Note: This post contains a major spoiler for the CBS soap opera Guiding Light. If you don't want to know what happens later this week, don't read any further, don't scroll down, etc, etc. This is your last warning!

So I'm watching the last half of today's GL, and Tammy is run over by someone (I think it was meant for Jonathan, someone hired by Alan, but I'm not sure because I've missed several recent episodes). She's lying in the hospital bed, Rick says she's in a coma and has brain swelling, everyone is waiting around to see what happens, and a moody song plays on the soundtrack.

And then at the end of the show, a commercial for the new issue of Soap Opera Digest comes on...

Update: was it Soap Opera Weekly? Hmmm....

Update on the Update: It was actually Soaps In Depth.

The CBS soap Guiding Light is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. It's the longest running TV show in history (it started on radio in 1937 then switched to television in 1952). But they're not just throwing a party. Today they launched a new web site and a new campaign to help others. The cast and crew went down to the Gulf Coast to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, and they want fans to go to the site and share their stories of how they've helped someone.

I think they're tying it into the show somehow as well. A new plot has the cast finding a giant sum of money in a bag along with a mysterious note.

This is fantastic, but I think GL can do some other things to celebrate their 70th anniversary.

I've been watching Guiding Light for almost three decades, and this might be the most bizarre news I've heard yet.

Our friends over at TMZ.com are reporting that the CBS soap has made an agreement with Marvel Comics, and Marvel will actually introduce a new superhero on the show!

Not only that, but Marvel is actually creating a comic book based on the new superhero, and the comic book will feature several characters from the soap along with Wolverine and Spiderman.

Now this is new synergy, eh? I can understand NBC having an online comic to cross-promote Heroes, but a new superhero on a soap opera and a comic book?

The superhero will make his (her?) debut on the soap on November 1.