Wold Newton Pulp Timeline

[OddHat]

Anyone interested in an amazing time line for Pulp adventure might want to check out the Wold Newton Universe.

 

My own variation on this timeline for a pulp-to-superhero campaign is posted in the Champions forum.

[OddHat]

Re: Wold Newton Pulp Timeline

 

Here's my own alternate timeline in word format. The timeline is identical to that posted in the Champion forums, but remain appropriate for pulp adventure until the 1940s.

[OddHat]

Re: Wold Newton Pulp Timeline

 

And, for no logical reason:

 

Alternate Wold Newton Universe Superhero Timeline

 

The following timeline draws on multiple sources, including Win Scott Eckert’s Wold Newton Universe timeline (http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Pulp2.htm), Schroeder’s Speculations (http://www.novanotes.com/specul.htm), and the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/). I would also like to thank Mike Surbrook (http://surbrook.devermore.net/index/) for his feedback, suggestions and support. I do not claim to hold the trademark or copyright on any fictional character mentioned in this timeline, nor do I intend to challenge the rights of any copyright or trademark holder. This particular arrangement and interpretation of fictional events and information is copyright Robert Dorf, 2005. It may be reproduced and distributed freely, so long as no fee is charged for this content, and so long as appropriate credit is given.

350,000,000 BCE – Elder Things (aka The Old Ones) reach the Earth.

 

300,000,000 BCE – The Old Ones cause life to begin on Earth. Evidence suggests that this may have been part of a planet forming project.

 

50,000,000 BCE – The culmination of a series of wars among various extraterrestrial and extra-dimensional races drives the bulk of the Old Ones and their foes to abandon the planet. Small remnant populations remain.

 

2,000,000 BCE – The Ancients establish an outpost on Earth under the modern Antarctic continent. They make use of genetically altered dinosaurs and other bio- and psi-weapons in an attempt to drive the last of the Elder Things from the Earth.

 

250,000 BCE - The Ancients perform experiments on proto-humanity.

 

50,000 BCE – Creation of the creature known as Lilith, mother of monsters, the first Vampire. Note that this date is subject to dispute, with some arguing for a date as late as 3000 BCE.

 

50,000 BCE - The Ancients leave Earth after repeated conflicts with apparently extra dimensional entities. They take with them the most promising of their test subjects. These test subjects are then seeded on multiple worlds. One of those worlds is an artificial construct, a planetary engineering project as complex and ambitious as anything the Ancients had ever attempted. Its genetically modified inhabitants would one day become, compared to Earth Humans, virtual supermen.

 

24,000 BCE - the Nine Unknown, a group of powerful metahumans, found the Atlantean civilization. Using fragments of the technology of the Ancients and their own powers, the Nine make fantastic progress in the psionic and physical sciences. Atlantis extends its power across the globe.

 

18,000 BCE -The first war of the Nine Unknown causes the fall of Atlantean civilization. The Nine scatter, each holding what he or she can of the Ancient's secrets. The Nine Unknown have periodically been responsible for the creation, training, breeding or recruitment of numerous metahumans ever since. The majority of true metahumans have proven to be nearly sterile, and the metagene itself appears to be recessive.

 

10,000 BCE – The city-state of Opar uses scraps of Ancient technology and echoes of Atlantean science to carve an empire.

 

3000 BCE – a "Circle of Light" appears in the air above the North Korean village of Sinanju. Since that time, the Masters of Sinanju have taught a diet and exercise regimen and a style of martial arts that has unlocked near-superhuman abilities in its practitioners. Many claim that all forms of Eastern martial arts derive from Sinanju. No explanation for the "Circle of Light" has ever been determined.

 

335 BCE- Ayesha the immortal is born.

 

400 – Sun Wukong the immortal begins his career in China. His origins are cloaked in legend, myth and deliberate deception.

 

500 – Merlin (thought by some to be an identity XauXaz of the Nine Unknown) attempts to rekindle human civilization in Camelot. He trains several humans in the Atlantean psychic sciences, and begins several key bloodlines.

 

520 – Master Tan of Sinanju, serving the Chinese emperor Liang Wu Ti, befriends the Indian monk Bodhidharma. Tan shares many secrets of Sinanju with Bodhidharma over the next decade. Bodhidharma will in turn teach these secrets to the monks of the Shaolin monastery. This shameful misjudgment will cause Master Tan’s name to be stricken from all but the most secret scrolls of Sinanju.

 

630 – Master Li and Number 10 Ox operate in China as agents of the Nine Unknown.

 

730 – Al Azif, aka the Necronomicon, is written by Abdul Alhazred

 

1476 – Vlad Tepes becomes a true Vampire.

 

1680 - Death of Master Li Mu Bai and the disappearance of his sword Green Destiny.

 

1699 - Dr. Lemuel Gulliver physically travels into the Dreamlands, a parallel dimension. Reports of conditions in the Dreamlands vary widely. Some speculate that all extra-dimensional travel leads to the Dreamlands. Some scholars assert the Gulliver is of the blood of Amber.

 

1715 - Gulliver returned from the Dreamlands. The public and scientific community at large dismisses his reports as fiction and social satire. The physical evidence he produces is confiscated by elements within the British Government.

 

1715-1745 (approx) -- travels of Manji, apparently immortal swordsman. He vows to kill 1000 evil men to make up for killing 100 samurai.

 

1740 (approx) – The sacking of the Shaolin temple. Chinese government forces sack the Shaolin temple. Five monks escape the destruction of the temple form China’s first Triads. Many historians point to this as the flash point for conflicts between China’s government and China’s metahuman community that will last until well into the late twentieth century.

 

1787 - The British government begins formally recruiting extraordinary men and women in the service of the Crown.

 

1790 – Baron Victor Frankenstein combines alchemical secrets with modern science to bring life to dead tissue, creating an animated creature he names Adam. Frankenstein’s notes will become instrumental in the ongoing evolution of so-called “Mad Scienceâ€.

 

1795 - A meteor strikes in Wold Newton, England. Since that time, the bloodlines of those who interacted with that meteor have produced large numbers of metahumans and borderline metahumans. A similar but far more destructive event occurred over Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908, and has been suggested as a link to a similar increase in metahuman births and manifestations world wide. Some have speculated that both the Wold Newton and Tunguska events were intentional acts making use of the technology of the Ancients.

 

1806 – Don Diego De La Vega becomes the first of his family line to take up the mask of El Zorro. De La Vega’s example will inspire generations of adventurers world-wide.

 

1840 – Ling Fu Shan born to Ling Ju Hai and Sir William Clayton. Clayton denies paternity. Ling Fu Shan will eventually become known to the world as the infamous crime-lord and Chinese nationalist Fu Manchu.

 

1847 – Wong Fei Hung is born in Canton, China. Fei Hung will eventually become one of China’s most important folk heroes, fighting for his people against threats both internal and external. It is strongly suspected that Fei Hung was himself a metahuman, as well as a master of Hung Kuen Kung Fu, which in turn derived from Shaolin Kung Fu.

 

1863 – Johnny Brainard invents the world’s first modern working humanoid robot, the famed Steam Man of the Prairies.

 

1866 – American John Carter uses a form of Astral Projection to travel to an alternate Mars. His reports on events on that alternate world will cause controversies in the halls of academia that may never be resolved.

 

1867 - Nemo uses a technologically advanced submarine to wage guerilla war against the British Empire.

 

1873 - The equipment maintaining an artificial "planet" constructed by the Ancients suffers a fatal series of malfunctions. As the planet self destructs, a single escape ship is launched towards the coordinates of Humanity's near-mythic home world. Despite its FTL drive, the ship takes over eighteen years to reach its goal. The ship's sole passenger spends that time in stasis.

 

1876 – Frank Reade Sr. develops the famed Steam Man Mk II and Mk III.

 

1886 - Dr. Henry Jekyll develops his “Hyde†formula. The age of the modern therianthrope has begun. Some evidence suggests that Jekyll may have been collaborating with Dr. Jean Moreau.

 

1886 – Frank Reade Jr. and Nikola Tesla develop the Electric Man and the Electric Horse, cable controlled robots far ahead of their times. Tesla and Reade break when Tesla insists that the robots can be remotely controlled.

 

1887 - Edward Prendick returns to civilization, reporting the death of Dr. Moreau. This report was false. Moreau, whose research was sponsored by the British Crown, had been moved to a secure location in England to continue his experiments.

 

1888 – Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, is born after his parents, John and Alice Clayton, are stranded in the jungle of French Equatorial Africa through the machinations of the Nine Unknown. The Nine eventually arrange for the infant’s parents to be killed, and for the infant to be adopted and raised by a tribe of Mangani (ape-like primates possessed of near human intelligence).

 

1890 – Professor Archibald Campion invents a robot soldier based on the Electric Man. The soldier, named Boilerplate, is used in action by Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. Campion attempts to integrate Tesla’s remote control systems, but finds them unreliable

 

1890 – Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer enter the Wood Between the Worlds, a significant dimensional nexus. Jadris of Charn briefly rampages through London, demonstrating more-than-human strength and resistance to harm.

 

1891 - A space craft crashes outside of Indian Creek, Colorado. The ship was quickly located by Professor Abednego Danner, himself a member of the extended Wold Newton family. Professor Danner and his wife legally adopted the male infant they found wandering near the wreckage of that ship. The wreckage itself is given over for study to Danner's cousin; Dr. Clark Savage, Sr. The boy is given the name "Hugo".

 

Hugo Danner's amazing physical and mental abilities develop as he ages. His strength, speed, and durability far surpass all theoretical human limits. Professor Danner is able to instill a strong sense of right and wrong in Hugo, but the boy's increasing powers cause him to become a social pariah.

 

1894 – Ling Ling Fat, master inventor and patriot, becomes increasingly influential in Beijing’s government and intelligence services. His paternity may trace to Ling Fu Shan, aka Fu Manchu. Fat will prove to be an implacable political rival of Shan.

 

1897 - Dracula, a true vampire, comes to the attention of the British Crown. He is eventually driven from England.

 

1897 - Dr. Hawley Griffin uses fragments of Dr. Henry Jekyll’s research to create his Invisibility formula.

 

1898 - Mina Murray becomes the first woman to command a group of Britain’s Extraordinary-class operatives.

 

1898 - The first War of the Worlds concludes with the “Martians†successfully repelled. Dr. Henry Jekyll gives his life in the battle against the invaders. A statue of Edward Hyde is erected in the renamed Hyde Park. The alien vehicles are held for study by the British government.

 

1898 - Professor Alfred Gibberne builds on the works of Jekyll, Griffin and Moreu to develop his Accelerator formula. This formula alters the subject’s perception of time, permitting the subject to move, think and act at incredible speeds. Unfortunately, use of the formula proves almost invariably fatal.

 

1899 – Using the anti-gravity metal Cavorite, Prof. Cavor attempts a trip to the moon. Evidence suggests that the “meteor†that provided the metal was in fact the wreckage of a space craft being studied by Dr. Clark Savage Sr. Accusations of academic dishonesty were quickly silenced by the British intelligence services. No method for producing more Cavorite has yet been found.

 

1900 – Nikola Tesla insists that he has received signals from outer space through equipment in his Colorado laboratory. While his claims are derided by mainstream scientists, he attracts the attention and financial support of such luminaries as John Carter of Virginia and Clark Savage Sr.

 

1900 – Backed by JP Morgan and others, Tesla begins work on the world’s first advanced wireless broadcasting tower. The project fails when Tesla’s laboratory is fire bombed, and his plans and notes for the tower are stolen. Tesla himself escapes unharmed. JP Morgan withdraws his backing.

 

1908 – Captain Leonard McKenzie discovers the undersea city of Y’Psoodsn. He is captured by the Children of Dagon. He befriends a beautiful mute girl, and together they escape. Eleven months later, the young woman gives birth to a male child. She leaves the child with McKenzie and returns to the sea. McKenzie names the child Namor.

 

1910 – Tarzan, aka John Clayton Jr., Lord Greystoke, visits the hidden city of Opar. He leaves not knowing that his brief affair with the high priestess La has left her with child. The child, a healthy girl, is born in December of 1910. The priestess gives the child the name Daya. The infant shares the Caucasian skin coloring and facial features of her father.

 

1911 – Fu Manchu first re-creates the Oil of Life. This same formula has long been one of the most closely kept secrets of the Nine Unknown, who use it to maintain influence over their agents. Some speculate that Fu is in fact an agent of the Nine, while other claim that he is a renegade.

 

1911 – Moreu created human-gorilla hybrid “Jacko†partners with human Victor Brand in the service of the British Crown. Moreau will continue to create animals with human-level intelligence for decades to come. His activities are tolerated by his handlers in MI5, but not encouraged.

 

1912 – Kent Allard enters the American Secret Service.

 

1914 – Tarzan returns to Opar. A painful reunion with La ensues, in which Tarzan meets his now 3 year old daughter. La and Tarzan make their peace, and Tarzan returns to England with Daya. Jane is hurt, but accepts Daya, giving her the Christian name Diana.

 

1916 – Nikola Tesla takes on teen prodigy Hans Zarkov as a lab assistant.

 

1917 – Hugo Danner volunteers for military service in WWI. In the army he experiences his first true friendships. His strength, speed, and near invulnerability (nothing less than a bursting shell can pierce his skin) make him invaluable to the war effort. After one of the few serious injuries he sustains, Hugo learns of his amazing regenerative abilities, and also learns that his unique blood type makes him a universal donor. By the end of the war, scores of allied soldiers have received blood transfusions from Hugo. In decades to come, many of the children of these soldiers will manifest metahuman abilities.

 

1918 – Professor Campion receives permission to use an improved version of his cable controlled robot soldier Boilerplate on the front lines in WWI. Boilerplate is at first successful, but its operator is killed and Boilerplate captured.

 

1918 – “Doc†Clark Savage, still a young man, meets the future member of his Fabulous Five while being held in the German prison camp known as Loki.

 

1922 – Kent Allard receives training from the monks of Shambala in a limited derivative form of Sinanju.

 

1923 – Zatara Mandrake is trained in magic in a concealed monastery in Tibet. It seems likely that this monastery was maintained by the monks of Shambala in service of the Nine Unknown.

 

1924 – Namor McKenzie undergoes a partial transformation into a Deep One, maintaining an outwardly human appearance but gaining great physical strength and the ability to survive the sea’s depths.

 

1924 – Nikola Tesla draws up his first detailed plans for his “Death Rayâ€, and seeks financial support from the military. The support is not forthcoming. Tesla takes on the brilliant young mathematician Alexi Luthor as a lab assistant.

 

1925 – R’lyeh rises from the sea.

 

1925 – Clark Savage Jr., using the name “MacReadyâ€, leads an artic expedition that uncovers an alien shape-shifter, a thing from another world. Savage eventually brings the creature’s remains back to New York.

 

1926 - Hugo Danner, despondent over his inability to find a place outside of the military, fakes his own death. He begins a period of aimless wandering that will bring him into contact with Kent Allard, Clark Savage, and others.

 

1928 – Namor finds his way to Innsmouth, Mass. The small population of hybrids like himself both fascinates and repels him. He attempts to explore the undersea city of Y'ha-nthlei, but is refused entrance. Namor takes up residence in Innsmouth under the name Arthur Curry.

 

1928 – William Batson is born. His bloodline, which includes Lemuel Gulliver, has been carefully cultivated by the Nine Unknown. Batson’s father received a blood transfusion from Hugo Danner in 1917.

 

1929 - Returning to America, Kent Allard assumes multiple cover identities, establishes a network of agents, and begins his war on crime as The Shadow.

 

1929 – Tarzan and Diana return to Opar. Diana’s reunion with her birth mother is not a happy one, and the situation in Opar is chaotic. Angry and confused, Diana returns to England and then America. In America, she establishes the cover identity of Diana Prince. Rejecting her father’s offers of financial support, Diana takes employment as a nurse.

 

1930 – Namor witnesses the destruction of the undersea city of Y'ha-nthlei off the coast of Innsmouth, Mass. Enraged and maddened by what he has seen, he attacks the city of New York. Namor discovers that his strength and telepathic abilities far exceed those of most Deep Ones, despite his largely human physical appearance. Namor’s rampage ends when he is captured by Doc Savage. Namor becomes one of the first subjects in Doc’s “Crime Collegeâ€.

 

1931 – Doc Savage begins the main part of his crime-fighting career. Using technology and data gathered from his many enemies, the remains of the space craft wreckage that had been given into the hands of his father, and his own genius, Doc lays the foundations for modern Mad Science. He will eventually act as friend and mentor to Hugo Danner.

 

1932 – Richard Wentworth, wartime comrade of Hugo Danner, begins his career as the Spider, assisted by Nita May Van Sloan. Richard manifests near superhuman strength, resilience, and regenerative abilities, fueled by his indomitable will!

 

1933 – A gigantic gorilla is brought to NY by a film company. It breaks free, causes vast property damage, and is eventually killed.

 

1933 – The Rogue Planet crisis. A moon-sized object (actually a dimension ship) moves through Earth’s solar system. Astronomers fear that this object will impact with the Earth. Doctor Hans Zarkov (one time lab assistant to Nikola Tesla), Dale Arden and Raymond “Flash†Gordon use an experimental spaceship of Zarkov’s design to fly out to the object. Six days later, the object vanishes. Zarkov, Arden and Gordon are never seen again.

 

1933 – The agents of the Nine Unknown sometimes called Doctor Occult and Rose Psychic begin operating openly, primarily on the American East Coast. They cultivate and train numerous American mystics.

 

1934 – The Green Hornet, making use of an arsenal of advanced weapons and devices, begins a crime spree. His crimes seem to target criminal businesses almost exclusively. He is assisted by a number of highly skilled Chinese martial artists.

 

1934 – Hugo Danner studies with the mystery man sometimes known as Kent Allard. He later becomes a student of Clark Savage, Jr.

 

1937 – Chow Sing Cho, a powerful pan-psionic, appears in Shanghai. Many of mainland China’s active psychics in later years claim descent from Chow.

 

1934 – Zatara Mandrake, now a powerful mystic, begins his adventuring career. He is accompanied by Lothar of Opar and Narda Romanov.

 

1937 -- Chen Zhen battles General Fujita in Shanghai and then goes on to lead local resistance versus the Japanese.

 

1937 – Kitty Carroll, grand daughter of Hawley Griffin, is exposed to Griffin’s Invisibility formula. Carroll develops the ability to become Invisible for brief periods of time when exposed to nicotine or alcohol. She will occasionally adventure for the next decade under several names. In 1941 she marries Michael Storm.

 

1937 – Bruce Wayne, protégé of Kent Allard, becomes the vigilante and some-time government agent known as The Batman. He soon takes on an apprentice and assistant, Richard Grayson.

 

1938 – Birth of Benjamin Grimm to Herman and Jada Grimm. Jada is the granddaughter of Dr. Henry Jekyll.

 

1938 – Nikola Tesla demonstrates his “Harmonic Shield Generatorâ€. The apparatus, which fills a small room, generates a field of energy that successfully deflects bullets fired from a gun. Reporters are impressed, but the device overheats during the demonstration, causing a fire that destroys Tesla’s Long Island laboratory. Tesla fails to find financial backing for his invention.

 

1938 - When Hugo Danner chooses to re-join society, he takes his new name from the first names of his mentors. Guided by Allard's suggestions, he chooses to establish a meek and mild mannered cover identity, while adventuring in a colorful costume.

 

1938 – Homeless William “Billy†Batson is contacted by Doctor Occult and Rose Psychic, and taken on a series of vision quests. Billy develops the ability to channel the power of multiple spiritual entities, and to assume a fully metahuman adult form for brief periods of time. He begins a career as a costumed adventurer.

 

1938 – Patrick “Eel†O’Brian, a petty thief, breaks into a warehouse owned by Clark Savage, Jr. While investigating the warehouse, O’Brian discovers a holding tank containing a protoplasmic entity. The entity touches O’Brian, and partially merges its substance with his own. Driven nearly mad with terror and excruciating pain, O’Brian passes out. Savage’s assistants rescue him. O’Brian learns that his encounter with the otherworldly "Thing" has left him nearly invulnerable and with the ability to stretch and distort any part of his body at will. Savage spends several months curing O’Brian of his criminal tendencies and exploring O’Brian’s strange new condition.

 

1939 – Dr. Van Thorp, working from the WWI era robot called Boilerplate, invents a fully articulated suit of self propelled powered armor for use by the German military. British Agent Hugh Hazard steals the prototype and kills Van Thorpe. Hazard uses the armor, code named the Iron Man, to perform acts of sabotage behind German lines.

 

1939 – Alan Scott, an engineer, discovers an alien artifact. The artifact, roughly resembling a lantern, gives its attuned user considerable powers of psycho-kinesis and ectoplasmic projection. Alan feels compelled to fashion a ring that links him to the lantern, and begins his career protecting humanity as the Green Lantern.

 

1939 –After nearly a decade in Doc’s Crime College, Namor comes to accept his condition, and to regret the harm he brought to innocents during his time of madness. His power has only increased during his captivity.

 

1939 – William Batson, in need of money and assisted by Doctor Occult, follows the example of Kent Allard and starts relating highly fictionalized tales of his adventures over the radio. He also sells the rights to his stories to several publishers. His invention of an extended heroic family helps to further conceal the grains of truth in his tales.

 

1939 – Millionaire businessman Oliver Queen is inducted into the organization maintained by “Britt Reidâ€, AKA the Green Hornet. Queen takes superbly to the training offered by Reid, but quickly becomes disillusioned with Reid’s methods and dubious over his goals.

 

1939 – Patrick O’Brian, aka Plastic Man, engages in a brief affair with Catherine Reid. Reid breaks off the affair, and returns to her fiancé, Robert Richards. Catherine and Robert marry, and seven months later have their first child, Reed Richards.

 

1940 – Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie engage in their first inter-dimensional adventure.