Kriminal (1966; Umberto Lenzi)

One of the most durable super-villain characters in Italian fumetto was Kriminal, created by Magnus and Max Bunker (also the creators of Satanik).  Kriminal features an English master thief named Anthony Logan, who dons a black-and-gold costume with a skeletal mask. He is helped by a female companion (Lola Hudson), and is dogged by an Inspector (Milton of Scotland Yard). Apparently, Max Bunker was displeased with writer-director Umberto Lenzi’s screen adaptation, as a much younger actor played the character than depicted in the fumetto, but the source material’s sadistic tone was watered down to a more "lighthearted" approach.

The Mark of Kriminal (1968; Fernando Cerchio, Nando Cicero)

This second screen adaptation of the popular fumetto character (seen previously in 1966's Kriminal) is a marginally better followup, if because it succeeds more in the lighthearted approach than its predecessor, despite the nefarious acts onscreen. The scene where Kriminal and his wife plot to kill each other is treated in a tongue-and-cheek way that Hitchcock would have admired. It also more succeeds in capturing the flavour of a fumetto, with its bright warm colours, and sporadic insertion of comic strip panels. Whereas the original film used them only at the end, (one assumes) to lazily wrap up the story, this film uses them to display thought balloons, to cannily visualize what cannot be filmed.