I think a lot about mashup novels. I love the classics, but I also love out of place zombies and such. It's a delightful juxtaposition for my spastic imagination. Related to this is my relentless pursuit of completely useless knowledge (My friend was invested in Spider-Ham but seemed less interested in a gerbil man-thing existing) So I have googled mashups and variations and unofficial sequels to nearly every classic franchise that interests me, when I hit a bizarre roadblock. Tarzan, of all things.

What can you throw at him? He's dealt with dinosaurs and monsters and aliens. He's been to the center of the Earth. He's been to Mars. He fought Kong. He fought Dracula. He's met Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein's monster. But really none of that matters because Tarzan eats weird for breakfast. He's a bit like Ash Williams in that way, only much more extreme, in that I could see Tarzan at a fancy tea party, Ash not so much.

Tarzan can be put into any bizarre situation because he'll take it in stride. Space, the future, Hell. Tarzan would find a way to not only survive, but to thrive. Tarzan cannot be mashed because he does not live in the ridged world of, say, Sherlock Holmes or the world of Tom Sawyer. You can mash those things with werewolves or aliens because they are so out of place in that setting that it becomes interesting. Whereas if you add Cthulhu to a Tarzan story all you have is a Tarzan story with Cthulhu. Yes, I'd read that story, but it would be just another weird adventure for Tarzan. Write him into Moby Dick and you will have Moby Dick with Tarzan (another book I would read) Him being on the boat wouldn't break the setting any more than it would displace him as a character.

Tarzan will never be a notorious mashup novel for snooty people to hate, not because he has long since passed the genre mixer stage, but because he is simply too flexible to be forced into any setting or genre or time period. He is Tarzan the Un-Mashable.