So let's celebrate with a presentation of the only good thing to come from it...
...starring Robert Stack as Elliot Ness!
An adaptation of the then-bestseller The Untouchables was presented on the anthology series Desilu Playhouse in 1959, with the resulting ratings prompting ABC to pick it up as a series.
The show lasted four seasons, and proved popular enough to release several re-edited two-part episodes as feature films in Canada and Europe!
The Dell comic adaptations ran four issues, two as part of their Four Color Comics anthology, and two in The Untouchables' own title.
Be here tomorrow and Sunday, as we present the first, never-reprinted, comic story based on the show!
...I'd like to mention a 2000 tv series set in the post-apocalyptic world of 2019 that they thought was coming!
According to the premise, a terrorist group set off an aerial nuke which caused a planetwide electromagnetic pulse which wiped out almost all non-military/government computer systems.
Meanwhile, our government was experimenting with genetics and drugs to breed super-soldiers, many of whom didn't want to be forced to fight against their will!
The show detailed the saga of one of those escaped soldiers (19 year-old Jessica Alba in her breakout role as Max Guevera) in the slowly-recovering post-apocalyptic world!
There was no tie-in comic, but there are several in-continuity novels by Max Alan Collins.
The series is available on DVD, but not blu-ray.
I'd suggest you get a European version, since they're letterbox, not full-screen like the American set!
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...as Odo, the metamorph from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, my first genre exposure to a very young Rene was in 1972, when the young up-and-comer played...Spider-Man!
Let me explain...
Art by John Romita Sr
LP records adapting comic strip and comic book characters into audio adventures date back to the 1940s.
The heyday was during the 1960s-70s when both brand-new adventures (often in stereo) and re-presentations of classic radio dramas competed for shelf space in record stores.
Art by John Romita Sr
But this album, from 1972, was a whole new approach to the genre...a superhero musical, loaded with genre-related talent!
Ron Dante, the voice and composer behind The Archies (remember "Sugar, Sugar"?), and his band performed the album's music as "The WebSpinners".
Besides Rene (who also voiced Dessad on both the 1980s Super Friends and 1990s Justice League animated series, and played several other characters in the Star Trek multiverse), there was Thayer David, known to genre fans as the villainous Arne Saknussenn in Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), multiple evil roles on the 1960s gothic soap Dark Shadows. and the blackmailing villain in the 1977 pilot for the live-action Amazing Spider-Man tv series, as The Kingpin!
The script and music were penned by Stephen Lemberg, who not only did this album, but the Fantastic Four dramatic radio show and the infamous A MARVEL-ous Evening with Stan Lee at Carnegie Hall! (Nobody's perfect.)
Here's the album's gatefold interior, featuring art by John Romita Sr, which enabled you to follow the story...and yes, that's Dr Strange as both Steve Ditko co-creations battle the Kingpin!
