We’ve obtained preview footage of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode, "Dawn of the Dead Man!" airing this Friday, January 16 on Cartoon Network at 8:00 PM, guest starring Smallville‘s Michael Rosenbaum as Deadman. What is it with him and smooth headed characters?

In this week’s episode Batman and Deadman team up as spirits to stop Gentleman Ghost from raising an army of undead criminals. Green Arrow and Speedy join in the battle to save London. And Batman and Kamandi… Kamandi?!?… outrace a horde of monsters from the future. Take a look…

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How brisk, you ask? This was the scene at Midtown Comics Times Square yesterday, with a man at the door keeping people waiting online outside in 22 degree weather.

That’s brisk.

At the time in the mid-afternoon, there were about 15 people waiting to get in so they could get upstairs and wait on another line to purchase the rapidly dwindling stock of Amazing Spider-Man #583. Cashiers kept all copies behind the register and were running at full tilt yesterday to handle the crowd.

Midtown wouldn’t give me a number for attribution, but said they’d moved "hundreds" of copies.

Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban, best known to ComicMixers as Khan Noonien Singh or the enigmatic Mr. Roarke, died today at age 88.

According to the Associated Press, Montalban died this morning at his home in California. No cause of death was provided.

"The Ricardo Montalban Theatre in my Council District – where the next generations of performers participate in plays, musicals, and concerts – stands as a fitting tribute to this consummate performer," city council by president Eric Garcetti said in a written statement.

The flamboyant actor began his acting career in his native land before coming to Hollywood to become a star for MGM.  He made his American debut opposite swimming star Esther Williams in 1946’s Fiesta.

As a working actor in the 1960s, Gene Roddenberry cast him as Khan, the Genetics War exile in the 1966 episode of Star Trek, “Space Seed”. Years later, director Nicholas Meyer was captivated by the performance and wondered what Khan would be like 15 years later, leading to the story behind Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

In between, Montalban also played the heavy in the Cathy Lee Gibson Wonder Woman telefilm before straddling the line between good and evil as the host of Fantasy Island.  In his white suit and twinkling eyes, people’s fears and desires were made manifest from 1978-1984.

He was also a long running automobile pitchman, waxing rhapsodic about the car’s rich Corinthian leather, which was later parodied for years.

A crippling back injury occurred during the filming of 1952’s Across the Wide Missouri. He was thrown by a horse and stepped on a second horse. When it recurred in 1993, he was limited to a wheelchair and surgery only made the situation worse,  limiting his film and television work over the last 15 years although he did manage to appear in including The Naked Gun as well as two films from both the Planet of the Apes and Spy Kids series.
 

Patrick McGoohan died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a short illness, his son-in-law, film producer Cleve Landsberg, said. He was 80.

Patrick Joseph McGoohan was born March 19, 1928 in Astoria, Queens, NY, raised in Ireland and the UK. He rose to fame in the British film and TV industry by starring in the 1960s television series Danger Man (renamed Secret Agent when exported to the US) playing John Drake, a role which made him the highest paid actor in England at the time.

McGoohan won two Emmys for his work on the Peter Falk detective drama Columbo, and more recently appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson film Braveheart. He portrayed the father (and predecessor) of the Phantom in the 1996 movie.

But he was most famous as the character known only as Number Six in The Prisoner, a sci-fi tinged 1960s British series in which a former unnamed spy is held captive in a small enclave known only as The Village, where a mysterious authority named Number One constantly prevents his escape. McGoohan not only starred in the series, he created it, and wrote and directed many episodes. It’s currently being remade as a miniseries for AMC.

At the time of his death, McGoohan was mostly retired, living in Los Angeles, California with his wife of 57 years, Joan Drummond McGoohan. Along with his three daughters, he had five grandchildren (Sarah, Erin, Simon, Nina, and Paddy). On June 11, 2008, he became a great-grandfather to Jack Patrick Lockhart.

To promote its new reinterpretation of the show which just wrapped shooting and scheduled to premiere in November, AMC started streaming the original series in full screen last week. If you’ve never seen them before, go look.

In the spirit of coming together, a number of stores are taking Amazing Spider-Man #583, featuring Spider-Man meeting Barack Obama, a comic that they know they’re going to sell out of when it goes on sale today, and are using the money to help others.

Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan has announced that they’re donating money from the sales to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Wonderworld Comics in Taylor, Michigan is offering a variety of deals: buy a store gift certificate for $100, for example, and get the Obama Spider-Man issue for free. Wonderworld is donating some proceeds to the Hero Initiative.

We think this should be encouraged, so if you are running any such benefits, or if you hear of any of them, send a quick note to us here, or post it in the comments, and we’ll update this entry to include it. (Hat tip: Patricia Montemurri, Detroit Free Press.)