Canon Welding across multiple forms of media.
Examples:
- The Gerry Anderson comics magazine of the 1960s, TV Century 21, had a gimmick framing device of the magazine itself being a replica of a secret agent's newspaper from the 2060s. Thus, all the comics and prose were construed as "visual reports" of real events in a Shared Universe, and the front page occasionally featured minor interactions between the plotlines. Although the Gerry Anderson series (such as Thunderbirds and Stingray) would remain well-understood as a shared universe, this also implied to licensed properties: the ''Dalek Chronicles'' comics were very much a part of the gimmick, with the Fireball XL5 World Government being shown worrying about their military progresses in the front page and special features. Even franchises set in the 20th century rather than an arbitrary space-age future, such as My Favorite Martian, were worked into the continuity by a hair, being construed as visual reports from "the TV21 Time Machine".
- Chris Boucher's Doctor Who Expanded Universe Past Doctor Adventures novel Corpse Marker, and his semi-licenced audio series Kaldor City, both indicate that Blake's 7 takes place in the Whoniverse. Specifically, these show that Blake's 7 takes place in the same time period as Boucher's popular Doctor Who story "The Robots of Death". (As it happens, this idea nearly happened on TV; the invasion force from another galaxy from the finale of Season 2 of Blake's 7 were intended to be the Daleks at one point, but for one reason or another the idea was dropped.
- Douglas Adams' character Professor Chronotis from the novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency came from Adams' Doctor Who TV serial "Shada", which was left incomplete due to an electricians' strike. In the novel, at least partially for copyright reasons, it's not explicitly stated that Chronotis is a Time Lord in hiding, but it's clearly meant to be the same person. There's even an oblique little reference at the end to a strange young man permanently disabling his time machine while the POV character wasn't around...
- The Nasuverse encompasses the canons of Tsukihimeand Fate/stay night alongside any number of spin-offs and other stories.
- There's rarely direct crossover of the characters, except in Fate/Grand Order, spin-off games and non-canonical side-comics. Word of God on each canon's characters respective power levels in relation to each other (can Shiki kill Servants?) is conflicting not helped by FGO constantly introducing new and more powerful entities like the Beasts. Even better: it is canonical in the series that alternate timelines exist in which different events took place, and that travel between them is possible (albeit extremely difficult, this being the Second Magic), so it can be said that all routes of all materials are canonical in one universe or another.
- Word of God is that The Multiverse is generally divided into "Fate" Worlds with a strong Human Foundation value where the Heroic Spirits can be summoned as Servants and "Tsukihime" Worlds with a weak Human Foundation value where the Dead Apostle Ancestors exist as an organization. There are also some unique worlds with aspects of both such as Fate/strange Fake.
- Fate/Grand Order deserves special mention as it brings together Servants from multiple worlds including Fate/stay night, Fate/Apocrypha, Fate/EXTRA, and Fate/Prototype in addition to elements from Tsukihime and The Garden of Sinners. This works thanks to the longstanding plot point that the Throne of Heroes exists outside of space and time, enabling Heroic Spirits to be summoned from alternate possibilities. Notably Team Pet Fou is revealed to be an heroic alternate self of Primate Murder from Tsukihime who gets tied into the concept of the Beasts as Beast IV.
- In The '50s, Disney Comics began to spread until the Canon of the comic stories encompassed not only the regular Donald-Mickey-Silly Symphoniesnote melting-pot, but also several animated features by the studio, the most notably integrated into the canon being Song of the South, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio. It was later taken to ridiculous extents in The '60s and The '70s, as the creators were beginning to run out of ideas. Aside perhaps of Snow White, The Sword and the Stone and Song of the South, the stories featuring such crossovers are largely Fanon Discontinuity (though some fans disagree with this, arguing that some of those stories were bad, sure, but that they were bad because the writers didn't do their job, not because the crossover idea in itself was bad). They are arguably Canon Discontinuity as well, insofar as none of these crossover characters have appeared in modern comics, although the Disney Comics 'verse doesn't really have a single official canon.
- Super Robot Wars is already a Crossover series, with nearly as many canons as it has games — most entries take place in their own continuities, created by fusing together the stories of whichever Humongous Mecha shows are featured in that particular installment, but there are a few characters who show up in multiple continuities, and while most of them are Alternate Universe versions of each other, the likes of Gilliam Yeager for example, whose gimmick involves hopping between dimensions, is implied to be the same individual in all his appearances, no matter what continuity he's in. This in turn would make any games with Gilliam in them part of the same Multiverse.
- The Endless Frontier series, which crosses over with both Original Generation (which features Gilliam) and the even-more-mega-Crossover Namco × Capcom. And since Namco × Capcom contains everything from Street Fighter to Xenosaga (which also crosses over to Endless Frontier) to Klonoa, there are versions of all of those characters (but not the same versions that exist in their original games, yet still a version) in the Banpresto multiverse. With Project × Zone, any Capcom and Bandai Namco Entertainment series not already included into this multiverse will most likely be added; however, there are also dozens of Sega series in the game like Virtua Fighter and Valkyria Chronicles. The sequel adds Nintendo series like Xenoblade Chronicles and Fire Emblem to the growing multiverse.
- Kamen Rider:
- The franchise has had this going since the beginning. The Showa-era shows (original through Kamen Rider BLACK RX) explicitly took place in the same universe, and the previous Riders would often show up near the end of the latest series to help out the current hero. The movies produced in the hiatus years (Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue, Kamen Rider ZO, Kamen Rider J) and the Heisei shows (Kuuga onwards) abandoned this, except for a few rare crossover events. Kamen Rider Decade deliberately says that the Heisei shows all occupy their own separate universe...and then has the first nine (Kuuga to Kiva) forcibly merged, with Decade forced to travel to alternate versions of said worlds in an attempt to fix everything...and then there's the Decade movie All Riders vs. Great Shocker, which crosses over with the entire Showa-era universe as well. Movie War 2010 also adds Kamen Rider Double to the mix. Then Kamen Rider Fourze decided to just bite the bullet and imply at the end of episode 2 that every show in the franchise is set in the same universe, with Word of God saying that they're going to Retcon the elements of Decade that didn't work. For extra humor, Kamen Rider Kabuto has a brief in-character cameo by the actor who plays Rider-1 in The Remake Kamen Rider: The First, and Kamen Rider Ryuki had a DVD-exclusive joke episode where the protagonist dreams that he teams up with Kamen Rider Agito to battle Agito's Evil Twin.
- ZO and J fight a multi-seasonal batch of monsters in Kamen Rider World (8-minute theme park thingy, may not be canonical but never said not to be, and not contradicting anything) which puts all three hiatus movies (yes, Shin provided a monster) into old-school KR continuity. Kuuga's mention of a Professor Hongo (and an imitation of him, which means he must have known the Hongo) put Kuuga and Agito into it as well. However, Decade makes the multiverse more complicated with its alternate universes bearing variable resemblance to — and rarely literally being — the worlds of the actual series it's crossing over with. We even get Black and Black RX as separate worlds, as well as Kuuga and Agito, with alternate versions of some of the same people. Even more so, late in Double a member of Foundation X can be seen looking over data on OOO's Core Medals. Nothing came of this for over a year, until the crossover Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Fourze & OOO: Movie War Mega Max revealed that Foundation X would be playing a role, this time using the Astro Switches from Fourze...and that Double and the first seven Showa Riders would be teaming up with Fourze and OOO. Given how Astro Switches are Gaia Memories this makes some sense (except for the Last One thing).
- Some Decade worlds have versions of Riders of other worlds with no dimension-hopping. For example, Dark Kabuto, Dark Kiva, Ryuga, and Orga live in a world where monsters rule, and have no connection to Kabuto, Kiva, Ryuki, or Faiz. It's the second Ryuga we meet, and no, the first wasn't in the World of Ryuki, either.) It also means Double and OOO take place in the World of the Rider War, as Double does no dimension hopping to meet Decade, and OOO does no dimension hopping to meet Double in any of their multiple teamup occasions.
- Decade's own Mind Screw-itiude and A Wizard Did It attitude makes it nigh useless for working out continuity issues or finally answering which of your favorite Riders can kick the other's ass. Post-Decade teamup occasions not requiring any dimension-hopping (as it was with pre-Decade teamup occasions) would seem to have all things Kamen Rider in one universe, with past Riders still out there after they leave our sight (like any character in any show who has been Put on a Bus.) It would seem that none of the AR Worlds were the one universe KR usually takes place in.
- As closest anyone can figure, here's how the Kamen Rider multiverse seems to work: The Showa era Riders and the 3 intermediate Riders (Shin, ZO, and J) take place in a singular continuity, as we saw. The Heisei era shows from Kuuga to Kiva (plus most of their movies) appeared to each take place in their own continuity, so completely separate were they, with the notable exception of Kiva and Den-O (the second Den-O movie has the Kiva gang cameo, and Kiva himself joins in the final battle) and the possible exception of Kuuga and Agito (there's a reference, and there are a few points that take some Fan Wank to make fit neatly.) Decade takes place all over the multiverse, but the opening episode and and the end of Movie Wars takes place in the same continuity as Double (whose appearance in Decade's movie can be chalked up to his universe meshing with Decade's). And all of the series from Double onwards exist in the same continuity, which also contains variations of every Rider from Ichigo to Kiva, just not exactly as we saw them in the series. As far as OOO is concerned, his movies seem to be more canonical than his actual series is.
- However, the more we see of Riders old and new it makes more sense to just toss Decade out: its "AR Worlds" are clearly not the originals, so the World of Blade that's like a workplace sitcom with Riders and the World of Ryuki that's like a legal drama with Riders being separate worlds tells us nothing whatsoever about the canonicity of the series that they resemble In Name Only. When it comes to the actual shows, the assumption made by fans that when Superman Stays Out of Gotham it means Metropolis and Gotham are in completely separate and unrelated universes is something that never had canonical support, and now that Riders meet all the time it goes from plausible Fan Wank to something that really doesn't have a leg to stand on.
- However, don't put away your migraine medicine just yet: OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go, Kamen Rider would have the Decade World of Kuuga Big Bad instead of the Kamen Rider Kuuga Big Bad representing the Grongi in the Legion of Doom, which would have welded Decade and its madness right back in...if it weren't for the fact that the movie's ending implicitly makes the whole ordeal non-canonical to everything by virtue of settling on a Close-Enough Timeline where, in regards to Kamen Rider OOO, Hina doesn't know Eiji. (Also, every character who appeared in Decade had their updated design from that series instead of their original designs, but that can be ignored — you'd use the shiny Decade suits instead of making all new ones that don't look as good in order to perfectly match the 1970s versions.)
- Let's Go, Kamen Rider also gives us cameos of Inazuman, Kikaider, Kikaider 01, and even Kaiketsu Zubat. So basically everything with Shotaro Ishinomori's name on it officially coexists now, even if you didn't take Goranger vs. JAKQ (which had Kamen Rider V3, Kamen Rider Amazon, and Kikaider stated to be fighting the same Legion of Doom overseas.) seriously before. Then one of the Kamen Rider Fourze movies goes and introduces Inazuman... based on Inazuman the manga, not the show, and so not the Inazuman encountered in Let's Go Kamen Riders.
- And then Kamen Rider Gaim meets up with Kikaider. Namely, the version from Kikaider Reboot instead of the one we met in "Let's Go, Kamen Riders."
- Masked Rider, the not well received American adaptation of Black RX, was launched with a Poorly Disguised Pilot in a Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers episode; much later, Power Rangers in Space crossed over with Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, which makes all three American series share a verse. All three are produced by Saban, which wasn't so bad back then, but as of 2009...
- Take all the crossovers above, put two plus two with the Kamen Rider and TMNT multiverses separately established by Decade and Turtles Forever respectivelynote , and toss in both the canonical Samurai Sentai Shinkenger arc of Decade and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up for kicks. End result? Kamen Rider, Power Rangers, Super Sentai, TMNT, the Ultra Series, and Raving Rabbids are all part of the multiverse. It's gotten to the point that, near as anyone can tell of the yet-unreleased Kamen Rider × Super Sentai: Super Hero Taisen movie, nobody except Marvelous and Decade know what the hell is going on. Even the narrator is baffled. And with Compati Hero Series The Great Battle IV this would tie in Gundam, the Ultra Series, and Kamen Rider, et al. with the aforementioned Super Robot Wars and... well. Just let your imagination go wild, one supposes.
- Transformers was split from its very beginning into separate comic and cartoon continuities. However, this rapidly splintered further and further, with different comics in different continuities being introduced, anime series being created, the introduction of the Beast Wars and Beast Machines ranges which combine elements from previous continuities, the live-action movies and so on.
- In the mid-2000s, writer Simon Furman ruled that every single Transformers continuity forms part of a massive multiverse of different timelines, dimensions and universes, and sometimes featured crossovers in his stories (for example, the Generation One Galvatron and several others making a cameo appearance in a Transformers: Armada comic). He also ruled that Unicron and Primus are constant forces in this multiverse, and though they can be destroyed in one reality their consciousness lives on in another. Curiously, his next range of comics for IDW seemed to separate from this idea altogether.
- The canonical explanation of how multiversal singularities work, using The Fallen as an example, truly has to be read to be believed. Here's a link.
- It gets better. Courtesy of Axiom Nexus, any Transformers series can interact with any other.
- Even better, the Transformers franchise itself was an amalgamation of several unrelated lines of Japanese die-cast toys (Jetfire/Skyfire was a VF-1 Valkyrie), with most of the welding done by the fine folks at Marvel Comics and Sunbow Productions.
- The Transformers also went full circle when they crossed over with the New Avengers. To say nothing of their participation in the Infestation crossovers at IDW, which suggests that, among others, Star Trek and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are also part of the same multiverse.
- Regeneration One, the continuation of the original Marvel series (disregarding the Generation 2 series), concludes that the Grand Plan of Primus is to eventually create one "optimal" universe that comprises the best features of the various realities of the multiverse. And yes, Simon Furman wrote that series. (It also features a team-up of Rodimus Prime and his cross-dimensional counterparts.)
- The Transformers and G.I. Joe often take place in the same universe. The G1 cartoon continuity also includes Jem, Inhumanoids, and C.O.P.S. (Animated Series); most of these series all had cameos from Hector Ramirez, an in-universe news reporter and a takeoff on Geraldo Rivera. My Little Pony 'n Friends was close to being in the same universe, due to My Little Pony: The Movie (1986) nearly including scenes where Firefly encounters Shipwreck of G.I. Joe (who was drunk) and Optimus Prime.
- The Hasbroverse follows a similar premise, which also includes My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and Dungeons & Dragons (1983). The author sets the G1 MLP as G4's distant past, and used some Broad Strokes by using mostly Marvel's G.I. Joe and having the G1 Transformers each possess a spark (a concept introduced in Beast Wars). The Earth Defense Command, meanwhile, is a descendant of both the original Joe Team and their Russian counterparts, the Oktober Guard; their respective leaders (General Clayton "Hawk" Abernathy and Colonel Ivan Brekhov) are now the leaders of the US and Russia, while Cobra got decimated in 1994 after an ill-advised attack on the Decepticons; only Cobra Commander and a few others managed to escape.
- When a Matt Trakker figure was released as Specialist Trakker in one of the G.I. Joe toylines, M.A.S.K. was adopted into the G.I. Joe universe. (M.A.S.K. originally started as Kenner's counterpart to the Joes and the Transformers; it came under Hasbro's umbrella when they acquired Kenner Parker Tonka in 1991).
- And Revolution not only welds together their Transformers and G.I. Joe comics into one universe (with the statement being that all the Joe issues took place during a time where the Cybertronians were absent from Earth), but also brings in rebooted versions of Rom the Space Knight, the Micronauts, Action Man and M.A.S.K.note , with all sorts of connections between characters and plot threads between everything — Miles Mayhem was a member of Joe Colton's Adventure Team (and founded M.A.S.K. as an anti-Cybertronian deterrent team, with parts of their technology reverse-engineered from their captive, Decepticon triple-changer Blitzwing), Colton himself was on of a few Joe Team members who got replaced by Dire Wraiths (Rom's sworn enemy), Baron Karza found that Microspace was created by Micronus Prime (one of the thirteen Primes of Cybertronian lore), and Ore-13, a powerful energy source created by Decepticon Shockwave and seeded on Earth during the ice age, is what drives the plot, as everyone is trying to use it. It's eventually revealed that Mayhem, Karza and the Dire Wraiths were working together to exploit Ore-13 for their own ends, only for Karza to go One-Winged Angel when he absorbs a bunch of Ore-infused Wraiths with his "enerchange" ability and takes down Mayhem; it ultimately takes the Micronauts, Rom, Soundwave, Matt Trakker and Mainframe working together to bring him down.
- The follow-up Revolutionaries takes it further, bringing in all sorts of obscure concepts and tying up dangling plot threads from previous IDW titles, including various G.I. Joe-related villains — Baron Ironblood from Action Force (the British 80s counterpart to G.I. Joe), General Krieger from Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles (a mid-90s attempt to reboot the G.I. Joe line), Iron Klaw from G.I. Joe Extreme, and the Transformers from Hearts of Steel (a universe where the Transformers landed on Earth in the 1800s and got Steampunk bodies).
- More toy lines related to the Transformers multiverse include GoBots, Robotix, Rock Lords, and Beastformers, the Japanese version of Battle Beasts.
- Shotaro Ishinomori's later Skull Man manga incorporates his earliest concept for the titular character of Kamen Rider, monsters from said show, and Kamen Rider himself, along with appearances of Joe Shimamura from the anime Cyborg 009 and cameos from Himitsu Sentai Gorenger, Robot Detective, Inazuman, and Kikaider. A later anime version of Skull Man has a Downer Ending that connects it even more explicitly to Cyborg 009: Skull Man is defeated and turned into Black Ghost, the Big Bad of 009.
- The Cyborg 009 graphic novel by Archaia showed background references that implied Skull Man and Kikaider were part of the same universe. The last issue took it even further, revealing that Black Ghost was funded by Foundation X from Kamen Rider Double. Archaia had plans to make a massive Shared Universe comic series out of Ishinomori's works, but that fell through when Ishimori Pro disagreed with the direction the series was taking and the whole thing stalled out.
- The OVA Giant Robo: The Day The Earth Stood Still and its companion manga The Day The Earth Burned incorporates practically all of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's work, including the first magical girl Sally the Witch, the tokusatsu show Iga No Kagemaru, the eponymous giant robots, and historical characters from both the Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
- Inverted with Starship Titanic and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Despite both featuring similar Starship Titanics which undergo similar events in similar settings, the game explicitly states that they're different universes.
- Witch Girls Adventures is a 'verse created almost entirely through Canon Welding. The 'verse started as a fetish e-zine called "The Shrinking Sorceress" by MANGA GRAPHIX, dedicated to sorceresses transforming people into animals and inanimate objects. Later on, many of the same people went on to write Witch Girls Tales, theoretically a comic about young witches getting into mischief with their powers, and several characters and concepts from MANGA GRAPHIX stories ended up in the new 'verse. Completely independently, a different author wrote a comic called "Princess Lucinda," about the titular princess' love for wickedness and transforming people over the slightest offense. The Witch Girls Adventures game was created as a team-up between Channel M (the reconstituted MANGA GRAPHIX) and Abby Soto (the creator of Princess Lucinda), using characters from "The Shrinking Sorceress" (including some that hadn't yet appeared in Tales), Witch Girls Tales, and Princess Lucinda all in a single standalone universe.
- Return to Labyrinth:
- The OEL manga sequel to the film Labyrinth has cameos by Uncle Traveling Matt from Fraggle Rock and the devils from the "Soldier and Death" episode of The Story Teller, establishing that these Jim Henson Company works share a Verse.
- Fraggle Rock (the location) is basically a canon-welding tool, since it's established in the fourth season of the show that the Rock can magically link to many locations — some in our world, some in others. Uncle Matt also turned up in The Muppets Take Manhattan, and other creatures from the Rock have appeared as extras in Muppet productions throughout the 1990s. In turn, the Muppets share a universe with Sesame Street. Additionally, one creature occasionally seen in Fraggle Rock resembles Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal, suggesting another link.
- The Soul Series is confirmed by Word of God to take place in the distant past of the Tekken universe due to the presence of Yoshimitsu in nearly every installment of both series (the Soul series Yoshimitsu didn't debut until Soulcalibur, and he is eventually succeeded by Yoshimitsu the Second in Soulcalibur V). The presence of characters from The Legend of Zelda, Image Comics, Star Wars, God of War, Assassin's Creed, The Witcher, NieR: Automata, Samurai Shodown, etc. is non-canonical (although Lizardman's character profile in SCV seems to imply that he ate Kratos). As for Tales of Symphonia (Lloyd is a playable character in Legends) and Sgt. Frog (the cousin of Angol Mois, Angol Fear, appears in IV as a bonus character), it's left ambiguous.
- Video game Blair Witch Volume I Rustin Parr sets the original Blair Witch movie and the video game Nocturne (1999), made by the same creators, in one world. And apparently the first BloodRayne game implies several times that it's set in the same world as Nocturne.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- There is a crossover between Wonder Woman and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. The latter's world was adapted into D&D setting. Of course, there was a fair amounts of retcons in The DCU and revised editions of D&D, but it's quite possible that the link establishing connection between the three still exist in some form.
- Thanks to the d20 edition of Call of Cthulhu you can play as Dungeons and Dragons characters in Call of Cthulhu and introduce the Cthulhu Mythos into Dungeons and Dragons. It however doesn't stop there as the Call of Cthulhu sourcebook known as the Malleus Monstrorum not only mentions every major Mythos entity, it also manages to throw in The Thing (1982), the Martians of The War of the Worlds, and The Wicker Man (1973) and several of Stephen King's characters as avatars of Nyarlathotep.
- D&D's crossover with the Mythos and Nehwon goes back to the AD&D 1st Edition version of the Deities & Demigods Sourcebook published in 1980, along with the heroes of Arthurian legend and the deities of Michael Moorcock's world of Melnibone. The Cthulhu Mythos and Melnibonean material nearly brought down legal action from Chaosium, which had the game license rights to both at the time, and so they were left out of subsequent print runs since TSR didn't want to provide a reference to a competitor in the publishing credits. Obviously, copies of this first printing are hard to find.
- Raymond E. Feist's The Riftwar Cycle, set in Midkemia, setting of RPG publisher Midkemia Press, who were also Raymond E. Feist's college role-playing buddies. note The Riftwar Cycle includes Sierra's Betrayal at Krondor and its novelization.
- Neil Gaiman's American Gods had a cameo from Delirium of the Endless from The Sandman (1989). Given the Endless' nature it is entirely vague if that means the book takes place in the DC Universe or just is part of the same multiverse.
- Team Four Star connected their Let's Play of Dragon Ball Xenoverse to Dragon Ball Z Abridged by way of Ascended Fanon: namely, that their character Dumplin is a younger, less experienced Mr. Popo.
- Disney Parks' The Society of Explorers and Adventurers is this trope in a nutshell. What started as a way to retheme the Tokyo DisneySEA's version of the Tower of Terror has proceeded to be a franchise tying together Hong Kong's Mystic Manor, and Magic Kingdom's Jungle Cruise and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. What separates it from the Thunder Mesa in Disneyland Paris (mentioned in the Theme Parks section below) is the numerous easter eggs hinting that it's taking place in the same universe as Indiana Jones, ultimately confirmed with the Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar in Disney Springs confirming the eponymous pilot was a member of the Society.
- The writers at Pixar had a hand in co-writing the Toybox stage of Kingdom Hearts III and were so pleased with the results they apparently stated that Toybox is canon to the Toy Story films, set between 2 and 3.
- Although Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse dabbled in it, its sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse goes all the way in with this trope, showing not only a vast number of different comic book incarnations, but many different Spider-People from adaptations in other media together in a inter-dimensional plot, such as Spider-Man (1967), The Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Man Unlimited, Spider-Man (PS4), the Spider-Man Trilogy, Sony's Spider-Man Universe The Amazing Spider-Man Series, and even the LEGO Spider-Man, as well as explicit references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe incarnation, including the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home (itself already an example of the trope).
