Wednesday, October 15, 2014

The Avengers - Captain America Joins The Avengers!

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This gorgeous custom Power Records book-and-record set is courtesy the always engaging Dial "B" for Blog...but there's more!

In the late 1960s, Marvel teamed with an outfit called Golden Records, which issued four LPs called "Marvel Age Comic Spectaculars", that featured audio adaptations of classic Marvel stories (for the, uh, record: Fantastic Four #1, Amazing Spider-Man #1, Journey into Mystery #83, and The Avengers #4), accompanied by reprints of the comic--in this case, the aforementioned Avengers #4. Almost impossible to find now for less than a small fortune, they were the forerunners to the Power Records.

Dial "B" decided to create the custom Power Record cover, also adding "Ani-Motion" to the comic book portion, so you can watch your heroes move (sort of) as they discover the Sentinel of Liberty encased in ice. It's a lot of fun, and the audio adaptation is pretty darn good. In fact, I'm not sure why Peter Pan just didn't license the four Golden Records and repurpose them for the Power Records line, it would have been great to have The Avengers and Thor added to the roster!


6 comments:

Rockwell J. Pugglesworth said...

I've had copies of the Golden Marvel records for a while and its interesting to hear the difference in recording technology between the '60s and '70, as the Power Records ones - to my biased ears anyway - sound so much better produced. And it may be that I get turned off by the announcer on the Golden records who announces loudly and with lots of reverb when its time to turn the page :-)

Have you heard the Tifton Thor record? I just recently procured a copy of the audio.

Earth 2 Chris said...

I have a couple of CDs with some very old-sounding Batman and Spider-Man audio adventures. I think they may come from these records, but I'm not sure. I believe they were unlicensed, since the material fell into the public domain.

Chris

Rich Harvey said...

If they were based on Spider-Man and Batman, then they wouldn't be public domain. If the material was still copyrighted in 1978, then it's still protected today, thanked to the ever-frustrating changes in the law.

Rich Harvey said...

Another thing ... I don't think the Golden Records were quite of the same caliber as the Power Records. As I recall, the Golden Records narrator wold pause, while a secondary narrator would tell the children "The sign on the door reads ..." and then read it for the kiddies.

Power Records were aimed at children, but the acting and directing were a couple of notches higher, so that adults didn't have to suffer through these audio dramas.

Rich Harvey said...

By the way ... glad to see the Power Records Suite is up an running again, at least occasionally.

Rich Harvey said...

"In fact, I'm not sure why Peter Pan just didn't license the four Golden Records and repurpose them for the Power Records line..."

Also, I think the Power Records line was trying to keep things "modern" or "current." They were adapting comic book stories that were only two or three years old, possibly because the artwork of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were not appearing in Marvel Comics in the 1970s (unless in reprints or some new stories).

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