If only there were an audio adaptation of that “King Kong” story.
So pal Brook showed me the other day this reprint of Man of Steel #6, the final issue of 1980s mini-series that kicked off John Byrne’s relaunch of the Superman franchise.
It’s of slightly smaller dimensions than a standard comic book, about 9 by 6 inches. The story is reprinted in color, and appeared to be unedited, though I didn’t go through every single word balloon. All the pages do seem to be there.
To fill out the booklet, there are three black and white cover reproductions captioned “GREAT MOMENTS IN SUPERMAN’S HISTORY.” You know, like this one:
…for, you know, certain values of “GREAT,” I suppose.
The back cover is this slightly menacing image:
…which I’m sure I’ve seen before, but can’t quite place it.
Anyway, this comic was released as part of an audiobook series in the late 1980s. It’s acted out with multiple performers, with music and sound effects, and, well, you can experience it right here in this handy embedded video (which features an image of the accompanying cassette’s J-card insert):
Well…that’s certainly…something. It’s weird hearing real people reciting Byrne’s dialogue, and some of the performances are…well, Your Mileage May Vary, I guess. The voice for Superman/Clark Kent takes some getting used to, no offense to whoever played him.
It’s an interesting artifact, certainly, and one I hadn’t known existed. Thanks to Brook for cluing me in on this.
Kind of reminds me of the Power Records book-and-record sets. Have you written about those? A lot of them seemed to have a monster angle, even the superhero ones. Spiderman fought Dragon Man and Man-Wolf. I remember the Tomb of Dracula and Conan ones were pretty intense, considering the target audience at the time.
Smichal – part of the “monster”-ness of those Power Records probably came from the fact that horror and monsters were kinda big in comics at the time the records were being produced.
I haven’t done a post on Power Records specifically, as aside from having a couple as a kid, I don’t have any particular insights on them. Other than, say, them taking a two-issue Man-Thing story and re-editing the first part to have an ending to its one-record/one-comic release.
Are these the same people that did The Untild Legend of the Batman tapes? The Batman theme to that will forever live rent free in my head.
I had one of these as a kid, but for a different issue. Wild to think they must have done the whole series as individual cassettes.
Yes, you thought the Conan and Tomb of Dracula records were intense, but they decided to adapt an issue of Man-Thing which is the story of a clown who commits suicide.
Since it’s a two-part story (as Mike mentions), and also to try to give a story about a clown killing himself an upbeat ending for children, they decided to change Gerber’s ending so that the clown is free to laugh forever now that he is a spirit. Somehow, I think they may have made a Steve Gerber story even creepier, and then targeted this to children.
My friend had the Spider-Man Power Record with Man-Wolf. That cover, with Man-Wolf bursting through the window indelibly burned into my little brain years before I starting getting into comics.
Werewolves have always been my favorite monster and I’m sure that image is one of the reasons why.
Oddly, I don’t remember ever actually listening to the record.
I still have my album sized Bat-Man record with Gorilla Grodd on one side and a less amazing Sherlock Holmes meets Bat-Man story on the other – a childhood favorite!
I thought the voice actors did a nice job, and whoever was playing Lana Lang really sold it. The voice actor for Clark Kent did have a softer voice than I expected but I think it helped underscore Superman’s Smallville roots and good heartedness–although it would have been fun to hear an octave change a la the old “This is a job for… SUPERMAN!!!” voice actor of yore.
Is it just me, or is that cover kind of bad, as far as top-level comic book talent goes? It’s around this time that Byrne’s design sense goes out the window – although when I look back at his X-Men run, you realize how few covers he actually did…
@Pedro de Pacas
Terry Austin’s inking is what really made John Byrne’s art pop on X-Men…and later on Jerry Ordway’s inking made Byrne’s art pop on some of the Fantastic Four run. But, yeah, agreed that that Man of Steel cover isn’t one of Byrne’s best. I’m also not a fan of Byrne’s redesign on Jor-El.
Love those Power Records – been collecting them for over four decades. Marvel had some of the best (and a few real stinkers) in terms of voice acting and production values. There were four monsters records: Man-Thing, Curse of the Werewolf (Werewolf-by-Night), Monster of Frankenstein, and (Tomb of) Dracula. There were also book and record sets for Captain America, Hulk, Fantastic Four, and at least two Spider-Man records (Mark of the Man-Wolf & Dragon Men). They also released a Conan 45 (Crawler in the Mists) as well as a full album with three additional new Conan stories.
DC did a whole bunch as well that focused primarily on Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Other licensed book/record sets included Planet of the Apes (I believe there were four that “loosely” adapted the early films), Star Trek, Space 1999, The Six Million Dollar Man and, if you can believe it, Kojak. All were definitely a product of their time – the 1970’s.
Other odd audio/comic related recordings include a 1975 radio drama adaptation of the early Fantastic Four comics narrated by Stan Lee and starring a very young Bill Murray as the Human Torch. And in 2018, Matt Kindt released a 45 book/record set of his Mind Mgmt series in the Power Records format.
@ Sean
While love Austin’s inking on The X-Men, I love Bryne inking himself on the FF. I see how people may not like it as much; it is definitely not as crisp, and can even get downright muddy at times. For me, it feels like his ultimate authorial statement.* There’s an organic quality to it that I feel is lacking in the precision of Austin’s (lovely) inking.
I did like when he brought Al Gordon and Ordway in to do inking at the end, but now see Gordon’s as a bit too busy, though he is a top notch inker. Ordway makes it feel like a true collaboration, the best of Byrne AND Ordway together at their prime which I wish had lasted longer, as it was truly a thing of beauty. It’s a shame he only got to work on the very few final issues, which are some of the least interesting in Bryne’s FF run (IMHO.)
For the DC work I don’t think Giordano fits that well with his pencils. I recall Karl Kesel worked really well.
@ Pedro
That cover doesn’t bother me that much, but yeah, it’s not his strongest effort. I’m not sure what happened but I tend to think his real drop off (while still pretty damn good) was when he returned to Marvel in the late 80’s. After that I stopped following him as closely, his style became less and less to my taste. His X-Men fan fic looks pretty damn good overall; his faces seems a little weird sometimes, but that’s just his style now I guess.
Sorry to write so much about this – You lovely people are the only ones I have to discuss this with. I bore my wife with Kirby and Toth stuff**, but this level of granularity would be pushing it. :)
*Which in reality is probably Next-Men I guess, don’t know, haven’t ever read those.
* She is a patient, patient woman.
@LouReedRichards
Personally, I appreciate that you write about this stuff, so no worries on my part. I also can see your point of view–when Byrne is inking Byrne we are getting pure, unadulterated Byrne. And I remember thinking it was neat to see pure Byrne when the “John Byrne: 0ut of My Head” artist book came out. So, tastes will vary as to which inkers people prefer over Byrne’s pencils–but I think the synergy of Claremont, Byrne, and Austin really made the X-Men pop. I appreciate Dave Cockrum’s and Paul Smith’s X-Men art runs as well.
To further the Byrne debate, I think that Dan Adkins, Frank Giacoia, and Joe Sinnott were all very good inkers for the early Byrne art from the late ’70s on Iron Fist, Marvel Team-Up, and the first FF issues where Byrne was the artist only, a few years prior to when he took over the title completely.
I also think that with Byrne it is sort of a Kirby thing where after he drew hundreds if not thousands of pages of comic book art he inevitably simplified his style and sought out shortcuts.
I do wish that Marvel would let Byrne’s X-Men “fanfic” project see publication as a series of “What If?” or “Elseworlds”-type graphic novels…scanned straight from the
penciled pages if need be, and with an editor assigned if need be. There are definitely enough Byrne and ’80s era X-Men fans out there who would buy it–but if they could get Terry Austin to ink it, it would be even better!
“Star Trek”
I had 2 of those- not associated with the comics. (Regular size records, too.) Very B-Grade Trek, like a not-great animated episode.
“Next Men”
The ones i read were good, but i don’t think I read the whole series. I think it was left unfinished, or at least, with more stories to tell, then Bryne stopped.
Trivia: one issue of Next Men is the 1st app. of Hellboy, making that one an expensive issue to get!
@Bryan: Absolutely. Actually, when Sterling mentioned the back was similar, I thought so, too, but I was definitely remembering The Untold Legend of the Batman.