Gene Phillips's Blog

November 10, 2025

MINING POLITICAL MINEFIELDS

 Since OD is a "junk-drawer" blog for stuff that doesn't totally fit the more developed theorizing of ARCHETYPAL ARCHIVE, here's a "thought-in-development" post spawned by my current watching of the controversial interview between Tucker Carlson and Hitler-fan Nick Fuentes.

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I'm about halfway through the Carlson-Fuentes interview. I see an additional reason Shapiro didn't like Tucker putting Fuentes out there; according to Fuentes he had a history with Shapiro going back to when Fuentes wa...

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Published on November 10, 2025 00:01

October 31, 2025

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 In 1964 Disney launched a comic co-starring The Beagle Boys and "Mad Madam Mim" from THE SWORD AND THE STONE. This story, "By Hook or Crook"  from DONALD DUCK #96 tosses in a third crossover, that of PETER PAN's Captain Hook as well.


The Captain also plays a more standard villainous role in "Voyage to Azatlan" (DD #119, 1966), opposing Donald and the marine mallard Moby Duck.


 

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Published on October 31, 2025 12:05

October 24, 2025

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 In this post I talked somewhat about the crossovers in the ARCHIE universe of super-teens, including their encounter with the evil scientist Mad Doctor Doom, who originally appeared in a 1962 issue of ADVENTURES OF LITTLE ARCHIE.



But I didn't mention this villain-crossover in CAPTAIN HERO--


-- wherein new villain Witch Doctor seeks to impress three "elder states-menaces," in the form of Doctor Nose, The Consumer, and The Whistler-- though as I recall, technically, The Whistler wasn't IN the ARCHI...
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Published on October 24, 2025 15:45

October 19, 2025

MONSTER MASHUPS #151

Here's a Satanic bacchanale attended by many monsters--"ghosts, zombies, vampires and werewolves." The plot of this 1951 story in ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN #25 was probably borrowed from the more famous 1950 EC story, "Horror Beneath the Streets." In the earlier story EC's three horror-hosts pass into the real world and harangue the EC editors into giving the hosts their own books. The writer of this story, probably editor Richard E Hughes (who had a rep for writing many ACG tales under divers...

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Published on October 19, 2025 16:04

October 17, 2025

MONSTER MASHUPS #150

 

It may not be profound but it's the most fun a JLA crossover has been in years. The four icons from the Monsterverse used here are Godzilla, Kong, Mechagodzilla and the Skull-Crawlers. Some new ones are invented as well, though not all of them are given names in the comic proper.

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Published on October 17, 2025 10:24

October 14, 2025

THE WEIRDIE FILES

 

I came across a library copy of the 2012 cluster-crossover JUSTICE LEAGUE TRINITY WAR, and it's pretty standard for its purported architect Geoff Jones: just another sloppy smorgasbord of DC heroes doing stupid things. Its only point of interest is showing a version of Justice League Dark composed of John Constantine, Deadman, Black Orchid, and Frankenstein, though one line asserts that Zatanna was a former member. Whether this was ever a lineup in any other comic book I do not know.    

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Published on October 14, 2025 06:35

October 12, 2025

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 Dracula managed to appear on both incarnations of Filmation's GHOSTBUSTERS, though the two Dracs have nothing in common. In the live-action 1970s GHOSTBUSTERS, the vamp is a senile old bloodsucker who gets his long fangs stuck in a tree (which his mate Countess Dracula finds sexy-- a rare adult joke in this kids' show).


 Then he pops up on the cartoon GHOSTBUSTERS once, looking a lot like the studio's comical vamp from THE GROOVY GHOULIES.


  

 

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Published on October 12, 2025 18:08

October 11, 2025

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 Here are two more curiosities in which fictional characters are described as having had real lives, though both are only seen as ghosts.



 In the Filmation GHOSTBUSTERS episode "The Headless Horseman Caper," the heroes encounter a ghost who appears based on the legend of the Hessian soldier recounted in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," but without the disturbing detail of getting his head blown off in battle. The cartoon just says he's some ghost-- not even given any specific military designation--...
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Published on October 11, 2025 08:20

October 10, 2025

MONSTER MASHUPS #149

 Wonder Woman did start fighting more big monsters in the 1960s than she had in the previous two decades. But whereas as the "teen version" for the heroine had two separate monster mashups, the adult WW only had one tale in which she contended with two distinct monsters, ranging from THE SPHINX-BIRD--


And the featured menace, THE BOILING MAN.



 

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Published on October 10, 2025 19:45

October 9, 2025

MONSTER MASHUPS #148

 Sixties Wonder Girl has her second and last encounter with multiple monsters, starting with the ICEBERG MONSTER--

 


And THE MEDUSA-BIRD.




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Published on October 09, 2025 17:30