Tardis:Time And Relative Divisionally Interconnected Storytelling

Well since Blogger freaked out yesterday and Deleted this post. I thought I've give it another shot.

Of course what I wanted to talk about was Crossovers. One of the benifits of having a multiversal construct is that it allows for virtually limitless combinations for crossovers. Who can forget when the Punisher trucked it down to Riverdale to Chaperone the prom?

These constructs weren't supposed to exist. They are more typically the product of necessity than desire. They basically came about due to a combination of lack of knowledge, growth or simply because of casual disregard of what came before. Occasionally you do get an author or group of authors who collaborate closely and hammer out the multiversal model from the get go. Micheal Moorcock is one such. It's obvious that Stephen King at least toyed with the idea many times. References to things that would later become important in his Dark Tower series begin showing up very early in his catalog of books, well before he actually explained (or invented) reasons why they were important.

Occasionally you get vast multiveres crossing over with other multiverses. Every time you get a DC vs. Marvel comic. Or a Marvel Vs. Capcom video game.. But they can get bigger through a bit of constructing on our own.

From Dweomera Lagomorpha

Lets start with the Transformers for instance. They have crossed over with GIJOE numerous times. To get more confusing. Multiple Transformers universes have crossed over with multiple GIJOE universes, multiple times. The Original Transformers comic book, takes place in at least some form of the typical Marvel Universe. One in which Spiderman, SHIELD, The 80's Godzilla comic and the Savage land existed. Even if nothing else from the Marvel universe does. The Marvel GIJOE comic is slightly more confused. Since it exists in the Transformers universe, but also seems to inhabit it's own universe which it shares with the transformers, but not with the rest of the Marvel universe. In the US thats about as complicated as it got. In the UK however, Transformers existed in the normal Marvel Universe, along side a GIJOE analog known as Action Force.

Transformers UK brings us to the next link in our chain. Death's head.

From Dweomera Lagomorpha

This was a character that was not truly intended as a Transformers character, but one which has become more or less linked with them for good or ill. After showing up in his own one-shot called "High Noon Tex" he spent the next several months engaging in all manner of back and forths with our favorite Robots in diguise. Eventually he single handedly prevented the return of Unicron, and was unceremoniously flung through a time portal. It was while hurtling through Time that he collided with a certain blue telephone box.

From Dweomera Lagomorpha

After this rather amusing adventure the Doctor transported him into the far future of one of the many marvel Universes. He languished there until encountering the Fantastic four and hitching a ride back to the "Modern" day.. At least until he trifled with the 7th Doctor again and wound up in the year 2020. We already are all well aware that the various Doctors can interact, and thanks to the 2007 series are also aware that there are multiple universes in that canon as well.



The Transformers, Albeit a different universe of Transformers from the two previously discussed have Crossed over with the Avengers, Who of course crossed over with the X-Men, Who have Crossed over with both Star Trek The Original Series and Star Trek the Next Generation.

From Dweomera Lagomorpha

This loops back around with a comic currently in publication from IDW. It's titled Infestation. And it features a rather preposterous crossover. Not only does it have GIJOE, Transformers and Star Trek. It also features the Ghost Busters. Who if we follow the Cartoon, exist in a world in which all the stuff that H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith (And Robert E. Howard, who's work is already integrated into the Marvel Universe, and crosses over with Micheal Moorcocks Multiverse) were stories about real events.

I Guess what I'm trying to say is with all this rambling. That in theory, we could get a comic book in which Uatu the Watcher summons the Doctor and the Autobots and Captain Kirk, so that they can team up to fight off a demonically possessed Shoggoth made from the remnants of Unicron.






This will teach me to backup all my posts in another place.

The gunslinger chased the man in black through the desert, and I followed.

Having just, no more than 5 minutes ago finished turning the last page of the last of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series.. I can say that I am left with only one feeling.



Meh.



I could spoil the ending, but I'm not going too. This isn't out of any particular urge not to ruin the series for anyone else.. I just don't not want others to be as annoyed as I was when they get to the ending, and then think.. Is that it? Is that how the series ends?

If it wasn't for the fact that the proposed 8th volume actually would fall between the 4th and 5th volumes.. I'd be prone to fall back on cynicism and say the ending was done specifically to set up for more sequels.. but then I think, this is Stephen King..one of the most prolific authors in the world, and maybe not the wealthiest but he isn't hurting either.. I don't really know if he comes across as the sort who would write sequels just to cash in.. like the writer of a certain boy wizard seems to be doing now that the movie money is going to be running out soon.

To say I was unimpressed is an understatement.. but then I've not really liked either of the last two books in the series.. I felt that the inclusion of the writer himself was just a tad too strange. And the character of Mordred served no clear point except to up the gore factor.

Now comes the waiting, soon they will begin working on the hybrid Television/Movie adaption of the series. We will get to see how they change it, what they opt to leave out. I have no idea if Ron Howard and company will do a good job or not. I felt he was perfectly adequate for adaption of Dan Brown novels. But then I don't really hold those in much esteem to be honest. And while I am ambivalent towards the ending of the Dark Tower, the journey for the most part, until book 6 anyway, was one hell of a ride.

I look forward to one day in the future being able to sit and watch it all as one epic film. It probably won't happen. After all, I'm still waiting on a single edit of Lord of the Rings which seems destined to never appear. But I can hope.

The Dark Tower Part 2

While I've not been up to much lately, and it shows since I've not been updating anything at all.. I've just finished off "The Waste Lands" which is the third in the series of the Dark Tower. I enjoyed it more than " The Drawing of the three" but the scenes with Roland, Sussanah and Eddie were far superior to the mucking about with Jake... But I felt the same way about the previous one.. so long as they are in " Roland's world" then I seem to enjoy it.. when its in "The real world" I kind of lose interest.

The giant cyborg bear was a neat idea, I'm sorry he had to die though.. Blaine the Mono is a grand villain as well.. and shows a depth of creativity.. who exactly else other than Stephen King would ever come up with a A Psychopathic, senile Monorail with an insatiable hunger for Riddles who wishes to commit suicide and take the main characters with him?

The book ends on a cliffhanger, with the characters in the embrace of Blaine as he is speeding them towards his final destination of Topeka Kansas, how will it end? Who knows!? I will just have to keep reading and find out. Onwards to Volume IV the Wizard and Glass.. and also the short story which initially got me to buy the series in the first place " The Little sisters of Eluria" which was in the first Legends volume..

The Dark Tower

After a very productive shopping trip to a succession of Goodwill stores I had found myself in possession of the Dark Tower books 2-7 for the princely sum of about 7$. Since I'd gotten the others for such a song, I forced myself to pay nearly full price for the first one and began reading it. The only reason I bought these was because there is a Dark Tower novella included in the Robert Silverberg edited anthology "Legends" which is a treasure trove of novellas related to all the most popular Fantasy series by authors who at the time were still living. It really did cross the publisher boundary and included all the biggest names. It reads as a who's who of Fantasy authors... or rather a who's who of the Multi Tomb Epic writer anyway.


I found the first book to be quite good, it wasn't strictly speaking a Fantasy novel as King insists on calling it.. It has none of the tropes I consider imperative for a Fantasy novel to have. But it's got a very interesting concept, it's rather reminiscent of the water pools in "The Magician's Nephew". The story didn't wander over much and kept its eye on the prize, of a gunslinger hunting a man in black. It was coarse and had many things in it which I considered to be juvenile.. but since King wrote it when he was 19, I think I can give him a pass on that.

The Second book however just got weird, and the fake words and silly mispronunciations designed to make Roland seem more alien to the "real world" characters its grating and gets on one's nerves very quickly. The book is even more crass than the first one, and he had had several years to mature as a writer. I especially disliked Detta Walker's speech pattern. It was very annoying and difficult to read at times, added to Roland's Popkins and Astin's it just was too much some time. But when the book ended it really helped to firmly establish the reality of the unreality of the world of the Dark Tower which exists in all worlds but is only physically manifested in one of them. The Axis in un-reality which all reality's orbit.