Premiering on ABC on September 19, 1987 and then lasting just three episodes, this series — created by Dusty Kay — has comic book creator Abner Bevis (Milo O’Shea) have a confidence crisis when kids tell him that his comic book hero, Captain Justice (Jeff Lester), should get with the times and start killing people. As for Captain Justice, much like the theories of Gardner Fox and how different realities would read the comics of other Earths — the Silver Age Flash knew who the Golden Age Flash was through reading and named himself for that hero — Pleasantville is a real place where things keep repeating, as Bevis is starting to lose it.

The Captain crosses over into our world to fight crime without his powers, which brings attention to him through reporter Emma Greely (Caitlin Clarke), whose son Woody (Josh Blake) is one of the kids who is part of Bevis’ focus group that wanted his heroes to get more with the times.

Why was I so excited about this? Another hero followed through the Forbidden Zone and it’s Gumshoe, played by Robert Forster! Yes, Robert Forster in a superhero sitcom! And how about when the main villain appears — Victor Lazarus — it’s Richard Lynch! There’s even an episode where the man who played the character on TV is no longer allowed to do publicity appearances and he’s played by Adam West.

This show failed before launch, as many ABC stations played Star Trek: The Next Generation instead. Marvel had planned a tie-in comic with the team of J.M. DeMatteis and Steve Leialoha, but it only made it two issues. The show was long over before that.

There were some interesting ideas, like how if people forget the heroes, they fade away forever; that the men who fought at the Alamo have become legends and live in the same world as superheroes and that Captain Justice’s girlfriend looks exactly like Bevis’ long dead wife. Yet only three episodes would air in America and there was a DVD release in Brazil, of all places, with all of the unaired episodes. A meta superhero feels a bit before its time here, but it’s quite the concept. I’d never heard about it until doing research on comic book shows I had never heard of. I was in my prime of buying comics at this point, so I have no idea how this show missed me. It would have been yet another comic TV show that I got excited about and would watch disappear.

You can watch this on YouTube.