The Scottish Play: The TVCU Gets Classy with Shakespeare

"Macbeth
The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see."

—Macbeth, Act I, Scene IV

The TVCU most typically covers subjects regarding television and film series.  Occasionally, we have covered radio series.  Recently I expanded our range to cover the stage play A Streetcar Named Desire under the basis that it is still a story written for actors to perform.  And under that basis, I'm going really old school with this one.  Get ready to relive high school English, the TVCU way, as today we explore the crossovers around William Shakespeare's Macbeth.



Probably around the 11th Century--LADY MACBETH OF THE MTSENSK--The same events from Macbeth, told from Lady Macbeth's perspective.

Probably around the 11th Century--SHERLOCK HOLMES THROUGH TIME AND SPACE--"The Adventure of the Global Traveler"--In this story, it appears that Moriarty is H.G. Wells' Time Traveler.  This doesn't fit with the majority of TVCU canon, but perhaps Moriarty simply stole the time machine.  In this story, Moriarty, coming from the late 19th century, travels back in time to uncover the mystery of the third murder from Shakespeare's Macbeth.



1587--A WITCH'S TANGLED HARE--William Shakespeare observes as an ancestor of Bugs matches wits with the immortal Witch Hazel in Macbeth's Castle.



1588--WIZARDOLOGY:  THE BOOK OF THE SECRETS OF MERLIN--For any apprentice determined to learn the arcane arts of wizardry, could there be a better teacher than . . . Merlin himself? Originally discovered in 1588, this remarkable text by history's most respected wizard is revealed to the world for the very first time. Lavishly illustrated by four delicate artists, WIZARDOLOGY's intricate design even conceals a series of hidden symbols that spell out a secret message when their code is deciphered — if the reader is clever enough to find them. Matt Hickman adds:  In the Vampireology book form the Ology Series there is one part that mentions a young female vampire who managed to over come her blood lust and became known as the Slayer when she started killing her own kind including Cesare Borgia. Also the The Oceanology books are about adventures with Captain Nemo and finally the Wizardology book is written by Merlin and the familiars in the book belonged to Three Witches from Macbeth.



September 1973--GOOBER AND THE GHOST CHASERS--"Brush Up Your Shakespeare"--The PARTRIDGE FAMILY's concert is cancelled when the Globe Theatre is haunted by the ghost of Macbeth!  Yes, a crossover between MACBETH, GOOBER AND THE GHOST CHASERS, and THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY!!!  And I found this on the Wold Newton Crossover Universe website moderated by the very strict crossoverologist Sean Lee Levin.



1994--GARGOYLES--"Enter MacBeth"--Macbeth is apparently immortal, a sometime ally and sometime adversary of the Gargoyles, living in New York as a college professor, and extremely wealthy.  But didn't his ghost haunt the Globe Theatre 20 years earlier?  Probably, that ghost was a tulpa, similar to the Sherlock Holmes tulpa seen in James Bojaciuk's excellent TVCU post, ONE GHOST NEED APPLY.  

TELEVISION CROSSOVER MULTIVERSE--There have been numerous adaptations, alternate tellings and parodies of Macbeth, not all of which I'm going to list.  Below are some more significant alternate versions that are part of the TVCM.

TVCU-20-a shared reality that centers more on serious fiction, such as pulp and Victorian literature. Primarily guarded by a single family whose ancestors were mutated by a meteorite. DEADPOOL: KILLUSTRATED # 1 - 4 (MARVEL COMICS)--Crosses: Frankenstein (Mary Shelley); Dracula (Bram Stoker); Legend of Sleepy Hollow; The Island of Doctor Moreau; The Raven; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Sherlock Holmes; Jungle Book; Tarzan; Ka-Zar; LIttle Mermaid; Sub-Mariner; The Time Machine; Beowulf; The Leatherstocking Tales; Mulan; Three Musketeers; Don Quixote; Moby Dick; Pinocchio; Tom Sawyer; Little Women; A Christmas Carol; Gulliver’s Travels; Treasure Island; Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas; Macbeth; The Metamorphosis. In an alternate reality, Deadpool realizes he is fictional, and decides to destroy everyone in every reality until he reaches his “creators” in the real world. This story involves characters from all of the above listed crosses. However, they all exist in alternate universes in various time periods. Likely none of these exist in the main Television Crossover Universe timeline, but are all probably part of the larger Television Crossover Multiverse.

TVCU-33 (aka Earth-Prime--The "real world", where the events of the Rehearsal, a 1911 comedy about the behind the scenes of the original performance of Macbeth, take place.