Speed Guru vs. Plastic Crimewave

Yet another band with a Power Records tribute, as far as I can tell this CD actually does come with a comic book, as promised! Anybody want to buy a copy and let me know?

In The Days of the Mob

Another wonderful Power Records custom courtesy Tyrone Biljan, but this one is completely out of the left field: an audio adaptation of Jack Kirby's In The Days of the Mob? What's next, a Soul Love Power Record?!? Of course, I'd buy both if they existed...

Be sure to check out Tyrone's blog That Would Be So Cool If...!

Batman '66

We've featured Tyrone Biljan's awesome custom Power Record book and record sets before, and this is yet another one I'd kill to have--if it existed. Considering that the 1966 Batman TV show is hotter than ever, and that Mr. West and Mr. Ward are still with us, let's make it happen!

Check out Tyrone's blog That Would Be So Cool If...!

The Avengers - Captain America Joins The Avengers!

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!

Dr. Strange - The Origin of Dr. Strange

Track:
The Origin of Dr. Strange

No, this is not a long-lost Power Record! This is a custom book-and-record sleeve I created to go along with an audio track from...the Dr. Strange radio show!

Yes, there was a Dr. Strange radio show. In 1967, an enterprising producer at WBAI in New York decided to put together a Dr. Strange OTR program, complete with a voice cast and sound effects, and give it a go. It didn't last long, and it pretty much completely disappeared from anyone's radar after that.

I never knew it existed until a fan of my Power Records podcast asked me about it, sending along this link to an interview with the creator of the show. My interest, as you might imagine, was piqued! Before I even got a chance to look into it, the followed up with a second email, this time to Booksteve Library's blog, featuring a link to buy CDs of the show! By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!

I listened to the shows (seven episodes across two discs). They're a lot of fun, and really quite true to the spirit of the original Lee/Ditko comics. So then I thought, considering the fact that Power Records occasionally bought up pre-recorded audio tracks and slapped a new album sleeve on them, maybe they would have done the same with Dr. Strange? After all, he did star in a 1978 TV movie, so he probably had enough built-in fame to earn a Power Record, along with fellow TV stars Spider-Man, Captain America, and the Hulk.

So click the track link above to listen to a complete episode of the show, "The Origin of Dr. Strange." If you're like me, you'll want to hear more, so I suggest you head over to Booksteve's Library and order the CDs for yourself.

Aquaman - City On The Edge of Nowhere!

Sadly, this book-and-record set from Power Records does not exist; it's a creation of Tyrone Biljan, who is a whiz at these things. Using Nick Cardy's cover to Aquaman #50, he crafted this little number, coming up with something that I would simply kill to listen to!

And bonus verisimilitude points for using actual interior pages from the comic for the inset, top right. Nice work as usual Tyrone!

Green Lantern - In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night!

Great Guardians!

We had a tie for the second Power Records poll, both Green Lantern and the Teen Titans racking up five votes each.

So I had to break the tie and decide which faux-Power Record cover to mock up. As you can see, I went for Green Lantern, because I think he would have been a more likely choice for Power Records, with his outer space setting (giving them the chance to have all sorts of alien voices) and the fact that it would star one hero, as opposed to a whole team of them.

I had a tough time finding the right piece of Green Lantern art to use for this mock-up; when of course Power would've hired Neal Adams to do the honors.

IronMan - Birth of A Hero

No, this isn't a recently-discovered, heretofore unknown Power Record book and record set!

The Invincible Iron Man was the narrow winner of our first Power Records poll, asking which Marvel hero who never got the Book and Record treatment should have. His nearest competitor were his fellow movie stars, the Uncanny X-Men.

So I thought I'd put together a cover of what an Iron Man 45" Book and Record set might look like, the results of which you see before you.

Thanks to everyone who voted!