#3 being the one originally planned for issue #4 which was planned to be the start of another 3-issue story). In the UK, where hardback annuals are traditionally produced for sale at Christmas, The Avengers first appeared in TV Crimebusters Annual (1962) and featured a 7-page comic strip with Dr David Keel titled The Drug Pedlar. Atlas Publications produced three The Avengers hardback Annuals for 1967, 1968 and 1969, which also featured original Avengers comic strips featuring Steed, Emma Peel, and Tara King, as well as text stories. The TV Comic Avengers strips and the 1966 Avengers comic and a few comic strips from the Annuals have been translated and published in Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Chile. The Avengers also have made a number of cameo appearances in comics over the years: In 1991's Doctor Who Magazine #173, Gary Russell and artists Mike Collins and Steve Pini show Captain Britain about to hit John Steed when Emma Peel shows up behind him. Emma Peel and John Steed were seen among the crowd in a bar scene in Kingdom Come #2 (1996) by Mark Waid and Alex Ross. Emma Peel and John Steed appeared unnamed in Superman #13 (1988) by John Byrne and Karl Kesel. A crossover series, Batman '66 Meets Steed and Mrs. Peel, was launched in June 2016 as a joint effort between DC Comics and Boom! Studios. Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is littered with oblique references to events and characters in The Avengers, with three unnamed characters that are clearly Purdey, Tara and Emma appearing at the end of the book "Century: 2009". Stage play A stage adaptation was produced in Britain in 1971, written by TV series veterans Brian Clemens and Terence Feely, and directed by Leslie Phillips. It starred Simon Oates as Steed, Sue Lloyd as new partner Hannah Wild, and Kate O'Mara as villainess Madame Gerda. All three had guest roles in the original series. A character named Hana Wilde (played by Charlotte Rampling) had essentially acted as Steed's partner in series five's "The Superlative Seven", an episode in which Emma Peel appears only briefly. According to John Peel in his overview of "The Superlative Seven", Charlotte Rampling was rumoured to be grooming up to replace Diana Rigg in this story, but nothing ever came of that". Radio series A radio series was transmitted between 6 December 1971 and 28 December 1973