Captain's 50th Anniversary Theatre & Library SPACE: 1999 "Breakaway" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

It's the year 1999, and Commander John Koenig has just assumed command of Moonbase Alpha!

His assignment: prepare the Meta Probe crew, who will launch shortly to explore a rogue planet that's entered the Solar System.
But something...not disease nor radiation...is crippling and killing the Meta Probe crew, as well as other Moonbase personnel!
Koenig, Medical officer Dr Helena Russell, and renowned scientist Professor Victor Bergman figure out that magnetic radiation from Nuclear Waste Disposal Area #1 all the affected people worked near caused their physical decay and deaths.
Shortly after they've implemented safeguards, Waste Dump #1's contents combust, destroying the site.
The much larger Nuclear Waste Disposal Area #2, which had been showing similar readings, now begins the same progression towards fission/fusion.
To forestall that, the entire base's staff begin trying to extract and spread out the nuclear waste over the surface of the Moon...

As we continue, you can listen to the audio by clicking HERE 

(The audio will open in a new window and you'll have to set the playback at 7:20 to continue from where it left off yesterday.) and read the comic!

Think of it as a podcast...with visuals!

Penciled by Russ Heath & Rich Buckler and inked by Dick Giordano & Terry Austin, this original-material comic was one of two produced by Power Records in 1975.

The scripter of the adaptation of the pilot episode is unknown.

The other comic/record, "Return to the Beginning" wasn't an adaptation of a TV episode, but a new story by an unknown writer.
Here's a kool bonus for you...audio from all seven of Power Records' Space: 1999 episodes!
Just click on the ep's title and the audio will open up in a new window.
"Breakaway" (without the comic book), along with "Death's Other Dominion" and "Mission of the Darians" were released on a 33 1/3 LP record album.
"Return to the Beginning" (also without the comic book), along with another original story, "It Played So Softly On the Ear" and adaptations of episodes "End of Eternity" and "Dragon's Domain"were on a second 33 13 LP record album.

Enjoy!

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The Complete Series

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Captain's 50th Anniversary Theatre & Library SPACE: 1999 "Breakaway" Part 1

You Saw the "Semi-Animated Comic" of This Tale HERE.

Now you can listen to the audio by clicking HERE (The audio will open in a new window.) and read it as a comic!
Think of it as a podcast...with visuals!

Pause the audio, since the story will continue...tomorrow!

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The Complete Series

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Captain's 50th Anniversary Theatre SPACE: 1999 "Breakaway"

 

Space: 1999 debuted in 1975 with a major licensing push, including audio adventures, novelizations (along with original novels), and both comic books and b/w magazines.
Power Records, the premier children's audio line of the era did two lp record albums and two comic book/45 record adventures, including the pilot episode "Breakaway".
Charlton Comics published two different series, one as a standard four-color comic, the other a b/w magazine, both of which adapted the pilot episode with far different results.
With three different graphic adaptations (not including the prose novelization from Pocket Books), "Breakaway" was the single most adapted sci-fi movie or tv show in history, until Battlestar Galactica came along in 1979.
To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Space: 1999, on Wednesdays though October, we're going to present all three adaptations of "Breakaway", plus the prose short story from the rarely-seen-in-America hardcover Space: 1999 Annual published in England!
First up, the Power Records version, complete with soundtrack!
(After all, it was meant as a read-along adventure!)


The writer who adapted the screenplay is unknown, but the art is by Rich Buckler, Dick Giordano, Frank McLaughlin, and Neal Adams' Continuity Studios crew.
Trivia: While the various American licensors had the rights to use the likenesses of most of the cast, for some reason recently-deceased actor Prentis Hancock couldn't be used as Paul Morrow!

In all the American comics (including the two Power Records stories), artist/art director Gray Morrow served as the visual model for Paul Morrow!
However, the British comic strips in the Annuals and Look-In Magazine did use Prentiss' mustachioed visage as the stalwart Main Mission Controller!

Next Wednesday, the b/w magazine version.

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The Complete Series

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Captain's Library BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES Conclusion

When Last We Left the Apes and Mutants...

Ape leader Caesar, and his advisiors, orangutang Virgil and human MacDonald, search the radioactive Forbidden City for electronic files about Caesar's parents and what the future holds for Earth.

The trio find the info, but the mutated human inhabitants of the ruined city find them.

Though the explorers escape, the mutants, now aware of their existence, follow...

It's unknown how many differences between this adaptation and the movie (such as General Aldo attacking Virgil instead of Ceasar's son Cornelius) were the result of working from an early draft of the script, or an attempt to keep the story "kid-friendly".

Captain's Library BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES Part 2

We Have Already Seen...

Cover of British Magazine. Art by Ron Wilson and Mike Esposito

A decade after the conflict that devasted the Earth, ape leader Caesar leads an expedition to the Forbidden City in search of videotapes of interviews with his parents which would explain what the future holds for both apes and humans...

Tomorrow:

The Apes of Wrath!

(Sorry, couldn't resist...)

Note: the above cover is from the British reprint of the Marvel b/w magazine version of Battle.

As you might have guessed, it was grittier than the Power Records version.

In fact, it was a bit more graphic than the film itself.

BTW, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opens today.

Why not go see it?

Captain's Library BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES Part 1

With Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opening tomorrow...

...let's look back at the flick from the original series it seems most thematically-linked to...

Tomorrow:

The Forbidden City!

(You'll see why it's forbidden!)

If the comic looks unfamilar, it's because this is the never-reprinted Power Records comic adaptation of the 1973 movie.

It was packaged with a 45 rpm record that presented the comic story like an old-time dramatic radio show with a full cast, music and sound effects.

However, Power didn't use the movie's cast, music or sfx.

They used their own in-house people instead.

In addition, the story seems based on an early draft of the script.

And Marvel Comics did a serialized adaptation of the film for their b/w magazine, but it's almost 100 pages, so Power (which had adapted a number of existing Marvel comics into audio adventures) decided to do an all-new, shorter, comic...in color.

Packaged by the Arvid Knudsen & Associates studio, the exact credits are unknown, but it's speculated that one or more Phillipino artists handled the illustrations.

To me, it looks like Tony DeZuniga, who was doing work for Marvel, DC, and Warren.

Captain's Library & Theatre: SPACE: 1999 "This Insect Earth" Conclusion & "Return to the Beginning"

When Last We Left Our Space-Going Refugees...

Art byArnaldo Putzu

...the synopsis below covers everything you need to know up to this point!

The next story arc takes them to Mars, still over a thousand years in the future!
This tale from the British Look-In magazine was written by Angus P Allen and illustrated by John M Burns (who had worked on Lady Penelope, and other Gerry Anderson-based strips, but is best known for his art on Judge Dredd and Dan Dare).

Yesterday, we mentioned another version of the "Moon returns to Earth in another time period" plot, so here it is...
"Return to the Beginning" as presented by Power Records!

It's the second and last Power Records story (besides "Breakaway") adapted into comic form.

(The other Space: 1999 audio stories weren't illustrated.)
Art by Rich Buckler, Russ Heath, Mike Netzer, Alan Weiss, and Dick Giordano (and possibly other Continuity Associates/Crusty Bunker personnel).

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