ROM’s been in the news lately; Hasbro filed once again for the trademark on the property, prompting speculation that we may be in for a revival of the character. Personally, I don’t care so much about seeing future adventures as I do about getting reprints; if Marvel does get the rights back, the smart thing to do would be to pump out ‘Essential ROM’ Volumes 1 through However Many It Takes to Reprint His Every Appearance as fast as they can get the ink on the paper. Because ROM…ROM was freaking epic.
And I mean that literally. In a lot of ways, ROM foreshadowed episodic series whose individual stories built up into a single, large epic. Which is not to say that Bill Mantlo actually influenced people like J. Michael Straczynski or J.J. Abrams or Joss Whedon…but he was doing the same thing a long time before they did it. The 75-issue series starts with ROM’s arrival on Earth in pursuit of the Dire Wraiths, a species of evil shapeshifters that ROM and his fellow Spaceknights repelled from Galador and now hunt through the galaxy; and it doesn’t end until the epic conclusion of the Dire Wraith war (which crossed over into Marvel comics from ‘X-Men’ to ‘Fantastic Four’ to ‘Power Man and Iron Fist’) and ROM’s triumphant return to his home planet. There’s a lot of twists and turns in between, of course, but the whole series feels like it’s got a coherent beginning, middle and end. That’s very unusual in an era where you either had a twelve-issue miniseries, or you went for broke and tried to extend your run as long as you could. (To some extent, it’s a happy accident…I’m sure if ROM had sold better, he’d still be fighting the Dire Wraiths to this day.)
The character of ROM has a strong emotional arc through the series; he starts out consumed with guilt over allowing the Dire Wraiths to escape their Waterloo on Wraithworld, and slowly grows to regain his humanity (literally and figuratively) through his feelings for Brandy Clark. Brandy, meanwhile, has her own great arc; she goes from merely admiring ROM for his courage and nobility to becoming a hero in her own right, suffering loss and seeking vengeance. Bill Mantlo did a great job of making his characters accessible and sympathetic, especially when the series takes a turn for the horrific around issue #47. (I think this was actually the first issue of the series I read. The opening sequence, in which a member of the new, ruthless sorceress class of Wraith murders someone by drilling a hole in his forehead with her tongue and sucking out his brains like a Slurpee, is high on my list of Good Old Fashioned Nightmare Fuel.)
There’ve been appearances of ROM and the Spaceknights since the end of the series, which is good…but it’s that initial epic that I love, and that I want to see collected. Hopefully Hasbro and Marvel can make it happen, because with the rights to the Wraiths solidly held by Marvel, the rights to ROM don’t do anybody any good unless they can make an agreement.
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When I was a little kid, the way the Dire Wraiths used to kill people was the freakiest, scariest thing ever.
How sweet would it be if they did a reproduction of the great toy that all of this was based on. I have a touching ROM story. I wrote a letter to the letter page and it go published. Someone in a US V.A. hospital wrote me back and we were pen pals as he was dying on cancer. After he passed I got a box with the first fifty issues of ROM in it as I had told him I was looking for the back issues. I guess he wrote to many of us and bequeathed his collection to the freinds he had met. This was before email when you actually had to write a letter and wait weeks for a reply. I miss my friend and anything that is ROM related makes me think of him.
I also love ROM, and that’s a great story.
Hopefully, any Essential Rom will also include all the various comics not reprinted in some of the other Essentials due to Rom appearing in them.
Rom really does deserve to be collected. The Buscema and Ditko art… magnifique.
#47 was my first issue of ROM as well, and that period of the comic is how I immediately think of the character. It may have also warped mah fragile lil’ mind…
I came into a run of ROM when I was younger, as part of an old comic collection I inherited. It petered out in the mid 30s, so I never got to see a lot of the cool stuff that happened later on. Even so, it was one of my favorite sci-fi-superhero comics and being able to pick up reprints has been something I’ve wished for for a while now.
ROM is #2 on my list of “Stuff I Really Want To Read That I Hope Will Eventually Get Reprinted,” coming in second to only Miracleman/Marvelman.
I was so irritated when I saw a Star Trek comic that claimed to be “FEATURING ROM.” Turns out, not the same dude.
Marvel man was reprinted. There are trades (4 of them? 5?) collecting all of the issues published in Warrior and in his own title by Eclipse.
Kal, that’s such a sweet story!
Marvel cannot bring ROM soon enough. They’ve tried to write about Galador without him, around War of Kings and Annihilators. Turned out as sadly as you would expect.
It does seem odd to me that they can’t work out a deal to let Marvel reprint Rom comics, inasmuch as that is the only way the Rom intellectual property will ever make anyone any money.
You might want to check out the Facebook group “Rom’s Spaceknights to Benefit Bill Mantlo”. They’re a good bunch. The more, the merrier.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/141453282624884/
I can understand wanting the old stuff reprinted. I don’t understand people who want new ROM, though. Even if they could get the old creative team back, it wouldn’t be just like the old book. And that’s what ROM fans want: More of the old book. It’s OK for things to be over.
Speaking of Dire Wraiths, is it possible to read the ROM series (and yes, there was some high-octane nightmare fuel in them) and then see Hickman over in Fantastic Four using them as Mild-Mannered Alien Race #17b without feeling a little unsettled?
The story of Rom and Mantlo is one of those true tragedies of comics. You’ve got a consistently good writer who took a bargain-bin action figure and turned it into one of the most iconic heroes of 80s Marvel. Then Mantlo was struck down in his prime, and Parker Brothers took back the rights. It’s left the poor guy without the centerpiece of his legacy, and now, looking at the trades, he’s just a guy who wrote a disparate pile of tie-ins and crossovers. By all rights, there should have been crowds donating money to pay for his hospital bills, and Rom should be appearing with a dedication in the 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy.
Mantlo also has a strong legacy on the Hulk.
Weird…I always hated Brandy.
I thought she was a shameless cheater and I honestly don’t understand why people think this was true love.
To me, it was a case of the groupie falling in love with the superhero with the nice guy losing out because he wasn’t a superhero.
I seriously doubt BRandy would’ve looked twive at ROM if her fianceee had been a superhero himself and I’m always shocked that people don’t notice that….
Would we still look as fondly at ROM if the sexes had been reversed?
Would we still look as fondly at ROM if the sexes had been reversed?
Reversing the sexes (or races) in a situation can be an illuminating experience. It’s surprising sometimes how much we see things differently when that role reversal happens.
I might look more fondly at ROM if he were a hot chick, yeah.
Unstoppable: ROM himself was so boxy that he really COULD have been a hot chick until they showed him as generic Native American longhaired dude, which is strange as all the other Galadorians were white IIRC.
I wouldn’t put Starshine in my top ten hot chick robots either. Not exactly Metropolis material, if you know what I mean.
Loved the series. ROM was the first opportunity I had as a young comics reader to collect every issue and appearance of a character — to get in on the ground floor — and I really did!
I’m going to leave this riiight here…
http://www.comicvine.com/ikon/29-75314/
http://arisverse.blogspot.com/2008/11/tvce-rom-spaceknight.html
I loved ROM. I keep hoping for a comeback. I heard rumors we may be surprised in the coming year..but that could be wishful thinking.
When I was oh……..12 or 13 an issue of ROM was one of the first I bought with MY OWN MONEY & NOT.BY HAVING TO BEG MY FOLKS. Alas a younger brother trashed it shortly thereafter so I do not recall the number but it was VERY VERY COOL. ROM. Shang-Chi. A creepy orphanage on the moors. For someone who grew up watching exploitation & horror movies on UHF stations that was epic. Forbidden Planet meets Enter the.Dragon meets Hammer’s Dracula. FTW.