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List of works influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos

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Although originally created by H.P. Lovecraft, the Cthulhu Mythos have spread and became part of popular culture. This is a list of non-Lovecraftian places where Lovecraft's creations appear in works not his own.

Prose and Poetry

  • Practical Demonkeeping, by Christopher Moore, features a character named Howard Phillips, named after H. P. Lovecraft himself. Howard believes in a race of Old Ones that ruled the earth before man, and tries to keep them at bay by naming the specials at his café things like "Eggs Sothoth".

Television

  • Justice League In one episode, the JL characters meet something like an Old One, which once posed as a god on Hawkgirl's home planet.
  • Digimon: In one episode of season two, Yagami Hikari (Kari) disappears in the real world and she is zapped to another world called the Dark Ocean which has the injured digimons, "Scubamon" are actually the Digital Deep Ones which wanted her to fight with the underwater sea master.

Movies

Games

  • Blood: Another FPS containing certain humorous references to the Cthulhu Mythos.
  • Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem: the game is heaviliy inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos, in terms of plot ("Long before humanity graced the universe, our planet belonged to another species - an ancient species bound by neither phsyics not nature, purpose nor ethic"), atmosphere, and the use of diminishing sanity (and its effects) as an integral part of the game.

Comics

  • In Batman, some of Batman's foes are sent to Arkham Asylum, a prison for the criminally insane. The asylum is believed to have been named after Arkham city from Lovecraft's stories. The three-part Elseworlds story The Doom That Came To Gotham by Mike Mignola draws heavily on Lovecraftian themes. It features Bruce Wayne battling against a conpiracy to bring an ancient evil to Earth in Gotham, and recasts many Batman characters and villains in terms of the mythos. The story also features the Green Arrow.
  • Hellboy by Mike Mignola is a demon summoned from another dimension which it is hinted (especially in the film of the comic) contains Mythos-like entities as well as more traditional demons. Abe Sapien, another character in the comic, is a "fishman" who, while clearly not a Deep One, has encountered beings like them on at least one occasion.
  • 2000AD comic Zenith (comic), starring an eponymous anti-superhero, written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Steve Yeowell, features a Lovecraftian pantheon of ancient, evil god-like entities called the Lloigor, living in a different dimension. These entities can be summoned to our universe through dark rituals to inhabit the body of a superhero, as ordinary mortals are too fragile. The storyline of the comic involves certain deviations from history as we know it, such as Adolf Hitler being a member of a Lloigor-worshipping cult, and as a result, Nazi Germany being created - along with German "übermensch" Masterman; a superhero created with genetic engineering and inhabited by a Lloigor entity.

Music

  • Metallica: is a heavy metal band that has recorded two songs with references to Cthulhu mythos. The group's second album Ride the Lightning contains the closing instrumental track titled The Call of Ktulu and their third album Master of Puppets has the track The Thing That Should Not Be with lyrics referring to Cthulhu mythos.
  • Aarni is a Finnish doom metal band. Several Aarni songs refer to Cthulhu Mythos, including: Ubbo-Sathla, Reaching Azathoth, The Black Keyes (of R'lyeh) and Persona Mortuae Cutis.
  • The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets is a Canadian rock band based in Vancouver. The band's music draws heavily on Lovecraft's work, though with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Their name comes from the story The Tomb, album titles include Cthulhu Strikes Back and The Great Old Ones, and among their songs are Shoggoths Away, The Innsmouth Look and The Sounds of Tindalos.
  • Tri-Cornered Tent Show is a music band. They classify their music as "Urban electro acoustic folk improv", inspired by the Lovecraft story, "The Music of Erich Zann". Lovecraft's works also feature heavily in their songs, which has an eerie, haunting quality to it. Album titles include Maze above the Abyss and Beneath The Mountains Of Madness. Among their songs are Dagon Rising, The Plains of Leng and Waltz of the Shogoths.
  • Beatallica is a heavy metal parody band. They combine elements and lyrics of songs by the Beatles and by Metallica. Their song The Thing That Should Not Let It Be is a case in point. It combines The Thing That Should Not Be and Let it Be.
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