ROM Spaceknight custom vehicle art. Yes, on a real vehicle and no this is not photoshop this time!

Some of you who have been following this blog for a while now may recognize the art work you see here. If so that's because I featured it in a posting back in December but at the time the photo image I had found was only of the portion of the trailer that had the actual ROM illustration it's self with very little background. So it was next to impossible to tell what the image was painted on even though that didn't stop us all from wild speculation. Well now the mystery is over thanks to a link left a few days ago in the comments section of the original posting: http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2011/02/galadorian-graffiti-rom-as-public-art.html What you are looking at here is a mobile laboratory from M.I.T. Unfortunately that's all the information I have on it but at least now the mystery is solved as to what and where this ROM "thumbs up" illustration is done on. Ya see folks, this is why I love people who take the trouble to leave comments on blog sites. The exchange of opinions and information really does make the blogging experience funner and because among other things it can lead to cool discoveries like this one.

September 20 update
Case and point, thanks to a comment left by ~P~ from The Sanctum Sanctorum on the previous posting I found out about a what I can only describe as a Defenders "where are they now" Marvel Handbook. I suppose it's some sort of index about the status of pretty much every one who's ever been a member of The Defenders. That includes The Torpedo who as I understand it was on the team between issues 62-64. You see him in the bottom right hand corner of issue 64 there? So anyways it looks like The Torpedo will not only get a mention in the book but he also made in on the cover which I think is pretty cool. The Defenders handbook is due to debut some where around December. For a Defenders #64 recap go to: http://defendersfan.blogspot.com/2008/12/defenders-for-day.html

Best Torpedo fan art I've ever seen!

Ok so maybe given that The Torpedo (the unofficial side kick of ROM) is even a more obscure 70s - 80s Marvel character then ROM to say that I've found the best Torpedo art ever isn't saying much. Especially since I'm pretty sure I could count all the fan art of the Torpedo ever done on both hands and still have some fingers left over. But that still does not take away from this being an awesome illustration in which we haven't seen The Torpedo looking this good since back in the day when Sal Buscema use to draw him in the pages of ROM. But I don't want to take anything away from other Marvel artists who have drawn him because he was done up pretty well also in his debut appearance in Daredevil and then later in Marvel Premiere. Here, I just love the colors and the action pose he's in. The artist has a great grasp on perspective and proper proportions that also look dynamic which is something I always like to see in comic book character art figure drawings. Also it is worth mentioning that The Torpedo has his own micro hero and that over the past year I've come across more then one custom figure made of him. In case you were wondering I found this on Deviant Art and it was done by a talented fellow by the name of Jordi Lupo. Be sure to magnify the image it's a pretty large file.

911 an "inside job?" You bet it was!

Yeah that's right an inside job. 19 guys came inside our boarders pretending to be here for legitimate reasons and hid in plain site (just like the Dire Wraiths and with that analogy we see again how art imitates life) until they hijacked four planes filled with civilian Americans and non Americans alike. They then crashed these planes into buildings full of more people who were just like you and me and unlike you and me. The people who were murdered that day were about as random as you could get being made up of many races, religions and other belief systems both political and social. One of the many ironies here is that each one of the hijackers came from a part of the world in which the governments who rule there are among the most brutal and suppressive on the face of the Earth. Not only that but the hijackers carried out their mission to murder out of some self righteous radical religious ideology thinking that the mass murder of random people will bring them 72 virgins in paradise.
Don't buy into that crap that this was all about America's foreign policy (which I'm not saying is beyond reproach) or that the hijackers came from any manner of moral high ground. Living here in the San Francisco Bay Area I've heard it all. An "inside job", really? Why wasn't anybody saying that after the first WTC attack in 94? Oh wait it was "because we're allies with Israel" really? Is that why all the 911 hijackers were from countries (egypt & saudi arabia) that are also "allies" with America. Egypt even has had a long standing peace treaty with Israel. I especially love the "what did we do to make them so angry at us" line of thinking. That's like being a Jew and spending time analyzing why neo-nazis and other anti-Semitic groups like the taliban hate you and want to see you dead. In the face of that kind of hatred one must always respond appropriately which is any way but nicely.
Yesterday I heard that just 8 weeks ago was the last time someone died of a disease they contracted as a result of being in or nearby ground zero on 911. We owe it to that person, as well as to the people who died out right that day and to God knows how many others that are sick in both body and spirit still today to see that everyone who was involved in that terror plot gets a surprise visit from a U.S. SEAL team soon.

The ROM copyright problem solved! Firefall, Starshine & Rom with Ikon for the 1st time. Also, more fan art colored by me.

I'm just feeling kinda sentimental these days so please enjoy my latest bit of digital "trickeration". From what I've been reading out there about the Annihilators Earthfall mini-series I'm not sure I'll be doing any reviews for it. Other then IKON's membership on the team, I feel like there really isn't anything especially relevant about the series that I should post about here. What ever I can say about it in general will certainly be easily found in a dozen reviews out there with the bloggers and on Youtube. But as long as the story is entertaining I'll be picking it up especially if it offers some good character development for Ikon. I'm interested to see how she reacts to being on Earth for the first time and to it's heroes considering the inevitable rumble between the two teams. I imagine Earth must be something of a legend to Galadorians by now. Other cool stuff with Ikon I'd like to see is if she and Quasar hook up or perhaps even her commending Ronin for demonstrating to her in their adventures thus far that there's more qualities then one's raw power level that makes for a great warrior. So those are certainly some possible things I might feel inclined to post about in the coming months.
It's funny, even though I've read the panel art online already over a year ago ever since buying HULK #418 (1994) a few weeks back in which ROM and Brandy show up at Rick Jones's wedding as a happy couple I find myself kinda wishing they had left the whole Galador/Spaceknight thing alone at that point. It just goes to show you how reading ink on paper can make for a different experience and let you connect better with the content. Or maybe they could have at least brought back Galador and the Spaceknights with out Brandy Clark being in the forefront of the story. That way so that they could have just made a couple references to the King & Queen of Galador and leave us to assume ROM & Brandy are fine and just working behind the scenes on whatever is going on. Continuing the Dire Wraith threat would have been fine of course under any story line especially since Marvel has been using them off and on for many years now including recently in Future Foundations and Darkstar: Winter Guard.
Anybody remember this portion of the panel that introduced Brandy in Annihilators #2? She's obviously looking at a portrait of ROM wearing armor in human form. For reasons which I can't imagine I'm pretty sure it was drawn with part of the decor in the chamber obscuring his face as you see here. Knowing that we're gonna probably be subjected to Marvel tiptoeing around the ROM name for years to come makes me feel a lot like Brandy here in this panel. Just feeln bummed out right now about the whole thing cause if it wasn't for this licensing shit I know Marvel would have brought him back by now. Probably not as a monthly series but surely in guest appearances here and there especially when it came to cosmic adventures.

How Marvel can have ROM back with getting sued here it is : In regards to the Annihilators and the continuation of the Galador/Spaceknights mythology in the Marvel Universe did it ever occur to them to just have ROM back in human form and just print his name as "ROMM"? Or even "RAHM" (actually pronounced as "Rom") as in Rahm Emanuel the former White House chief of staff. Galadorians are humanoid and can pass as human so who knows maybe some are Jewish too (just kidding). Anyways, how could Marvel possibly be sued for going that route!? As it is they do stuff like that all the time with brands that show up in comic book stories like when somebody is holding what is obviously a Coke can but their fingers are covering part of the wording. Ok now how do we get my brilliant idea to Marvel and or Abnett & Lanning?
I recently got around to establishing a Deviant Art account and ran into some dude named Jason Heichel who is the only other person I know of who has done some IKON fan art. It was great but it was uncolored and it was just calling out to me. Please magnify the image it's even better in detail.

Lots of new ROM fan art found. I'm betting there's at least some here you haven't seen before

Left click on any image to enlarge all

And on other matters of ROM Spaceknight art work Ptor and The Sanctum has a posting up currently of an alternate ROM #1 cover. What are your thoughts on it versus what ended up being published? You can find the alt cover and what I think about it here: http://sanctumsanctorumcomix.blogspot.com