin in Oliver Twist, and Sir John Unglow Ramage, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Ramage (from the Ramage Series by Dudley Pope).
The Quest for Bowie's Blade (1874) The Ysabel Kid encounters Octavious Xavier "the Ox" Guilemont who makes reference to the first Professor Moriarty and to the Maltese Falcon.
"The School Teacher" in The Hard Riders and Master of Triggernometry (1874) The novel is an expansion of the earlier short story. Dusty Fog reveals that Mark Counter is a relative of Bret Maverick and makes reference to the events in the Maverick episode "Holiday at Hollow Rock."
"Comanche Blood" in The Hard Riders (1874) The Ysabel Kid meets Pedro, one of the heirs to the title of El Zorro.
THE WACO SERIES (7 books) About the adventures of former Floating outfit member Waco. No Crossovers.
THE CALAMITY JANE SERIES (12 books) The adventures of Calamity Jane, a friend of the Floating Outfit.
The crossovers take place in The Remittance Kid (1874) where Calamity Jane works with Lt. Ed Ballinger, Belle Boyd and Capt. Patrick Reeder. Thanks to the research of Philip José Farmer, Edson reveals that Ed Ballinger is the grandfather of Lt. Frank Ballinger the Head of M Squad. M Squad's adventures were made into a television series which appeared 1957-1960. Belle Boyd is revealed to be the Great Aunt of Jane Clayton, neé Porter, and Patrick Reeder is the uncle to J. G. Reeder, Edgar Wallace's most famous detective.
"Deadwood, August 2, 1876" in J.T.'s Hundredth The death of Wild Bill Hickock from Calamity Jane's point of view.
THE WAXAHACHIE SMITH SERIES (3 Books) Smith is an associate of the Floating Outfit and a former Texas Ranger.
No Finger on the Trigger (1882) Smith encounters Lord Maidstone, son of Horatio Hornblower, and Donald Garfew Beech, Head of the US Secret Service. Beech's grandson, Orville Garfew "Fluency" Beech met Doc Savage in Red Snow by Kenneth Robeson.
Cure The Texas Fever (1885) Waxahachie Smith works with the Floating Outfit and Theodore Roosevelt to protect those who can cure the Texas fever.
THE COMPANY Z SERIES (6 books) This series outlines the adventures of the grandsons of Dusty Fog, the Ysabel Kid and Mark Counter, (Alvin Fog, Mark Scrapton and Rance Smith respectively) in this extra-legal company of Texas Rangers.
You're A Texas Ranger, Alvin Fog (1922) This novel reveals that Company Z was set up on the advice of the Three Just Men (See The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace).
The Justice of Company Z (1923) Alvin Fog encounters Wilfred Plan, a descendant of Uriah Heep (from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens).
"Behind Locked and Bolted Door" in More J. T.'s Ladies (1924) Rita Yarborough of Company Z encounters Henry Arthur Milton, The Ringer (see The Ringer by Edgar Wallace). Edson suggests that The Ringer was in fact an early member of the "OO" section of the British Secret Service.
Cap Fog, Texas Ranger meet Mr J. G. Reeder, The Return of Rapido Clint and Mr J. G. Reeder and Rapido Clint Strikes Back (1928) This trilogy has Alvin Fog working with J. G. Reeder (see comment in The Remittance Kid) and they encounter John Wade, Leopold Moran, Oliver Rater (from The India Rubber Men, The Clue of the Silver Key and The Orator respectively. All novels are by Edgar Wallace). Fog and Reeder also meet Albert Henry "Bert the Jump Up" Fredricks (see Underworld Nights by Charles Raven). Reference is made to Albert Campion (Margery Allingham's detective) and Nicholas Ramage (see series by Dudley Pope).
THE ROCKABYE COUNTY SERIES (10 Books) This series is about the Rockabye County Sherrif's department, of whom Brad Counter, Mark Counter's grandson, is a member. No Crossovers.
MISCELLANEOUS TITLES (10 Books) Five of the ten books are collections of short stories, one celebrating J.T.'s hundredth book, three highlighting his female heroes and one the relatives of Mark Counter. Any relevant stories are dealt with in their respective sections. The remaining books are novels dealing with various friends and associates of the Floating Outfit.
The novel of interest is Blonde Genius (1973) where it is revealed that Amelia Benkinsop, who runs a Girl's School, worked in group thirteen with Armand John and Hazel Drummond-Clayton (Korak's son and daughter-in-law, parents of Dawn Drummond-Clayton). Miss Benkinsop also refers to playing bridge with M (Admiral Sir Miles Messervy) and James Bond last spring. Whilst this reference would appear to be to Moonraker, a 1952 dating does not appear to fit in with other references in the text to the 1970s. It would appear based on Win Eckert's James Bond Chronology that this took place just prior to the events of John Pearson's James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007. This therefore reveals that the three School Swot stories all take place in 1973. "Fifteen the Hard Way" in J.T.'s Ladies has no such references but the third School Swot story "A Case of Blackmail" in J.T.'s Ladies Ride Again refers to testing a high speed engine developed for "Mailed Fist," which is M's telegraph name.
All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2000-2004 by the author, Brad Mengel. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.
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(With lots of help from the New Wold Newton Meteoritics Society)
INTRODUCTION
In his biography of Doc Savage, Philip Jose Farmer comments on the lack of great villains in the Doc Savage stories of the 1940s: "During World War II these seemed to have been thinned out. Either the depression years had been a sort of renaissance, a time of fruition of great villains and gadgets, or else Doc had liquidated so many that the others had decided not to try their luck against him. Or they may have felt that they could not compete with the master villain, Hitler." Farmer's comment is very much on target. From the time of the entry of the United States into the Second World War, the great heroes whose adventures were fictionalized in pulp magazines, comic books, movies, and radio dramas began to focus more and more attention on the Nazi menace.
Even in a world filled with the likes of Professor Moriarty, Carl Peterson, John Sunlight, Shiwan Khan, Lex Luthor, and Dr. Fu Manchu it is Adolf Hitler who dominates the field of villainy. Perhaps it was because he had the resources of a mighty nation behind of him, or perhaps it was the scope of his atrocities, which caused more death and terror than anything his contemporaries ever even planned.
Hitler considered himself a 'man of destiny' and that title was more appropriate that even he imagined, though he seems an unlikely choice. A huge number of forces attempting history cross paths in the mad Fuhrer's life. Secret conspiracies, alien powers, occult influences, and the greatest heroes and villains of the age all had an impact on his life, and he on theirs. The result is a bewildering tangle of situations which this article will attempt to untangle.
PRELUDE
c. 500-200 B.C.
A group of aliens from the planet Krundar arrive on the earth with the intent of cultivating humans as a food source. It is not clear whether they eat the bodies or feed off of the emotion of terror associated with violent death (the fact that they eventually want to use nuclear warfare to accomplish their mass slaughter argues for the latter). The exact date of their arrival is uncertain, but in 1974 one of the Krundai admits that they have been here for over 2000 years, and that they had a hand in the assassination of Julius Caesar. (CCS)
c. 33 A.D.
Izram, who claims to be the 13th disciple of Jesus, forms the secret "Brotherhood of the Lamb" to prepare for the apocalypse. To do this the Brotherhood keeps close track of Casca, the immortal soldier, whose death will signal the second coming of Christ. The group also works to cause Casca as much suffering as possible for his part in the crucifixion. Over the centuries they will become a tremendously powerful force behind world events. The Brotherhood is also fanatically anti-Semitic and seeks the extermination of the Jews. They will be instrumental in the formation of the Spanish Inquisition, the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party, among others. (CPS)
C. 1100 A.D.
The Krundai known as Broodseven-Sub-Two-Raksha is born on earth. (CCS)
1885
An occult cabal known as the Seven are broken up by the heroic Jack Sparks and his friend Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle. Their plan had been to summon a supernatural being of malign power into the body of a newborn child to dominate the earth. (LOS)
BIOGRAPHY
1889
On April 20, Adolf Hitler is born to Alois and Klara Hitler in Brunnau am Inn, Austria- Hungary. It is implied that he is the recipient of the demonic spirit that the remnants of the Seven had finally managed to summon. (LOS)
Since Broodseven-Sub-Two-Raksha also claims to have been Hitler, it seems logical to assume that his disembodied alien intellect is the actual 'demon' raised by the Seven. This may place him and the Krundai into the category of 'servitor races' for the Great Old Ones of Lovecraftian lore. The dread Nyarlothotep in particular seems to have a modus operandi which parallels that of the aliens. (In separate accounts Nyarlothotep and the Krundai are each credited with giving the secrets of nuclear warfare to the immature human race.) (CCS)
Hitler's possession by an alien allied with the Elder Gods could go a long way toward explaining his obsession with the occult. From the point of view of such a being, 'magical' artifacts could be seen as channels of vast extra-dimensional power.
1890
Alois and Klara Hitler take the infant Adolf to visit Reichenbach Falls. Conan Doyle also is there that day visiting the spot where his friend Jack Sparks, and his evil brother Alexander Sparks, are thought to have died. (LOS)
In a bizarre case of history paralleling itself another acquaintance of Doyle's went over the Falls the very next year. Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his arch-foe Professor James Moriarty supposedly both perished there in 1891. While Holmes never actually made the plunge, Moriarty and the Sparks brothers all did and were later found to have survived it. Apparently (in the Wold Newton Universe anyway) the 300 foot Falls are almost completely safe to go over.
1903
Alois Hitler dies, though he leaves his widow and son a reasonable pension.
1908
Klara Hitler dies in terrible pain while being treated for breast cancer.
1914
Hitler enlists in the German Army at the outbreak of the First World War.
1914
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson infiltrate German lines by passing through 'no-man's land.' They briefly encounter Corporal Hitler who almost exposes them accidentally. Watson considers shooting Hitler, but Holmes manages to bluff their way through. He later comments that they have more important things to do that Christmas Day than to kill a minor German soldier. (HB) (There is a slight error in this story when Hitler identifies himself as Kaporal Schicklegruber. Alois Hitler was illegitimate and used his mother's maiden of Schicklegruber for a time. In 1876 though, Alois was legitimated and gained the legal right to use the name Hitler. Adolf himself never used any name but Hitler. The name Schicklegruber was revived by his political enemies in the 1930s.)
1918
Corporal Hitler is wounded in combat and spends the final months of the war in a hospital.
1919
Hitler joins the fledgling German Worker's Party. At about this time the alien entity known as the Timewyrm probes Hitler's mind. She is looking for a way to harm her enemy Doctor Who by destroying the earth he loves. The Timewyrm does not expect Hitler's mind to be so powerful, and is trapped in it. Her personality is almost completely submerged, but Hitler has a subconscious access to her vast telepathic power and uses it to become an even more compelling speaker. (TWE)
1920
Hitler rises to the head of propaganda for the party, which has assumed the new name of the 'Nationalsozialistische Deutche Arbeiterpartei' or 'Nazis' for short. The Brotherhood of the Lamb sees great potential in the party, and in Hitler. They infiltrate their members into key positions of leadership. The Brotherhood wants to use the Nazi movement as an experiment to help them towards their eventual goal of the world-wide rule of global Church. They are also interested in seeing how effective such a movement can be in eliminating the Jews. (CPS)
A group of aliens known as the War Lords also sees great potential in Hitler. They set themselves up as an occult group known as the 'Black Coven' and begin to manipulate him. Their ally, a renegade Time Lord known as the War Chief uses a 'psionic amplifier' to enhance the effect of Hitler's speeches even more. (Eventually the chief rivals of the Black Coven will be Hermann Goerring, who is not allied to a conspiracy, and Heinrich Himmler, who is a member of the Brotherhood of the Lamb.) (TWE)
1921
The party forms a group of brown-shirted stormtroopers known as the SA. Led by Ernst Rohm, the SA are responsible for carrying out the strong arm tactics of the Nazi Party.
1923 November
Hitler leads the unsuccessful coup known as the 'Beer Hall Putsch.' He is arrested for his part in this revolt and is sentenced to five years in prison. Though he is not yet a party member, Heinrich Himmler participates in the Putsch. Himmler is secretly a high-ranking member of the 'Brotherhood of the Lamb' and will be their agent guiding Hitler throughout the war. He will officially join the Nazi's in 1925. (CPS) A Nazi marching banner used during the putsch becomes becomes tattered and bloody during the scuffle. It will become known as the 'Blood-flag' and will be treated as the Nazi's most sacred relic. It is thought that whoever holds the banner will be responsible for the eventual fall of the Soviet Union. (RST) The Seventh Doctor and his companion Ace are present to witness the Putsch. When Hitler falls and badly dislocates his shoulder, the Doctor sets it for him and affirms that it will be his destiny to lead Germany. As the Doctor leaves the scene he narrowly avoids an assassination attempt by the War Chief, who is now using the alias 'Dr. Kreigsleiter.' (TWE)
1924
Hitler is released after having served nine months of his sentence. He has used the time to compose his book of memoirs, called Mein Kampf.
1925
The SS is formed as a small personal bodyguard for Hitler.
1930
The Nazi's win sweeping victories in political elections this year, becoming the second most powerful party in Germany. In New York a brilliant and progressive social worker named Edith Keeler dies in a traffic accident. Had she been saved, she would have started a peace movement that would have kept America out of the war long enough to allow Hitler to win. (COEF)
1931
Jonas Sown tests his emotion control machine in Manchuria, resulting in a brutal Japanese incursion into the region. (TFF)
1932
Hitler loses the presidential election to von Bismarck. He is offered several lesser offices as a conciliatory gesture but refuses them all saying that he will only accept being made Chancellor.
1933 January
Hitler is offered, and accepts, the position of chancellor.
February 27
A fire is set in the Reichstag by communist agitators. Hitler uses the opportunity to consolidate his power.
March 23
Hitler unifies the offices of president and chancellor. From this point on he will be known simply as the Fuhrer (leader.)
1934 June 29
In the incident known as 'the Night of the Long Knives' Hitler has his rival Rohm executed and breaks the power of the SA in favor of the SS.
1936 January
The Seventh Doctor and his companion Mel meet a young German scientist named Emil Hartung in Cairo. A few chance remarks in conversation get Hartung thinking about the possibilities of jet propulsion and stealth technology. (JW)
Hitler's plans to secure the lost Ark of the Covenant are thwarted by the heroic archaeologist Indiana Jones. (RLA)
Jonas Sown continues testing his emotion controlling machine, this time in Spain. The machine again succeeds and provokes extreme brutality at the outbreak of the civil war. (FF)
August
Pat Savage, impersonating a deceased female Nazi officer, misses her chance to rid the world of Hitler. (OP)
October
Hitler meets with Mussolini and declares the Rome-Berlin Axis.
1937
The immortal Casca is living in Berlin under the assumed name 'Carl Langer.' He finds the city delightful and will join the German Panzercorps hoping to defend it. Like many German soldiers he believes that Stalin will bring the forces of Asia storming through Europe like a new Genghis Khan. He has strong distaste for Nazi Party (especially for the SS) but dismisses their vicious anti-Semitism as meaningless propaganda. In his mind there is no way the horrible things Hitler proposes could possibly be true. (CPS)
1938
Hitler travels secretly to Venice to meet with Mussolini. While there he is kidnaped by Dr. Fu Manchu, who feels that the actions of the fascist countries are interfering with his own plans for world domination. (DFM) This story is highly fictionalized (as is revealed in the sequel). In it, Hitler is killed when he refuses to bow to the will of the Devil Doctor. Mussolini is so terrified by this show of strength that he abandons his own territorial expansion. What really happened remains a mystery. Presumably Nayland Smith and his allies managed to rescue the Fuhrer. Nayland Smith seems unusually helpless to thwart the diabolical doctor in this story and might have needed an especially potent ally. Could Roosevelt have decided that Fu Manchu was an even greater threat than Hitler and resolved to rescue him? If so, then Doc Savage might have been the most logical choice for an agent. As a public figure who did not work in secrecy and shadows Doc would have been much easier for the government to locate with the job. Doc could have accepted, secretly planning to use his 'crime college' technique on Hitler. The brain surgery could have eliminated Hitler's mania and saved the lives of millions. If Doc Savage did accept this assignment, things went wrong somehow. Perhaps the titanic duel between the Man of Bronze and the Devil Doctor came to a stalemate allowing Hitler to slip away unmolested. Perhaps Doc succeeded and Hitler's alien mentality made the surgery ineffective. All we can know for certain is that Hitler managed to escape the clutches of Fu Manchu and return to Germany, apparently none the worse for the experience.
Hitler's troops occupy Austria and annex Czechoslovakia. The young Graf (Count) Ulrich von Bek is imprisoned for bring a Christian who dares to speak out against the Nazi party. He is shortly released through the intervention of well-meaning friends, and begins plotting the assassination of Hitler. (DOS)
Stinging from his recent abduction Hitler decides to create the "perfect Nazi" an agent filled with such hate and cunning that he will be free from human weakness. At a meeting of his chief officers he tells them that he can take a common bellboy and transform him into a greater Nazi than any of them. On completion of his training the bellboy in question, one Johann Schmidt, is given the costumed identity of the 'Red Skull' and places him in charge of all operations using terror. (CA)
At a huge rally, Hitler accidentally autographs the 'Grail Dairy' of noted archaeologist, Henry Jones, Sr., In doing so he fails to recognize Indiana Jones, the man who will go on to foil his minions in their own quest for the Grail. (IJLC)
November 9-10
On a pretext, Hitler launches a day of brutal anti-Jewish violence across the Nazi occupied countries. Known as 'Kristallnacht' or 'the Night of Broken Glass' this incident signaled a major escalation of brutality against the Jews.
1939
Ulrich von Bek fails in his attempt to assassinate Hitler. In an attempt to elude the Gestapo by sorcerous means he ends up in the extra-dimensional land called the Maaschanheem. Here he meets John Daker, an incarnation of the Eternal Champion who is destined to keep the multiversal balance between order and chaos. (DOS)
Sir Denis Nayland Smith locates and destroys Fu Manchu's secret base in Haiti. So much of the Devil Doctor's equipment and manpower are lost in this adventure that he is effectively neutralized until after the end of the War. (IFM)
August 24
Hitler negotiates a non- aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
September 1
Hitler orders the invasion of Poland. This action is almost immediately followed by the declaration of war on Germany by France and England beginning the Second World war in Europe. Jonas Sown claims credit for the war, saying that Hitler's decision to invade was prompted by his emotion controlling device. (TFF)
September 3
The Seventh Doctor and Ace reappear in Germany. Hitler recognizes the man who helped and encouraged him at the Putsch and takes him on as an advisor. The Doctor uncovers the schemes of the 'Black Coven' and Dr. Kreigsleiter and they are killed in the conflict. The Doctor also teaches Hitler to control the awesome power of the Timewyrm, making him incredibly powerful. (TWE)
C. 1940
Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler perform an occult ritual in the hidden vaults beneath Nuremburg Castel which summons the Holy Grail. Before they can use it, the Grail is taken from them by Daker and von Bek. (DOS)
May
The Nazis win an overwhelming victory over the French and British armies. The British troops at Dunkirk seem to be doomed, but the ground attack they fear never materializes and they are able to safely evacuate across the English Channel. The night of the Dunkirk evacuation, the Seventh Doctor and Ace come to Hitler a final time. The Doctor frees Hitler from the Timewyrm's influence and scatters its essence through time and space. Without the entity's power Hitler becomes unstable and disoriented. He lets his opportunity to crush the British army slip away. (TWE)
June 14
Following the successful invasions of Norway, the Low Countries and France, the Germans roll into Paris. American adventurer Rick Blaine is separated from lover Ilsa Lund and forced to flee to Northern Africa. He remembers the day well, Ilsa wore blue, the Germans wore grey.
July
A Nazi spy called Boling parachutes into the Sussex area of England disguised as a British soldier. His job is to activate a ring of 'sleeper agents' in England who will form a combat regiment and establish a beachhead for invasion in the sparsely populated area. Unfortunately for him Boling lands near the Sussex home of a certain beekeeper who is also the world's first, and greatest, consulting detective. Boling is uncovered and the ring smashed before they can ever get started. (BOH)
July 16
The massive aerial bombardment of London known as the 'Battle of Britain' begins. The sustained attack will last until September, but will fail to break the British.
September 27
The Japanese ally themselves with Italy and Germany to form the 'Tripartite Axis.'
October
The immortal Highlander Duncan MacLeod is in London at this time and loses the woman he loves, reporter Diane Tirren in a Nazi bombing raid. (BLTZ)
1941 April
The Shadow is able to place an agent inside Hitler's inner circle who will feed him false astrological predictions to disrupt his war plans. (HA)
May 10
Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland to negotiate peace with Great Britain. This bizarre miscalculation lands Hess in a British prison and deprives Hitler of his closest aide. Hess's decision to travel to Britain seems to have been prompted by the false astrological predictions of the Shadow's agent. (HA)
June 22
Hitler begins "Operation Barbarossa" and attacks the Soviet Union. This forces Germany to fight a war on two fronts, a move that proves disastrous. This decision may also have been influenced by the Shadow's agent, or it may be the influence of Jonas Sown's emotion controlling machine. In either case, it seems likely that the alien intellect possessing Hitler would not have not made such a grand blunder were it not for some outside influence. (HA; FF)
Carl Langer (Casca) is a non-commissioned officer in the panzer corps assigned to the Russian front. (CPS)
Nazi agents fail in an attempt to steal an invisibility formula from Frank Raymond, the grandson of the original Invisible man. Raymond feels that the formula is too dangerous for anyone to use and refuses to give it to the Allies either. (IA)
December
Resistance spokesman Victor Lazlo and his wife Ilsa Lund arrive in Casablanca fleeing the Nazis. They encounter Rick Blaine who has opened a thriving local nightclub called "Rick's Caf‚ Americaine." With Rick's help, Lazlo and Ilsa are able to fly to freedom. (CB)
December 6
An unexpected Soviet counter attack makes it clear that there will be no quick victory on the Russian front.
December 7
Hitler's Japanese allies bomb Pearl harbor, bringing the United States into the War. As soon as knowledge of the attack is made public, thousands of young Americans rush to enlist. Among these are two young men named Frank Rock and Steve Rogers. Rock is inducted and soon becomes a Sargent but Rogers is rejected as unfit for combat. Fortunately, Rogers is recruited as a test subject for the experimental 'Project Super Soldier.' He is given treatments that boost his physical capabilities to the peak of human possibility and assigned the costumed identity of 'Captain America.' Convinced by Pearl Harbor that he must fight the Axis powers no matter the risk, Frank Raymond places himself and the invisibility formula at the disposal of the allies. (IA)
December
The Seventh Doctor and his companions Bennie, Chris and Roz arrive in England to defeat the secret 'wonder-weapon' that Emil Hartung is building on the occupied Guernsey Island. The weapon proves to be a pair of jet propelled 'stealth' bombers using technologies forty years in advance of their time. The bombers are primitive by modern standards but could have swung the balance of the war. (JW)
1942
After being rendered invisible, Frank Raymond infiltrates behind German lines and steals vital war plans from Hitler's headquarters. (IA)
March 29
Hitler approves Operation Double Strike and sends several Schatten Kreigers (Shadow Warriors) to infiltrate and cause havoc among America's gangdom, and to kidnap President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Green Hornet and Kato, The Shadow, Captain America, the Yankee Commando, and Colonel Nick Fury all play their parts in foiling Hitler's plans. (SGH)
June 4
Rick Blaine, Ilsa Lund and Victor Lazlo are reunited to participate in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. Known as "the Hangman," Heydrich had been known for arranging mass executions in the occupied territories. He was the only one of Hitler's chief officers who was successfully assassinated. (ATGB)
The Germans suffer a defeat at El Alamein which signals the turning point of the war in North Africa.
1943
Hitler's power and ambition grow to the point that the Brotherhood of the Lamb feels that they have lost control of him. (Given the many influences at play in Hitler's life it is probably wishful thinking on the part of the Brotherhood that they ever had control in the first place.) (CPS)
February 2
The Battle of Stalingrad, which has been waged since the Summer of the previous year, is won by Soviet forces. This signals a turning point in the war on the Eastern Front.
July 5- August 23
Casca is involved in the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in human history. The Germans are soundly defeated and begin to retreat before the long Soviet offensive toward Berlin. On the retreat Casca learns more and more about the brutality of the concentration camps and the plan for the Holocaust. (CPS)
1944 January
Hitler adopts a disguise and puts a double named Ludorff (a shoe merchant from Mindin) In his place. His plan is to have the double assassinated hoping that his "martyrdom" will drive the German military into enough of a frenzy to overwhelm the allies. The plot is ruined when Doc Savage captures the disguised Fuhrer. (HM/VN) This is another story in which the full truth has yet to be told. Even Doc seems uncertain whether the captured man is actually Hitler by the end of the novel. There was no assassination of the supposed double, nor was there the triumphant press that would certainly accompany Hitler's capture. Perhaps this wasn't Hitler at all and the whole thing was an unsuccessful ruse to lure Savage into a position where he could be captured or killed. Then again, perhaps the story was true, but Hitler was rescued and returned to Germany before the Allies could do anything with him. SS commando Otto Skorzeny had accomplished something very similar with the imprisoned Mussolini in 1943, and the Red Skull had managed similarly 'impossible' coups on several occasions.
June 6
The allies invade Normandy on what is code-named 'D-Day.' Among the 156,000 troops landing at Omaha Beach that day are Sgt. Rock and Easy Company.
July 20
A group of Hitler's own officers unsuccessfully attempt to assassinate him by planting a bomb in a staff meeting at his headquarters in East Prussia. The Fuhrer survives, despite the fact that Duncan MacLeod and fellow immortal Ingrid Henning are a part of the attempt. (VLK)
December 16
Hitler orders a final offensive on the Western Front to push the allies out of German territories. The resulting conflict is known as "the Battle of the Bulge" and lasts until January 16, 1945 when the German lines crumble. Though it is not obvious to the humans involved, the fighting has opened a spacial- temporal rift which threatens the existence of the faerie realm. The faeries are native to earth but can function in more dimensions of time-space than humans can. Essentially, they are to us what we would be to two-dimensional creatures. This gives them perceptions and abilities which seem magical to us. Their physical substance is based on electro-magnetism rather than physical matter, a fact which renders them vulnerable to iron. The Doctor and his British companions refer to these beings by the Celtic name of 'the Sidhe' but this is not the only name they go by. A Polish-American G.I. calls them "leshies", a G.I. who grew up on the Hopi Reservation calls them "Kachinas" and an S.S. officer calls them "light and dark elves." The rogue king of these beings contacts leaders in both the American and German forces and begins using them to his own ends. The king is called Oberon in this story. His true name is unpronounceable to humans but it seems likely that he is identical to Ixnayalpay who had earlier made a pact with Hitler. (AM)
December 15
The eighth Doctor and his companions Sam and Fitz arrive in the midst of the Battle of the Bulge. There they are able to seal the rift that is endangering the Sidhe and thwart the sinister plans of Oberon. (AM)
1945
Allies and the Soviets close on Berlin. Thoroughly disillusioned with the Nazis, Casca deserts and saves a Jewish woman from her SS interrogators. The two become guerilla fighters, preying on SS troops until Casca is finally captured.
In a final, desperate attempt to pull victory out of defeat through magical means, Hitler sends agents to Ireland to obtain the Spear of Destiny. This is thought to be the spear which pierced the side of the crucified Christ and is said to ensure victory in war to whomever possesses it. Fortunately Indiana Jones again foils Hitler's agents and the spear never makes it to Germany. (IJSD)
Elements in the German government realize that Hitler has become unstable and hire the Master of Sinanju to kill him. (LT)
In a final, desperate attempt to pull victory out of defeat through technological means, Hitler dispatches the Red Skull to the Gotham City to steal a prototype atom bomb. Fortunately, the Skull and his criminal ally the Joker are defeated by Batman and Captain America. (BCA)
Casca is brought to Berlin to meet Hitler, and learns that both the Fuhrer and Himmler are members of the 'Brotherhood of the Lamb.' Hitler is impressed by Casca and believes this meeting is a certain sign that he is as much a 'man of destiny' as was Jesus. Hitler is shocked when Casca insists that Jesus was a Jew, not an Aryan as he believes. On giving his oath that he will not kill him, Himmler grants Casca liberty and weapons to fight the advancing Russians and is told to return on April 30. (CPS)
The Red Skull apparently perishes in a final conflict with Captain America. The two are fighting in a hidden bunker when Allied bombs cause the shelter to collapse. Shortly thereafter, Captain America's young sidekick Bucky is killed and Cap thrown into suspended animation in the North Sea as they stop a final V-2 from bombing London.
There is a large convergence of attempts to assassinate Hitler. It is difficult to sort them all out, but this seems a likely order: The OSS makes a number of attempts on Hitler's life, but they all fail. American agent Matt Helm is aware of three of the attempts but does not volunteer himself. He knows that the job cannot be done, at least not by him. (DOC) One of the assassins may have been Richard Wentworth, a.k.a. the Spider. (See related article) If this is the case Wentworth also fails but is the only allied assassin to survive.
Casca returns to Hitler's bunker in Germany where he is called to bear witness to Hitler's death as he had to that of Jesus. At the moment of suicide Hitler's nerve fails. He holds off on taking poison and asks Casca if he will tell people about him. Casca says "No!" and kills the Fuhrer. As he escapes the besieged Berlin he is haunted by a vision of the crucified Jesus in a burning building. (CPS)
Broodseven-Sub-Two-Raksha is released from Hitler's body and resumes his true form. Though he is physically unharmed the events of his life as Hitler have shaken him psychically. It may be that the many outside forces acting on him have damaged his alien psyche, allowing him to feel guilt for the horror he has perpetrated. He begins a long process of soul-searching. (CCS)
Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, arrives in Berlin where he finds that Hitler is already dead. He is told that the dictator committed suicide because he feared the Master's coming, and that the Germans are no longer willing to pay him for his services as an assassin. He is outraged by this barbaric attitude! (LT)
POSTLUDE
1945
Nazism is shattered, but not totally destroyed at the end of the war. The Krundai conspiracy is unharmed, the Brotherhood of the Lamb is also intact and consider the War to have been a successful experiment in their anti-Semitic campaign. A new group called 'Odessa' forms from the ashes of the Third Reich. The leaders of Odessa possess much of the Nazi wealth smuggled out of the country and the 'Blood Flag.' They immediately begin plotting to destroy the Soviet Union. (RST)
There are strange rumors about Hitler. One says that 'They Saved Hitler's Brain.' Another says that Dr. Josef Mengle, infamous for his brutal experiments involving twins in the concentration camps, has preserved samples of the Fuhrer's genetic material. With these samples, it is thought that Mengle and his allies hope to clone Hitler. These rumors however are unconfirmed. Four days after Hitler's apparent death in the bunker Sgt. Rock is captured by Nazi forces in Berlin. Rock is saved from execution by Allied shelling but not before he sees a man who he is certain is Hitler, alive and well. (B&B) Jonas Sown is tracked to the Philippines by Doc Savage and apparently perishes in the conflict. It is later revealed that Sown survived and was secretly held by the American government until he effected his escape. (SM)
1948
1948 Sgt. Rock, now stationed in Greece again sights the man he believes to be Hitler. Rock tries to shoot the man, but he escapes. (B&B)
1949
Doc Savage encounters Jonas Sown a last time. The villain has relocated to Japan and is planning to use a new device to precipitate World War Three. The villain perishes in this final conflict though, again, his body is never recovered. (FF)
1950
Sgt. Rock sights and loses the man he believes to be Hitler a third time, this time in South America. (B&B)
c. 1953
Rock encounters the man he believes to be Hitler in Paris and fails in an attempt to kill him. This incident costs the legendary war hero a court marshal. (B&B)
1956
Rock teams with the Batman (Bruce Wayne) in his final encounter with the man he thinks is Hitler. The man no longer resembles the Fuhrer physically and has some unusual abilities. He seems to be able to change his appearance at will, eludes Batman and Rock at every turn with supernatural ease, and pierces Batman's secret identity with no apparent effort. Batman's own theory is the man is not Hitler at all but Satan, the very embodiment of evil. (B&B)
Another possibility that Batman and Rock do not have enough information to speculate on is that the man is the alien Broodseven-Sub-Two-Raksha. If Rock had somehow formed a psychic link of some kind with Raksha then he could have recognized him in several different host bodies over the years. Also, the 'diabolic' powers evinced by the mysterious old man would have been easy for a being of Raksha's power and resources to duplicate. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing which, if any, or these speculations is correct.
1965
Captain America is found floating frozen in an iceberg by Batman (Richard Grayson). He is revived and returns to action. (BCA)
1966
The Red Skull is found and revived by criminal scientists. It seems that the bunker had contained canisters of a secret gas that acted to place the Skull in a state of suspended animation. He resumes his struggle against Captain America, but this has been so highly fictionalized that his final fate is not known. (TOS)
1974 October 31
Broodseven-Sub-Two-Raksha confesses his sins in a small bar known as "Callahan's." Unable to muster the will to help the humans he has preyed on, he commits suicide. (CCS) The alien being known as 'Mickey Finn' locates and destroys the rest of the Krundai on earth. Finn is a regular at "Callahan's." (CCS)
1988
The Soviet Union, which Hitler considered his greatest enemy, succumbs to economic crisis and dissolves into many independent republics. This fall has been carefully orchestrated by the Odessa organization fulfilling the prophecy that whoever held the Nazi 'Blood Flag' would destroy the Soviets. (RST)
1998
The leaders of Odessa are killed by agents of the secret society known as the 'Millennium Group' and the Blood Flag is burned. (RST)
2264
Dr. Leonard McCoy is accidentally transported back in time to 1930 where he alters history by saving Edith Keeler's life. (COEF) Captain James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock follow McCoy back in time and restore history by allowing Keeler, with whom Kirk has fallen in love, to die. (COEF)
NOTES
Dr. Who is not native to the Wold Newton Universe. He is a traveler in time and space whose journeys occasionally bring him into the WNU, but most of his adventures take place in another continuity.
Ulrich Von Bek and John Dakar are multi-dimensional travelers who hop from universe to universe. The assumption that Von Bek's home universe is the WNU is purely speculative and there is only a tentative link establishing the possibility. Von Bek once met Elric of Melnibone, Elric once met Karl Edward Wagner's immortal warrior Kane, and Kane once met Simon of Gitta who is an established member of the Wold Newton Universe.
The Master of Sinanju and Matt Helm are only tentatively linked to the Wold-Newton Universe at this writing. Their inclusion in this timeline is speculative.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to all of the following:
Mark Brown for background on Von Bek and the Eternal Champion stories and for the Red Skull/Captain America background information
Loki Carbis for information on the Callahan's stories (see also the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon Chronology by Loki Carbis)
Win Eckert for The List of 7 and for help with the Doc Savage and Shadow material (and for publishing this article)
Greg Gick for all of the Doctor Who references
Andrew Henry for background on Casca and Doc Savage
KEY
I. Novels and Short Stories
ATGB = As Time Goes By by Michael Walsh
BOH = "But Our Hero Was Not Dead" by Manly Wade Wellman, collected in The Game is Afoot
CCS = "Unnatural Causes" by Spider Robinson, collected in Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
CPS = Casca: The Panzer Soldier by Barry Sadler
DFM = The Drums of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer
DOC = Death of a Citizen by Donald Hamilton
DOS = "The Dragon on the Sword" by Michael Moorcock, collected in Von Bek.
FF = Doc Savage: The Frightened Fish by Kenneth Robeson (Will Murray)
HM = Doc Savage: The Hate Master (originally published as Violent Night) by Kenneth Robeson (Lester Dent)
IFM = The Island of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer
JW = The New Doctor Who Adventures: Just War by Lance Parkin
LOS = The List of Seven by Mark Frost
LT = The Destroyer #27: The Last Temple by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir (This is only the first of several references to Hilter's death in the series)
SHHB = Sherlock Holmes and the Hellbirds by Austin Mitchelson and Nicholas Utechin
SM = Doc Savage: The Screaming Man by Kenneth Robeson (Will Murray)
TWE = The New Doctor Who Adventures: Timewyrm - Exodus by Terrance Dicks
II. Movies
CB = "Casablanca" directed by Michael Curtiz (1942)
IA = "Invisible Agent" directed by Edwin L. Marin (1942)
IJLC = "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" directed by Steven Spielberg (1989)
RLA = "Raiders of the Lost Ark" directed by Steven Spielberg (1981)
III. Comic Books and Graphic Novels
BCA = Batman and Captain America by John Byrne, DC Comics & Marvel Comics
B&B = The Brave and the Bold #108, Bob Haney and Jim Aparo, DC Comics
CA = "Captain America Comics #1" by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Timely Comics
HA = Hitler's Astrologer by Denny O'Neil and Michael Kaluta, Marvel Comics
IJSD = Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny Dark Horse Comics
OP = The Olympic Peril, Doc Savage Annual #1, Mike W. Barr and Gabriel Morrissette, DC Comics, 1989
SGH = Sting of the Green Hornet, Ron Fortier and Jeff Butler, Now Comics, 1992
TOS = "Tales of Suspense" #72 July, 1966 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Marvel Comics
IV. Television Programs
COEF = "The City on the Edge of Forever" episode of "Star Trek" Original airdate 04/06/1967
BLTZ = "The Blitz" episode of "Highlander: The Series" Original airdate 04/12/1995
VLK = "The Valkyrie" episode of "Highlander: The Series" Original airdate 05/10/1998
RST = "Roosters" an episode of "Millennium" Original airdate 03/06/1998
All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2000-2004 by the author, Matthew Baugh. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.
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According to Philip José Farmer, John Clayton, 8th Duke of Greystoke, and his spouse, one Jane Porter Clayton of Baltimore, had two sons, one by birth, (John Paul Clayton) and one by adoption, (John "Korak" Drummond).
To our knowledge no other offspring were born. At least none were mentioned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Philip José Farmer, Fritz Lieber, or any other writers who have chronicled the adventures of the Jungle Lord. And yet this seems strange considering in that period of time, large families were very much the style, especially a family such as the Greystokes, possessing unlimited wealth, and according to some (including their main biographer), unlimited youth and vigor.
It is hard to believe that such a couple would procreate once, then stop, but as stated before, no other offspring have been brought to light. One possible reason could be that the radiation in the genes of this family tree could have caused a semi-sterilization, limiting the number of offspring one could produce, but one look at the family chart made by Farmer, which shows the multitude of issue by the 12th Baron Tennington, makes this unlikely. Another possibility is that Tarzan and his mate did not do much mating, again very doubtful.
I propose that the Greystokes did indeed have other children, but kept them a secret, which is understandable, considering that their natural son was kidnapped as an infant, and their foster son was lured into running away by old enemies.
A child of Tarzan and Jane would most likely have black hair (like father) or blonde hair (like mother), the eyes, probably gray.
I have found one such candidate so far, and she is female and quite an adventurer in her own right, (albeit as aide to another member of the Wold Newton Family). The woman is Nellie Gray, member of the Avenger’s team, Justice Inc. She is blonde, has gray eyes, is a great fighter, and has been known to swing from tree to tree. (Quote from Avenger #15 House of Death, CHAPTER XVII "Hells Hoot": "Carmillia’s screams kept sounding, because she and Nellie had not plunged down with the rest of the stuff. And that was due to Nellie’s almost super human agility. As had been demonstrated when she had outwitted the Mastiff, she was trained in traveling high among branches of trees.")
In the second recorded adventure of Mr. Richard Henry Benson (The Avenger) titled The Golden Hoard, an archeologist named Archer Gray is murdered, and his "daughter" seeks out the Avenger to, well, avenge him. Eventually Nellie joins Benson and Co., becoming a valuable friend and ally. But how can Ms. Gray be the daughter of Tarzan, when it is clearly stated that she is the daughter of Prof. Archer Gray?
Lets go back to the year 1919 (if Nellie Gray is indeed the daughter of Tarzan, one might place her birth circa 1915-17. My source is The Yellow Horde by Kenneth Robeson, Chapter II "Television Workout." Quote: "One a little boy with black hair, came out with a girl of twenty three or so." According to Mr. Eckert’s chronology for The Avenger, this adventure took place in 1938, so simple math indicates the aforementioned date, placing her birth in between Tarzan the Untamed and Tarzan the Terrible, which is impossible since Tarzan and Jane were separated for several years then. I put forth that Kenneth Robeson (pen name for Paul Ernst) added about three years to Ms. Gray, and her actual age was twenty, which places her birth circa 1919, not to long after Tarzan and Jane’s reunion (and I dare someone to say the Claytons didn’t procreate after such a long separation).
As stated before, in all likelihood, the birth of another child to Lord and Lady Greystoke would have been known to only a few, close friends such as Paul D’Arnot, Hazel Strong (Jane’s best friend), Esmerelda (Jane’s nanny), Muviri, Busili, and other members of the Waziri tribe, who visited the Greystoke plantation in Kenya. With such a veil of secrecy, one would think that such a child would be sheltered, with drastic measures, kept out of harm’s way. Jane Clayton would be a very protective parent. Tarzan of the Apes, however, would not have been able to resist teaching his daughter the ways of his kingdom. Older brother Korak, and his mate Meriem (herself, quite the jungle queen) had to have baby-sat at some point, and taken the child on many outings to the green mansions. In addition to spoor following and branch swinging, the young girl had to have attended the finest schools in England or America (under an assumed name of course).
Her father, without doubt, told her many stories of lost cities, and anachronistic civilizations, so she might well have developed an interest in archeology, which brings us to Prof. Archer Gray, the character which tipped me off to Nellie’s true identity.
First, a little comparison of the following descriptions: "Archer S. Gray, was a retired professor of Archaeology, Columbia University, he was a tired-looking man of sixty, stoop shouldered but wiry, with iron gray hair. He was in a faded blue robe and had spectacles pushed up on his forehead." (Avenger # 2, The Yellow Horde, Chapter III, "Mexican Bricks and Murder"). Compare this to: "One was an elderly man, white, white hair and large rimmed spectacles, his slightly stooped shoulders were draped in an ill-fitting, though immaculate, frock coat; a shiny silk hat added to the incongruity of his garb in an African jungle" and "Professor Archimedes Q. Porter adjusted his spectacles" (Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter XIII, "His Own Kind").
Now I realize this might be weak conjecture, considering that was pretty much the stereotype of the elderly professor in adventure fiction, but the similarities registered in my brain, and got me to thinking. Philip José Farmer says in Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life that certain clue words and names set him on the trail, and so it was with me. The name Archer made me think of Archimedes, and the last name Gray obviously connected me to Greystoke.
I conclude not that Profs. Porter and Gray were the same person, but that they were in fact brothers and that Prof. Gray’s last name was in truth Porter, making him Jane Porter’s uncle and Nellie’s great uncle, not her father.
At the age of eighteen, to pursue her love of archaeology, and to protect her true identity, Penelope Alice Clayton became the legal ward of her great uncle Archer S. Porter.
The two of them traveled the globe, as a father and daughter archaeology team, Nellie having taken her uncle’s and mother’s maiden name as her own. When her adoptive father was murdered and she was accused of the crime, she sought Richard Benson’s help. The murder charge was soon dropped, thanks to Justice Inc.
Though not stated in that adventure, Nellie, not wanting to live under the shadow of such a crime, once again changed her last name. Taking one half of her family title, she became simply Nellie Gray.
But wait! There’s more! I believe Tarzan sired two daughters. Jane is the mother of Nellie Gray, but the Jungle Lord’s other daughter was born to a different mother. Who? The most important woman in the ape-man's life after Jane, Alice Clayton, and Kala the she-ape. Of course I’m referring to La, the high priestess of Opar, and Tarzan is completely unaware of this other product of his loins.
It seems that immediately after Tarzan returned to Africa from Maple White Land, in 1937, he made an unrecorded foray to Opar. The Lord of the Trees experienced yet another conk on the head and lost his memory (which according to Farmer was as good excuse as any to get away from Jane and have some real fun). His beast-like instincts carried him straight into the arms of La, and, well, things happened, y’know. I know a lot of people will be outraged at the thought of the virtuous ape-man breaking his sacred vows to Lady Jane (Betty, to La’s Veronica), but I truly feel that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a man in his most primitive state, with the knowledge nagging deep in his sub-conscience that he is going to be alive for a very long, long time, might give in to the passions of an extraordinary woman who has been trying to seduce him for years. Another factor to consider is that Tarzan had a gut feeling that this would be the last time he would see La. (In Tarzan Alive, Farmer states that when Tarzan returned to Opar in 1946, he called for La, and she did not answer).
So Tarzan took his leave of La and Opar, regained his memory, and returned to his beloved Jane. La’s daughter was born nine months later. The name given to child from mother, we may never know. Fearful that the beastmen of Opar might discover that the infant girl’s father was the hated white ape, La instructed one of her handmaidens to take the child far away, perhaps to Tarzan’s Kenyan plantation, or just to abandon the babe in the woods to die. Either way, neither were accomplished. Both handmaiden and child were captured by a band of cutthroat Arabs and sold into slavery. The child’s early years are still shrouded in mystery, her memory erased through trauma. She does, however, remember living in a prison camp in Greece, and escaping as a preteen to a displaced persons camp in Persia, where she met her mentor, an old professor who named her Modesty Blaise.
All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2000-2004 by the author, Chuck Loridans. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.
That Tarzan and Jane had additional progeny was hinted at by no less than Edgar Rice Burroughs himself. In The Man-Eater (published 1915), the heroine, Virginia Scott, is visited by "Mrs. Clayton and Charlotte." Who is this mysterious Charlotte? Why did ERB bother to mention her presence? I submit that ERB knew exactly who she was, and that by mentioning her in association with Mrs. Clayton, he is implying that we, the readers, should be able to discern who she is as well.
Charlotte is the daughter of Tarzan and Jane. It seems clear that ERB was instructed to avoid mentioning Charlotte in any of his ongoing biographies of Tarzan, as Tarzan and his family had already been the target, many times over, of various evil-doers and nefarious plotters. Why invite further trouble by pointing out her existence to the world? However, Burroughs could not resist dropping at least one hint to the child's existence. At least he had the good sense to do it in a non-Tarzan book.
Regarding Tarzan's relations with La, he was in Opar in 1937 (Tarzan and the Silver Globe, by Barton Werper). During the course of this adventure, Tarzan seemingly met La once more. I say "seemingly" because La, as portrayed in this tale, was really a being known as Marda of "Venus" (the aliens Tarzan encountered in this adventure were almost certainly not from Venus, as claimed). It is my contention that Marda was not the true La that Tarzan had met so many times before, but rather that Marda had shape-changing or telepathic abilities which enabled her to appear as La. Thus, the death of Marda / "La" at the conclusion of the story has no bearing on the fate of the true La of Opar.
Undoubtedly, as an unauthorized biographer of Tarzan, Barton Werper did not have access to the full account. If Marda had taken La’s place, it seems likely that the real La was being held a prisoner. Of course, Tarzan felt compelled to rescue her, as he had so many times previously, but this time, as Mr. Loridans has postulated, one thing lead to another.
The revelation that La of Opar is a Barsoomian woman (see Tarzan On Mars, Crossover Chronology Part V) certainly sheds some light upon her daughter Modesty Blaise’s mystery-shrouded childhood and background. (As far as Modesty being half-Barsoomian, so were Carthoris and Tara, so clearly Barsoomians and Earth people can reproduce.) It also further explains why she's so ravishingly attractive. Aren't all Martian women? (For more on La and her origins, please read La, Immortal Priestess of Issus!)
Mr. Farmer, writing in 1972, could not know that Tarzan would again meet La, some twenty years later. Tarzan encountered La once more in 1991, as recounted in the Malibu Comics mini-series Love, Lies, and the Lost City, written by Henning Cure. In support of Mr. Loridans’ contention, La, who still retained her eternal youth, was almost able, once more, to entice Tarzan into succumbing to her charms, as she almost did on Barsoom in 1955. (Clearly, La, at some point after the conclusion of Tarzan On Mars in 1955, was transported back to Earth; perhaps she was sent back to her Oparian refuge on Earth in the wake of some further religious crisis on Barsoom.)
Some may object that Tarzan would never make love to a woman other than Jane. I would direct these to Farmer’s Time’s Last Gift, in which Tarzan, awaiting a cure for Jane’s critical injuries while she is in cryogenic suspension, travels back in time and lives for 14,000 years. During this time, Tarzan takes many wives and knows many women. But as with all of Tarzan’s other adventures, after this grandest adventure of all, it is always his beloved Jane to whom he returns.
In late November 2000, I received the following missive from David Vincent, Jr., regarding La's parentage of Modesty Blaise:
Let me assure you in the Wold Newton Universe, it is a well known FACT!!!!!!!! Let me give you some information which I gave to Mr. Power earlier in the week, which should clear up the controversy. The slackard evidently failed to send it along to you. Modesty Blaise's chronology works out all right with the origin stated by her biographer, Peter O'Donnell, because the Barsoomians emerge from their shells (a fact recorded by John Flint Roy) as fully formed except in size, and in five years they are fully mature. So she could have been mistaken for a twelve-year-old, albeit fully developed, in the first part of the first year ,and then a seventeen-year-old by the year's end. At the end of the five years, she would have been around 22 or 23 physically. So when she was in the refugee camp, she was probably still not as tall as she would later become, and so could have been considered an early-developed teenager. If the unbelievers....
Unfortunately, at this point, Mr. Vincent's message ended and I have been unable to contact him for the remainder.
WSE
All rights reserved. The text of this addendum is © 2000-2004 by the author, Win Eckert. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.
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(Excerpt graciously provided by Mark Brown - the full text of the article is here)
Mark Brown writes:
This is an excerpt from the article, "The Arms of Tarzan (The English Nobleman whom Edgar Rice Burroughs called John Clayton, Lord Greystoke)," by Philip José Farmer, published in The Burroughs Bulletin, No. 22, Summer, 1971.
The article discusses the Greystoke arms, and basically repeats a good deal of information from Tarzan Alive, appendix 3. There is nothing new until Farmer gets to Norman of Torn. PJF repeats the data given in appendix 3, including the death of John Caldwell at the hands of the king's men, and then:
How can we be sure of this?
An obscure book on medieval witchcraft, published in the middle 1600s, describes the case of a knight who was, for reasons unknown to the writer, slain by Edward I's men in a northern county. When his body was laid out to be washed, his left breast was found to bear a violet lily-shaped birthmark. This was thought to be the mark of the devil. But we readers of The Outlaw of Torn will recognize the true identity of the man suspected of witchcraft.
This theory could be wrong, of course. I propose an alternate to consider. You may have noticed the remarkable resemblance between the Outlaw and Tarzan. Both were tall, splendidly built, and extremely powerful men. (Anybody who can drive the point of a broadsword through chain mail into his opponent's heart is strong enough to crack the neck of a bull ape.) Both men had grey eyes. Both wore their hair in bangs across their foreheads. Neither knew the meaning of fear.
But the description of the Outlaw could also apply, except for a few minor points, to John Carter of Mars. [See also John Carter is Phra the Phoenician! by Peter Coogan.] What if the Outlaw did not die, as I first speculated, but had somehow defeated the aging process? What if, like Tarzan, he had stumbled across an elixir for immortality? During his wanderings in rural England, he came across a wizard or witch, actually a member of the old faith, who had a recipe for preventing the degeneration of the body. If a witch doctor in modern Africa could have such, and give it to Tarzan, then a priest of an outlawed religion in the Middle ages could give such to the Outlaw of Torn.
Sometime during the following six centuries, the Outlaw suffered amnesia. This was either from a blow on the head (again recalling Tarzan, who suffered amnesia many times from blows on the head) or because loss of memory of early years is an unfortunate by-product of the elixir. Thus, on March 4, 1866, the Outlaw, a long-time resident of Virginia, an admitted victim of amnesia, left a cave in Arizona for the planet Mars. ERB called this man John Carter. Notice the J.C. I suggest that he may have been Richard Plantagenet, Norman of Torn, John Caldwell, and, finally, John Carter.
It is possible that John Caldwell was not killed, that he slew all of Edward's men, who actually numbered six, mangled the face of one tall corpse, and stained a violet lily mark on the corpse's left breast. And, once again, he disappeared into pseudonymity but gained immortality as the Warlord of Mars.
It's true that the Outlaw's hair was brown and Carter's was black. But hair gets darker as one ages (until it starts to gray), and 626 years are long enough for anybody's hair to get black.
If this theory is correct, the Outlaw of Torn is not only John Carter of Mars but Tarzan's ancestor by about 600 years. But John Carter may have been the ancestor of Tarzan many times over. He may have followed the fortunes of his descendants with keen interest and, every now and then, remarried into the line and begat more powerful, quick thinking, fearless, grey-eyed men and fearless grey-eyed beautiful daughters. I wouldn't be surprised if he were not only the ancestor of Tarzan's father but of Tarzan's mother, Alice Rutherford. Perhaps this regular insertion of Carter's genes into the line is why ERB insists so strongly on the influence of heredity in Tarzan's behavior.
And I point out, as something for you to chew on, that Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger, Raffles, Richard Wentworth, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Denis Nayland Smith were all grey-eyed. And, though some were slim, all had very powerful muscles. Could these, together with Tarzan, be descendants of John Carter of Mars?
Mark Brown continues:
I'd like to follow this with a quote from Tarzan Alive, appendix 3:
"John Thomas, 11th Baron and 6th Earl, b. 1475, m. Jessica, natural dau. of Edmund de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk, and of Anne, dau. of Sir John Carter of Ravenspur...."
I'd also like to point out that this Burroughs Bulletin article excerpted above was based on a speech given at Dum-Dum before Tarzan Alive was published. It is possible that this theory was developed before the Wold Newton theory as an explanation for the traits of these families.
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(Editor's Note: Mr. Small is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster who resides in Ravia, Oklahoma. His weekly newspaper column, "Small Talk," has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the National Newspaper Association. He is also the founder and director of the Small Talk Institute for Apocalyptic Investigations, an independent, non-profit, research organization located midway between Dallas and Oklahoma City. Overlooking a truly panoramic expanse of Pennington Creek, it is a 116-acre haven for scholars of numerous disciplines, including future history and speculative biographical studies. This article is Copyright © 2000 by John A. Small.)
It is a brief, unusual, but highly pivotal epoch in history which we must now relate.
The period of the 1930s and early '40s was a particularly bleak time in the history of the world. It was a period, in the words of one prominent historian of the day, of "great confusion of economic life and such unemployment as the world has not known for a century. There has been a deterioration in the vitality of the race and a regression in public security. Crime has increased, and political life has betrayed an unwonted instability." (1)
The Great Depression was in full swing and the world teetered on the precipice of war. As organized crime thrived in the United States, many nations abroad were plagued by the rise of various totalitarian movements: Communism, fascism, Nazism and others. Across the planet there was a general feeling that "everything is going downhill, and at the bottom of the hill is Hell." (2)
But the universe demands a certain degree of balance. And so it was that this period also gave rise to a great "efflorescence of true heroes in an otherwise degenerate age" (3) - detectives, scientists, explorers and adventurers whose exploits served to provide a glimmer of hope to a world desperately in need of it. Despite their often divergent backgrounds, some were linked by ties of blood - the Greystokes, the Savages, et. al. - while others shared little more than a common goal to see battle injustice and aid those in need. And much as the lives and exploits of such earlier historical figures as Davy Crockett, Jesse James or "Buffalo Bill" Cody were exaggerated for the readers of the popular entertainments of their day, so too did the careers of these latter heroic figures give rise to a sort of modern mythology.
Several of these individuals drew inspiration from heroes of previous generations - such legendary colorful figures as the Scarlet Pimpernel, the Lone Ranger and El Zorro, the Fox - by adopting "secret identities" under which they could operate. Some chose to do so in order to protect loved ones from becoming targets of retaliation; others hoped to serve as a symbol for the ongoing battle against injustice, while others still no doubt simply enjoyed the thrill, the danger, the excitement that comes with living a double life.
Whatever their individual reasons for secrecy, the careers of such "mystery men" as the Shadow, the Green Hornet, the Spider, the Crimson Avenger and others served as beacons for the destitute, down-trodden citizens of 1930s America.
Of all the heroes of this era, few careers were as colorful - or as subject to exaggeration and out-and-out fictionalization - as the hero popularly known as Superman.
Even with the passage of time, it is difficult today to sort fact from fiction with regard to Superman. The popular perception was that he could actually defy gravity and fly; that he was practically invulnerable to injnury; that he could propel himself at speeds faster than light, travel back and forth in time, even disrupt the orbits of planets.
The truth is that his abilities - while certainly well beyond those of ordinary men - were somewhat less mythical in nature. His ability to leap great distances (approximately an eighth of a mile, according to some reports) certainly must have seemed like the power of flight to those who witnessed it. The fact that nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin surely must have created the impression that NOTHING could hurt him. And while there were certain other men - including the renowned adventurer "Doc" Savage, who was also often described in the press as being a "super-man" - equally adept at outracing moving vehicles and bending huge steel bars with their bare hands, it was obvious to all who met him that this new hero was quite a formidable fellow, indeed.
In the early years of his career he operated in secret, acting rather like a sort of "guardian angel." As the public became aware of his existence, he began operating more in the open - to the point of adapting the press' favorite description of him as his public persona. A superman they had called him, and so Superman he would be.
As more and more stories began circulating about his adventures, he - like Savage, Greystoke, Holmes and so many others before and since - became the subject of fictionalized re-tellings of those exploits. Was he really "a strange visitor from another planet," the last surviving member of a humanoid race whose homeworld had been destroyed in some cosmic cataclysm? It seems more likely that this was merely part of the legend that sprung up around him, and that his powers were actually the result of some scientific experiment. (Indeed, it is commonly known that another great hero of the era - the wartime super-soldier known as Captain America - obtained his powers in just this fashion.) But the legend has become indelibly etched into the public consciousness, and so it has become virtually impossible to think of him as anything else but the lone survivor of an alien race - one possessing powers and abilities that would "put a platoon of gods to shame." (4)
By the time this "Superman" first encountered another of the great "mystery men" of the era - the masked crimefighter known as Batman - at the 1939 World's Fair (5), their legends had become so great that most of the public had come to assume that both had been little more than a colorful figment of some writer's imagination anyway. And like other such great men of the time, neither did much to dissuade this perception.
Batman's career began just a short time after Superman's, and there can be little doubting that the so-called "Caped Crusader" drew a certain amount of inspiration from his predecessor. But his modus operandi was patterned after those of the Shadow and the Green Hornet - a creature of the shadows, he preferred to operate at night and tended to focus his activities primarily against the elements of organized crime that continued to flourish.
In fact, it has been revealed that Batman found himself working alongside both the Shadow (6) and the Green Hornet (7) during his career. (Many years later, HIGHLY fictionalized versions of both exploits were presented to the public. In both cases the cases were presented as having just recently taken place when, in fact, both occurred just prior to America's entry into World War II; in fact, research into the actual incidents in question points to the possibility that the villains in both cases were actually Axis agents.)
With the advent of World War II came a handful of other heroes who, each for their own reasons, stepped forward to lend aid in the battle against the Axis powers. Captain America, as noted, was the result of a scientific experiment; the experiment was a success, and indeed "Cap" (as he was popularly called) would have been the first in an proposed platoon of "super-soldiers" had the genius who invented the special serum not been murdered by an enemy agent. He was joined in several adventures by Prince Namor, sometimes called the "Sub-Mariner," a native of Atlantis who harbored little love for "surface dwellers" regardless of their nationalities. (8) The brief but colorful career of the Rocketeer was launched quite by accident after a pilot named Cliff Secord came into possession of a rocket-powered jet pack invented by Doc Savage and sought after by agents of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. (9) And on at least one occasion, Superman found himself working against, and then alongside, Wonder Woman, who claimed to be an Amazonian princess. (10)
The public's imagination was greatly captivated by the exploits of such heroes, resulting in a clamoring for similar stories about other heroes. The publishers of the fictionalized versions of these exploits - sensing a potential gold mine - began creating new heroes out of whole cloth in order to satisfy this demand. Books featuring such colorful characters such as Green Lantern, the Spectre, the Human Torch, Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Bulletman, Captain Marvel and others began appearing on newsstands; as their popularity grew, stories began to appear in which the real heroes fought side-by-side with their fictional counterparts. In time there were books featuring fictional "super groups" - the Justice Society of America, the All-Winners Squad, the Young Allies and others. It is assumed that such endeavors had been approved by the real heroes depicted in these tales; after all, such discrepancies would further convince people that Superman, Batman, et al. were all fictional as well, thus allowing them to continue their wartime activities more or less unhindered.
Although the fictional exploits of these so-called "superheroes" would continue for decades, the careers of the flesh-and-blood figures that inspired them would prove shorter lived. Captain America vanished a short time before the end of World War II; it was later discovered that an explosion on board an airplane had sent him into the icy waters of the North Atlantic and into suspended animation for some twenty years, before he was reportedly found and revived by Batman and Robin. (11) Although fictionalized versions of new exploits continue to be published, his actual life following his rescue remains something of a mystery.
It has been assumed that the mantle of the Batman has been passed down through a succession of generations. Superman and Wonder Woman continued to operate for a number of years after the war, then apparently retired. The same may be true of Namor. Cliff Secord's career as the Rocketeer was purposely short-lived, and he settled into a comfortable "civilian" career as a pilot.
POSTSCRIPT:
Several centuries later, the exploits of these original "superheroes" inspired a new generation to follow their example. In the late 2970s, Terran billionaire R.J. Brande was saved from assassination by a trio of humanoid teenagers visiting from other worlds, each of whom possessed special powers native to inhabitants of their respective worlds; inspired by the legends of Superman that had survived well into his era, Brande persuaded his rescuers to form a sort of "superhero" club - funded by Brande, and dedicated to the common good.
Calling themselves the Legion of Super-Heroes, this group quickly achieved legendary status and were eventually made deputized agents of the United Federation of Planets, charged with the duties of defending the rights of the free worlds and upholding the sanctity of UFP law. (The LSH was the second agency called upon to enforce interplanetary law and protect UFP member worlds from outside threats; Starfleet, the UFP's deep-space exploratory, scientific, diplomatic and defensive agency, had been founded in 2161.)
Although both organizations did an extraordinary job of maintaining a relatively peaceful climate within the galaxy over a period of several hundred years, the Federation found itself involved in a number of conflicts during this period. Tensions with the Klingon Empire lasted almost a century, while conflicts with the Romulan Star Empire and the Tholian Assembly lasted longer still. In the 24th Century the federation faced multiple threats in the form of a protracted, bitter conflict with the Cardassian Empire (and, later, their allies in the Dominion) and several invasion attempts by the Borg. There were also repeated attempts at conquering the UFP by the Khunds and the Empire of Mordru.
Sometime during the 31st Century, under circumstances which have yet to be fully documented, the United Federation of Planets collapsed under its own bureaucratic weight; the LSH and Starfleet were both disbanded. It is believed that this event coincided with the discovery that the planet Earth had been slowly become decimated over the centuries by radioactivity and was dying. By the rise of the Trantorian Empire just a few centuries later, the Federation was a dim memory relegated to dusty history discs in libraries throughout populated space. (12)
Source Materials:
(1) Wells, Herbert George, "A Short History of the World," Great Britain: Pelican Books (1960 edition), page 320.
(2) Farmer, Philip José, "Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life," New York: Playboy Paperbacks (1981 edition), page 10.
(3) Farmer, Philip José, "Tarzan Alive," New York: Playboy Paperbacks (1981 edition), page 231.
(4) Dooley, Dennis & Engle, Gary (ed.), "Superman At Fifty: The Persistence Of A Legend," Cleveland: Octavia Books (1988), page 51.
(5) Byrne, John, "Generations: Book One," New York: DC Comics (1999), pages 1-24.
(6) O'Neil, Denny, "Who Knows What Evil..." New York: DC Comics (Batman Comics Issue 253, November, 1973).
(7) Hoffman, Charles (screenplay), "A Piece Of The Action/Batman's Satisfaction" (Two-part episode of the "Batman" TV show), 20th Century-Fox Television (originally aired March 1-2, 1967).
(8) Lupoff, Richard and Thompson, Don (ed.), "All In Color For A Dime," New York: Ace Books (1970 edition), pages 127-130.
(9) Stevens, Dave, "The Rocketeer," New York: Eclipse Books (1985 graphic novel compilation edition).
(10) Conway, Gerry, Garcia-Lopez, Jose Luis & Adkins, Dan, "Superman vs. Wonder Woman," New York: DC Comics (All New Collectors’ Edition, Vol. 7, No. C-54, 1978).
(11) Byrne, John, "Elseworlds: Batman & Captain America," New York: DC/Marvel Comics (1996).
(12) Small, John, "Encyclopedia Galactica" Tishomingo: Small World Communications Ltd. (1994 fanzine).
All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2000-2004 by the author, John Allen Small. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.
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In the 1970s, S. S. Rafferty chronicled the adventures of one Captain Jeremy Cork, a trader and shipmaster in the 13 colonies. The 13 stories, one for each colony, were published in Ellery Queen's Mystery magazine and in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery magazine. The stories are gathered from the notes of his financial yeoman, Mr. Wellman Oakes, an immigrant to the colonies. The Captain likes to solve mysteries, much to the frustration of Mr. Oakes. Captain Cork, owner of The Hawkers, is described as 6'6" and colonial- born. In fact, rumor makes him part Quinnipiac, a tribe in his native Connecticut.
I found no immediate connection to the Wold Newton canon and was, at first, willing to dismiss the tales as just that. Then I realized something while rereading them. I list the stories two ways, first in the order they are listed in a collection of them titled 'Fatal Flourishes'. The blurb on the back says "Before Holmes, before Spade, before Wimsey, there was Cork!" I took this as encouragement and studied them a little more. The second list of these tales is in actual chronological order.
1. The New Jersey Flying Machine
2. The Rhode Island Lights
3. The Georgia Resurrection
4. The Bright Silver of Maryland
5. The Margrave of Virginia
6. The South Carolina Cicisbeos
7. The Massachusetts Peep-O'Night
8. The Witch of New Hampshire
9. The Christmas Masque (set in New York)
10. The Doleful Duelist of Delaware
11. The North Carolina Corruption
12. The Curse of the Connecticut Clock
13. The Pennsylvania Thimblerig
Timeline of tales:
The Rhode Island Lights: Autumn 1736 (2)
(Note: mentions a previous, unrecorded
adventure, the Narragansett Pacer affair.)
The Bright Silver of Maryland: Spring 1750 (4)
The New Jersey Flying Machine: 27 Dec 1750 -1 Jan 1751 (1)
(Note: Some characters involved are: Mr. &
Mrs. William & Alice Denby Lovelace and Mary Lovelace (sister
of William))
The Margrave of Virginia: Autumn 1751 (5)
The Witch of New Hampshire: 5 Sept 1752 (8)
The Christmas Masque: (New York) 1754 (9)
The Doleful Duelist of Delaware: 1756 (confirms date of Rhode
Island Lights; 20 years ago) (10)
The South Carolina Cicisbeos: May 1758 (6)
The North Carolina Corruption: 1 June 1758 (11)
The Georgia Resurrection: Summer 1761 (3)
The Curse of the Connecticut Clock: Autumn 1762 (12)
The Massachusetts Peep-O'Night: 5 March 1772 (7)
(Note: Sarah Wilson, villainess in this story,
was real, and did pose as the Queen's cousin and has been
described as one of America's first con-women )
The Pennsylvania Thimblerig: Summer 1776 (just prior to 4 July)
(13)
It seems that Captain Cork was active for over forty years with no apparent change. (But then, neither did Mr. Oakes.) When I learned of John Carter (Caldwell-Grebson) I began to wonder if either the good Captain or his assistant (or both) were immortals. Originally, this seemed the most probable solution. The initials are suggestive. Yet somehow, this simple premise seemed unsatisfactory. There were a few clues in the stories that seemed to point in another direction entirely. Captain Cork was an excellent linguist and woodsman, with little actual interest in his own financial affairs, a total hatred of slavery, and was seemingly uninterested in, though attractive to, the opposite sex. He displayed a perverse, somewhat nasty sense of humor, a disdain for law above justice, and a basic belief in the equality of all humanity. This, to me, spoke of another immortal. One who, by virtue of time-travel, might just have been in that place during that era.
There are two points that speak to the theory of a time traveler. One is his occasionally odd use of the language. He described his mysteries as 'social puzzles'. The use of 'social' as a descriptor is rather recent in the history of the English language. The other is an odd point that Mr. Rafferty apparently was unaware of, and one that I was unaware of until I began doing genealogical research. That is the problem of calendar reform. Mr. Rafferty, in fact, quotes Mr. Oakes frustration with England and the colonies’ final acceptance of the Gregorian reforms in 1752.
However, he totally misses the implication of Captain Cork's preference for spending New Year’s Day (January 1st) in New York, the entire basis for the pair's involvement in the New Jersey Flying Machine. The problem? Well, research into the history of the calendar will show that, until the Gregorian calendar reform, which England and the colonies were not using during the events of that tale, the new year began on the first day of spring, in March. Therefore, most celebrations of the new year would not have been held on January 1st. However, to a modern person, not only would Jan. 1st be the New Year, but celebrating it in New York is almost traditional.
So, was Captain Cork, in fact a time-traveler? And, how did Mr. Oakes also seem to share the Captain's apparent unaging? Well, Captain Cork liked to make his own drink, a mixture he called Apple Knock. He kept the ingredients a secret, but often forced the stuff on Mr. Oakes. I suspect that the Knock may have had an additional ingredient, possibly some variant on Doc Savage's pills. He had most likely done some research into immortality elixir and was making the Apple Knock drink for his friend Mr. Oakes. He may just have wanted a companion. I suspect that 11,000 years of immortality (give or take a few) may have left him a bit lonely. Having someone able to stick with him for a longer period than normal may have been a bit of a relief.
Now, are the Captain's eyes and hair ever described? That's one of the more interesting features of the stories. The Captain is never described, other than being 6' 6". There are two comments about his looks that imply that he looked like he had 'native' blood, making him darker than the average colonist. Mr. Oakes apparently felt that the tale of 'native blood' was slander. Captain Cork also has, according to Mr. Oakes, uncanny hearing, excellent eyesight and a sense of smell even better than his eyesight. The cover of 'Fatal Flourishes' (the collection of the tales) shows a man with bronze skin and black hair with greying sideburns. (And considering the comments on the back cover and in the stories about powdered wigs, I don't think the greying is that significant). He's shown in profile and the one eye shown could be grey. Still, as we all know, cover art is notoriously inaccurate.
I find the lack of description even more suggestive. Why wouldn't Mr. Oakes describe his employer? Or, if he did describe him, why would Mr. Rafferty (or the publishers) leave out such a description? I believe, in fact, that Captain Jeremy Cork was actually -- John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, aka Tarzan.
All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2000-2004 by the author, Cheryl L. Huttner. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.
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