Obviously, the Whisperer is the Shadow. I toyed with the idea of using the Spider, from Planetary #1, but I wanted to get a certain distance from Ellis & Cassaday's work so that my players wouldn't think I was copying and pasting the comic book stories. That's also the reason for not using exact the same names (Lamont Cranston, Margo Lane etc.) as the original characters. I must confess though that, in the session, I used them, but my players were none the wiser. While writing up the adventure log, I changed them, except James Weston, which I kept. The years for the initial and last appearances of the Whisperer are the same as the Shadow's radio show start and end.

Lo Pan is the name of the immortal sorcerer in the Big Trouble in Little China movie. It sounded appropriate for the image I was trying to pass of the Whisperer's archnemesis. Tony Leong is the name of a character I made for a game of Call of Cthulhu RPG. He was a a New York police detective of Chinese and American ancestry. The adventure was from the Unseen Masters module and was run by Flávio Coelho, who plays Mohammed Al-Fayad in this campaign. 'Purple Dragons' seemd like a good name for a gang of kung fu fighting Asian young men. Although I realize that purple might not be such a 'powerful' color, I didn't want to have yet another group called Red Dragons or Black Dragons. I think there are plenty of them in other works of fiction already. Yongjie is the name of a Chinese postdoctoral fellow I met when I was doing my thesis in Boston.

Donner is the German name of Thor, and the owner/bartender of Donner's Bar did look like the Marvel version of the character. Chicago Hope was a TV series that featured the same style of medical drama as ER, but with a smaller production value. To be honest, I never watched a single episode of it, but I did see the Early Edition crossover episode. Anyway, I only needed a hospital name. The Daily Sentinel is the newspaper owned by Britt Reid, the Green Hornet from the namesake TV show. I believe there's no doubt that Wayne and Gotham City are references to Batman.

This adventure was inspired by the Young Samson cartoon. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll explain. This show featured a young man, Samson, and his dog, Goliath, who traveled around in a scooter and righted wrongs. They did that thanks to these magical bracelets that when knocked together, transformed the man into a muscle-bound super-hero and the dog into a giant lion that could shoot laser beams from its eyes. The cartoon was produced from May to November of 1967.

My players obviously thought I was going to use Island Zero, from Planetary #2, for this adventure and, although this was certainly part of the inspiration, the main one was the Japanese Ultraman TV series. Tetsuo, of course, is taken from the Akira movie -- I even used his picture. The stranger with the bluish lens is a Green Lantern analog, but also owns its design to E.E. Doc Smith's Lensman series, which I never read, but I watched the cartoon. And the monster is a homage to Godzilla.

I named the location Night Island because I wanted a simple name that conveyed the main characteristic of the place. However, recently I remembered that Saker's base in Bill Willingham's excellent Elementals comic book is called Nacht Island, nacht being 'night' in German. So, perhaps, my unconscious played a trick on me.

This adventure is inspired by a series of Brazilian children books called Sítio do Picapau-Amarelo (Yellow Woodpecker Farm). They were written by Monteiro Lobato (1882 - 1948), who is a kind of Brazilian Dr. Seuss. The books told the story of the inhabitants of the farm and their adventures, mainly Pedrinho (little Pedro) and his cousin Narizinho, whose real name was Lúcia. Among the many fantastic beings that lived in the farm, were Quindim, an intelligent and well-read rhinoceros that escaped from a circus, and the fish nobles of the Reino das Águas Claras (Clearwater Kingdom), that dwelled in the creek that cut through the farm. There ere mor eimpostant characters than these last two, like Emília, the living rag doll, and the Viscount of Sabugosa, but I thought that incluidng their analogs would give the inspiration away too easily.

The main opponent of book's child heroes was Cuca, a witch that lived in the woods near the farm. She was an anthropomorphic alligator with long blond hair and I remeber being scared of her in the TV adaptation of the books when I was a child.

This adventure was obviously inspired by the classic Dungeons & Dragons model Ravenloft (I-6), which had a sequel: Ravenloft: House on Gryphon Hill (I-10). Janos, Camilla and Mircea are my own creation, but were originally designed for another supers campaign using the DC Heroes RPG. Their codenames were Hunyadi V, Stregoica and Dragon Knight. Jack Carter appears in Planetary #7 and is a John Constantine analog. In my campaign, he's still around and is a bit more likable than the originals.

For this adventure, I wanted to combine some African elements from the comic books, like Black Panther's secret kigdom of Wakanda and DC's Gorilla City, and literature, such as Tarzan. Solovar is the name of the leader of Gorilla City and Grodd is his main enemy and one of Flash's foe. Zaius and Zira are characters from The Planet of the Apes movie, while Urko appears in the TV series. Kenneth Robb, Lord Whitestack, is none other than Lord Greystoke (or Kevin Sacks, Lord Blackstock, in Planetary), best known as Tarzan, from the namesake Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel. Elijah Snow is Elijah Snow.

This adventure is basically H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow over Innsmouth short story (helped by Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG adventure Escape from Innsmouth) with a DC spin. I used the Deep Ones breeding program to introduce aquatic characters from the comics, like Aquaman (Arthur Curry), Aqualad (Garth) and Ocean Master (Orm Curry). During the sessions, I also featured Aquagirl, from Aquaman's troupe, and Mark Harris, from The Man from Atlantis TV series. Saker and his posthuman group, which included the Elementals and the Destroyers, are all creations of Bill Willingham for his comic book, the Elementals. By the way, the Lovecraft to whom Saker speaks on the phone is H.P. Lovecraft.

This story marks the beginning of the final phase of the campaign. As such, the story wasn't really derived of other media, but there were plenty of references. The Watchers are partly based on the namesake organization from the Highlander TV series and partly on monster hunting organizations from other media, like the Sentinels from CJ Carella's WitchCraft RPG. Ahmed Farouk (I'm not sure the first name is Ahmed), the Shadow King, is a powerful enemy telepath of Charles Xavier and the X-Men. The blonde is another telepath, Emma Frost, from the Hellfire Club, also from the pages of the X-Men. The German man looked like the English actor Ronald Lacey (1935-1991), who played Major Toht in the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, but was in truth J'Onn J'Onnz, the Martian Manhunter. The man in skintight black suit is Superman. Rachel van Horn is based on Rachel van Helsing, from the Tomb of Dracula comic book. In fact, in the Planetary: Elseworld reality, van Helsing is the name Bram Stoker used in his novel to protect the van Horns' privacy. Magdalena was inspired by the namesake Image comic book. Nightwing is a cross between Batman's Nightwing and Authority's Midnighter. Visually, it was the Midnighter with the The New Batman Adventures cartoon's Nightwing logo.

The reference galore continues in this penultimate chapter of the campaign. Despite the III in his name, Bruce Wayne is the real McCoy. And so is Wayne Manor, although I didn't make it clear if there was a large cave beneath it. Felicia Hardy is Black Cat, from Spider-man fame. Nimrod is the ultimate Sentinel that first appeared in the X-Men saga Days of the Future Past. Here he's still a product of Project: Wideawake, although he got built earlier. Jack Hawksmoor remains the same, except for the fact that in the Planetary: Elseworld universe, StormWatch never disbanded, and so he never went on to form the Authority. The Black Razors are the same as in the original Wildstorm universe.

Well, this is the end. Most of the stuff that appeared in this chapter had already been showed in other adventures. But here we go, John Storm and his spaceflight companions are the Fantastic Four. The green rock is kryptonite. Diana is obviously Wonder Woman, but also crossed with Zealot (and a bit of Squadron Supreme's Power Princess), of WildCATs fame, in that she is the leader of the Coda. The nameless speedster is the Flash analog. Finally, the Carrier is the same shiftship used by the Authority.