Track:
The Robot Masters
In 1979, there was a brief run of new Star Trek book and record sets tied in to The Motion Picture. Using the same voice cast but featuring art (and presumably story) not from Continuity, these four audio adventures were released from Peter Pan, with the Power Records bug nowhere to be found.
Maybe that missing logo was the reason I didn't have much interest in these as a kid, maybe it was the cheapjack covers (a far, far cry away from Neal Adams and friends), or maybe it was the fact that I didn't enjoy the first movie too much--I don't know. In any case, I only heard these particular Trek adventures recently, in preparation for the POWER RECORDS PODCAST and the return of the blog. "The Robot Masters" isn't too bad--it feels like a classic Trek kind of story, though the art included in the comic is...uninspiring, at best.
The history of Power Records is a murky one, so I'm only guessing here, but I think these four Trek movie-related records (The Robot Masters, The Man Who Trained Meteors, Dinosaur Planet, and The Human Factor) were the last new recordings ever done for the slightly older market, the same kids that the Power Records were aimed at. By the early 80s, Peter Pan/Power were simply reissuing the stuff done in the 70s, not producing anything new. So these might have been their swan song.
Maybe that missing logo was the reason I didn't have much interest in these as a kid, maybe it was the cheapjack covers (a far, far cry away from Neal Adams and friends), or maybe it was the fact that I didn't enjoy the first movie too much--I don't know. In any case, I only heard these particular Trek adventures recently, in preparation for the POWER RECORDS PODCAST and the return of the blog. "The Robot Masters" isn't too bad--it feels like a classic Trek kind of story, though the art included in the comic is...uninspiring, at best.
The history of Power Records is a murky one, so I'm only guessing here, but I think these four Trek movie-related records (The Robot Masters, The Man Who Trained Meteors, Dinosaur Planet, and The Human Factor) were the last new recordings ever done for the slightly older market, the same kids that the Power Records were aimed at. By the early 80s, Peter Pan/Power were simply reissuing the stuff done in the 70s, not producing anything new. So these might have been their swan song.
3 comments:
Now this one, I had (and still have)! I always wondered if it was a classic Trek comic "redressed" for TMP. The characters look more like their TV versions. Maybe the artist was just working from TV stills?
The liknesses are pretty good, but the art has that bland, Gold Key flavor to it.
Chris
It does have that Gold Key-ish feel.
The earlier Star Trek records really feel like the original series and the artwork is really immaculate - beautiful likenesses, great depictions of the Trek-tech, and trippy uses of color very reminiscent of the TV show. The actors do excellent approximations of their TV counterparts too.
These STTMP records are poor attempts in comparison. The art is rough, the tech details of the Enterprise aren't even close, and the voice cast has some changes. The Kirk and Scotty actors are the same, but the Spock and McCoy are different. I think the guy who voices McCoy is the same guy that voiced David/Bruce Banner on the 4 story Hulk LP (and he was a TERRIFIC Bill Bixby - his DeForest Kelley not so much).
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