Doctor Who Invades the Multiverse: Star Trek / Legion of Super-Heroes

I was thinking today about examples where Doctor Who has spread out into other fictional arenas. Often this takes the form of Doctor Who simply being a TV show that exists in the world of these other programs, like whenever one of the characters referenced it in The Big Bang Theory.

But today’s focus is different. It’s one of those examples where the Doctor and the TARDIS and the lore of Doctor Who evidently “exists” in another fictional property—in this case, the Star Trek / Legion of Super-Heroes crossover series that IDW published in 2011-2012.

(Daily Doctor Who #156)

Now, Star Trek and the Legion of Super-Heroes are possibly my third and second favorite fictional properties, so I was pretty excited when this was announced. And as I blogged here, I was pretty disappointed when I finally read it. The whole thing came across too much as a giant “Amalgam-style” smooshing of the two worlds, rather than an honest attempt to show how the characters and realities would interact.

But there is this cute double-paged spread where the characters are being shown artifacts from other time-travelers and dimension-crossers, which gave artist Jeffrey Moy a chance to insert in a whole bunch of science fiction easter eggs.

(Apologies for the fact that the double page spread is presented here as two single pages–it’s obviously intended to be one big image).

Anyway, you’ve got the TARDIS, as seen here.

Right next to it is the Master’s TARDIS, disguised as a column, as it was in a handful of stories in the 1980’s.

I recognize some of the other things in the room, like the Flash’s Cosmic Treadmill, a Stargate from the Stargate franchise, the phone booth from Bill & Ted, the DeLorean from Back to the Future, and the eponymous Time Machine from some version The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.

I needed help with some of the others (which I found here), like a hot tub from Hot Tub Time Machine and the Time Sphere from DC Comic’s Rip Hunter. And then others, like the Dagger of Time from Prince of Persia, I’m completely unfamiliar with.

Apparently, the original idea was for where we now have that muddy pool thing on the upper right of the first page was to include the Guardian of Forever from the famed Star Trek episode City on the Edge of Forever, but apparently there were rights issues with that one.

Missing is the time machine from Summer Time Machine Blues, but since its look was obviously inspired by the H.G. Wells novel (and adaptions) The Time Machine, we’ll led it slide. Also missing is the Enterprise itself from Star Trek, for obvious reasons of size, and the tape recorder from Somewhere in Time in that Christopher Reeve uses to help hypnotize himself back in time (really).

Amusingly, the page linked to above where someone has identified as many of the items as possible labels one of the empty podiums near the Time Sphere as having the Vortex Manipulator from Doctor Who, but absent because it’s currently in use by River Song.