Not a bad set of stories, but nothing here is as compelling or memorable as The Hulk: At Bay. Maybe that's because that was taken from an actual Hulk comic, and this LP appears to be all-new stories.
The sleeve art is uncredited, but it looks very Rich Buckler/Dick Giordano to me.
5 comments:
I've been listening to these stories a lot the last month -- my son loves 'em -- and they're obviously inspired by the Bill Bixby tv show.
The climax, of course, is the Hulkout. Hulk here doesn't speak, as on the tv show, but you just have to wait for 'David Benson' to stumble across some sadist's path -- be he Appalachian sheriff, mine manager, fishing boat captain, or quack doctor passing off a tanning booth as a miracle cure-all -- and eventually, there will be blood-curdling screams and sound fx of destruction. And, usually, some description of "...ice cold anger turns to white-hot rage!"
The pace moves much better than the adaptations of actual Marvel comics, most of which seem to have been written by Marv Wolfman -- the worst offender, if you ask me, is "Mark of the Man-Wolf." My son loves Spider-Man, and he loves werewolves, but he can't sit thru Spidey's tortured inner soliloquy against JJJ! Marv Wolfman was an excellent comics writer, but the devices that made him a good writer in that oeuvre really slow down a good action/adventure record for children. The straight-from-the-comics writing in the "The Incredible Hulk: At Bay" just delays a climax which comes after a ridiculously wordy narrator's interjection, and then that particular production team used the lamest sound fx -- you mean to tell me a rumble between the Hulk, the Rhino, and the Abomination sounds like a daycare slapfight?
I love a good "Hulk Smash!" and "Hulk strongest one there is!" as much as anybody. But I've also grown to enjoy a good leather-lunged primal scream from the bottom of a mine shaft, the wreckage of a burning private sanitarium, the rubble of an iron-fisted sheriff's city jail, or up from the roiling sea.
All told, I think I prefer the "Take stick out of Hulk's face or Hulk will break it" Hulk of The Incredible Hulk at Bay!, but I have to say, the guy did a opretty convincing Bill Bixby on this record. Of course, as a kid I watched The Incredible Hulk on Friday nights religiously, and whoever wrote the stories on this record captured the tone of the TV show pretty convincingly.
Aggressive as vengeful, Hulk is the kind of character you try to avoid during your entire life, I mean, just look at him.
Listen to rjd2 - Shot in the dark
He has sampled some from The Assassin.
Awesome song too
Love this album. I was living in Michigan at the time and we had just sold our home and was in the process of moving to Tennessee. As a 3rd grader I was terrified to leave Michigan and move to the mid-south. I remember buying this at KMart in Pontiac, Michigan in the winter. We moved a few months later (probably May) and that summer I didn't have a lot of friends because I was a shy kid. I played this record a lot that first summer in Tennessee. I then met the kid who lived behind us and he was a couple of years older than I was. We became fast friends because we both had a love for comics and Star Wars. He had a ton of the Power Records stuff and Peter Pan Records. We were life-long friends until he tragically passed away in 2013. His widow had my copy of this record and I was never able to get it back. Luckily I found a SEALED copy on eBay for 4 bucks. I was happy to be able to listen to this again after all these years. Brought back a lot of memories of Michigan and my early days in Tennessee and reminded me of my good friend Chuck (RIP). -- Mike B
Post a Comment