Men's Adventure Cameos

Crossovers are nothing new, but with the recent nostalgia for old-school action-adventure, spurred along by the Expendables movies (with a 25-year high school reunion flavor to them), it seems there was never a better time for team-ups between heavy-hitting icons.

The latest Mack Bolan novel, State of War, features a sort of team-up that is more along the lines of one of Alfred Hitchcock's cameos in his own films. Bolan is joined, not by another famous paperback action hero, but by author Jack Murphy (PROMIS; Reflexive Fire; Target Deck). I find this especially cool because I know a little about Jack...like how he's been a Mack Bolan fan since he was a kid. Don Pendleton's character made Jack an enthusiast of the genre, and ultimately led to him becoming an author himself. His Deckard character is not a pastiche or knockoff of Bolan, but he is a sort of literary offspring. Anyway, Jack Murphy has now been fictionalized, and assists Mack Bolan in his war against evil. I haven't read it yet, but just had to buy the book, knowing this. I'm sure I'll read and review at some point.

This got me thinking. (Dangerous; I know.) Wouldn't it also be cool if, among the circle of military fiction authors publishing right now, we had some fun with crossovers in some of our own books? Not cameos of authors, necessarily, but of our characters. I read somewhere that Bolan and the the Death Merchant knew of each other, therefore existed in the same "universe." I don't know if they ever had a crossover or even cameos in each other's adventures, outside of fan fiction. If they didn't...they should have!

This could be our own little "in joke," shared by those savvy enough to follow the Two-Fisted Blog, of course. It wouldn't have to be a ha-ha funny joke, or a detour into self-parody a la` The Expendables II. Just something kind of fun, that would bring smiles to our faces, while paying tribute/respect to the creations of our fellow, contemporary, action-adventure authors.

What do y'all think?