PROTO CROSSOVERS AND SUCH

 As long as I've just devoted this post to picking apart one of my side observations in ONCE AND FUTURE STATURE (AND CHARISMA), I might as well rework almost the whole thing.

This part is still okay:

--a CROSSOVER depends on the association of two or more characters (or other focal entities) from established properties. The prospective reader may be familiar with all of the crossover figures, only one, or none at all, but the appeal is to pull in the reader who wants to see the association of established characters.

This part is fairly accurate except that it needs a term-change:

 --a SPINOFF depends on the association of one or more completely new characters (or focal entities) who "tailgate" on the back of one or more established characters/entities. The usual intent is to create a new franchise, usually one in serial form, that then stands for the most part independent of the established franchise. At best, then, a SPINOFF is a DEMI-CROSSOVER, using "demi" less in the exactly proportional sense of "half" than with the equally valid connotation of "lesser."

I've decided that "demi-crossover" does not capture the sense of what I'm talking about as the new term ***"proto-crossover." *** And on top of that, I've decided that I want to toss in a term for the "failed spinoff," which I will call the ***null-crossover,"*** because the intent was to use an established icon to promote the cosmos of a new icon, but said universe never comes into being, and from the POV of the audience, the icons who would have been the center of that universe just become Subs in the universe of the established Prime icon.

Now, occasionally there are some mashups that resemble proto-crossovers in the way the figures align. According to my current thought, the first Green Goblin appearance is a "proto-crossover," but only because the new villains teams up with a group of established villain-icons, the Enforcers. I also discussed in ONCE AND FUTURE a later Goblin in which the villain had an encounter  with a new villain, the Crime Master. I called this a "demi-crossover" at the time, but now I would not call it either that or "proto-crossover," because the Crime Master is slain at the conclusion of that two-part story. Since the story's authors do not intend for this villain to generate a cosmos of his own, within the sphere of Spider-Man's adventures or anywhere else, it is homologous with an "null-crossover," where the Sub icon will never be anything else.

And that's enough crossover-chopping for today.