Wednesday, March 30, 2011

ROM, the original & the re-envisioned by Joe Singleton. Plus there's even more!

Here's another good find I made on the internet. This is pretty sweet for a few reasons. First, this is some damn fine drawing. The figure composition and shading are especially good it has an almost streamline quality to it. In all my years of ROM fandom I've never seen and illustration of him brandishing both his analyzer and neutralizer at the same time so that right their makes these illustrations unique.
The revamped version of ROM is more a look for the character that Singleton apparently would have like to have seen. You'll notice features like a more organic design for his armor, less bulky accessories and new "boots". I think for me it deviates a bit too much from the classic ROM look but it's still a cool illustration on it's own merit. Lately I've been noticing how artists sign their work for some reason and this guy has a really cool way of doing his signature.

Obscure ROM related reference found. Something got me thinking of a bit of clip art I remember seeing many years ago. So I did a Google image search and found it pretty fast to my surprise considering it's obscure nature. What you see here is from an X-Men issue (#236) in which the Carol Danvers persona of Rogue's psyche takes Rogue on a "fantastic voyage" through her subconscious. There, Rogue encounters pretty much every person or thing that she has ever used her power/psyche absorbing mutant abilities on. Do you notice a certain brain sucking alien in that first panel? That's because during the Wraith War on Earth the Dire Wraiths at one point attempted to assassinate Forge because he was developing a "neo-neutralizer" for Earth's use. He was saved by the timely intervention of the X-Men. During the battle Rogue had to get a little too close for comfort with the Wraiths. See the recap of the X-Men Dire Wraiths show down here: http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2009/07/so-whats-this-about-forges-dire-wraith.html

Thursday, March 17, 2011

More IKON fan art by yours truly & Annihilators# 2 splash page sneak peak


IKON The Inglorious Bastard
I just got done watching that movie. It was a bit long winded but it had it's moments for sure. Bashing the skulls of Nazis into pulp with a baseball bat for kicks sounds like a nice occupation. That was basically the inspiration for this sketch. That and the desire to finally see Ikon fight Dire Wraiths instead of her own team mates for a change. Not to mention how the first issue of Annihilators had more severed body parts then a bowl of Wendy's chili.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

ROM #22 (1981) You never forget your first

My first ROM issue ever was #22. It was just a random thing how I got it. I was 9 and my whole comic book collection at the time consisted of about a dozen comics (Fantastic Four, Master of Kung Fu, Marvel Two In One, Shogun Warriors, The Micronauts) which I really liked. At that point in my life my reading skills were only so that I could just pick up a few words here and there. My dad had to do most of the reading for me. I think what blew me away the most about this issue at the time was the above panel (Sal Buscema's spectacular pencils) of ROM banishing that Wraith Rocketeer. To me at the time it looked like ROM was just blasting this guy in mid air with some kind of disintegration death ray. This was some hard core take no prisoners kinda shit I hadn't seen in any of the comics I had or in ones I had browsed through at stores. So from then on, even though I would come to love other more mainstream Marvel characters I was a "fan" of ROM Spaceknight. And eventually I'd would have to have all his issues and tie-ins. So nearly 30 years later here we are with IKON, the Annihilators and . . the dreaded Dire Wraiths again.
Update: If they ever did a live action ROM movie I think ROM's neutralizer beam should look like a crimson version of the tripod disintegration beams from War of the Worlds. Remember how in the movie the people who got hit turned into ash just like the wraiths did in the comics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doO-8KtoQYM&NR=1

Saturday, March 12, 2011

IKON Greatest of the Spaceknights

I was in that kind of mood today so decided to break out the sketch book and do something. Since IKON has assumed the mantle of Greatest of the Spaceknights I just thought I'd see if she can look the part a little bit more by giving her a logo that shouldn't look at all unfamiliar to ROM fans. That's it for now, but I'll actually have something to talk about in my next posting coming up in a week or so. For Marvel database stats : http://marvel.wikia.com/Ikon_%28Spaceknight%29

Thursday, March 3, 2011

ANNIHILATORS # 1 review: Girl Spaceknights gone wild! Raw, real and uncut!

So I just want to start off by saying that if you decide to go buy this issue prepare to drop your pants and grab your ankles. I say that because your going to pay 5 fucken dollars for 20 pages worth of reading. That is of course unless your a Rocket Raccoon fan in which you might think the rest of the book made the 5 bucks all worth while. It's because of shit like that why I don't buy that many new books these days.
And so, onward to what this posting is really about. Annihilators #1 opens up with Dr. Dredd (yeah I thought he was dead too!) http://marvel.com/universe/Doctor_Dredd commandeering a Rigellian survey ship that was studying interdenominational rifts. After Ikon "drops in" on the Annihilators she decides to throw down with them one by one. Later we find out that her fight with them was to prove a point. That being that each of the Annihilators are so powerful to the point where they are actually too self conscious about their actions and ultimately dysfunctional as a team. Eventually things settle down and as expected they have the inevitable "get to know you" group gathering. Another thing apparently Wendall Vaughn is back. Not sure about his return trip from the dead but I'm glad he's back.
We discover here that although Wraith World is destroyed the Black Sun of the Dark Nebula still very much exists and is being watched over by Galador's Spaceknights since it is the source of the Dire Wraith's sorcery. Cosmo senses a great disturbance in the Force . . . just kidding, he see's a squirrel in the Dark Nebula and off he goes along with The Annihilators and Ikon. They all show up at a Galadorian stronghold on the edge of the Dark Nebula. It's been majorly fucked over by Dr. Dredd who is using the data collected from the Rigellian survey ship to bring the Black Sun of the Dark Nebula into Galador's solar system. The last panel shows a bunch of Death Wings raising all kind of holy Hell on Galador.

So what do I think so far? It's not bad. Apparently we're back to Spaceknights who wear armor as opposed to being cyborgs. I'm not so sure how I feel about that but I'm gonna just go with it for now. Ikon is pretty cool so far. This new artist has her looking more like Jacosta then like a Micronaut action figure or one of those droids from I Robot. Clearly the armor she wears and her title are paying homage to the ROM legacy. And by making Ikon a woman she can at the same time stand apart from ROM more easily as a character. Plus it doesn't hurt to add some estrogen and plandenium clad boobs to the Annihilators. Personality wise it looks like the writers are trying to establish her quickly as a real G.I. Jane type. She reminds me a lot of the character Erin Sunne (Claudia Black) from Farscape. The Wraith warlock Dr. Dredd who we thought had been strangled to death by ROM back in the day has made a come back somehow that will hopefully be explained later. But I must say he so far has established himself as one formidable s.o.b. His plan is pretty ingenious and he's displayed impressive power and ruthlessness on par with Hybrid. I'm also happy to say that a direct reference to ROM (but not by name unfortunately) has indeed been made already as I had hoped and it looks like Ikon won't be the only Spaceknight we'll be seeing. Overall the plot looks pretty good so far. Looking forward to #2.
I'm glad we also get to see Galador it's self. You might say I like what they did with the place it's come along way from the nuclear holocaust like appearance it had at the end of the original ROM series. They may or may not explain how Galador came back from the brink as it did especially since ROM and Brandy were supposedly the last people there. I speculated a while back that there were probably other Galadorian survivors in hiding and that others on off world colonies came back to pitch in on getting the planet fixed up again and repopulated. Here are some links to reviews done on Youtube.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

ROM & Nova, reunited and it feels so good

Well look what else I found out there another cool statue. Ya know I was just talking a couple of postings ago about how that sucked for Nova to have recently died. But you know how it is in the world of comic books and sci-fi when it comes to the concept of "death". Elektra, Superman and Spock were all "dead" at one point. See where I'm going with this boys and girls? I think Richard Ryder was probably the coolest Marvel teenage superhero back in the 80's and dead or alive I want to commemorate Nova's legacy. I'm sure you all know that Nova's appearance in # 23 is what made that issue among the handful of classic issues in the ROM series. If your memory on it is a bit hazy go here for an entertaining recap: http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2008/10/spaceknight-saturdays-secret-invasion.html and if you thought that was cool you may want to check out a recap of the What If issue surrounding that Nova adventure: http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-if-nova-had-not-given-up-his.html
And while your at it head over here to see some cool art work and sketches of various DC & Marvel characters including a few of our favorite Spaceknight I've never seen before. Take note of a cool sketch of a couple of teenage fan boys in awe of some comic book spinner racks as if they were the black monoliths from 2001. You all know how I miss those spinner racks. Damn I miss the 80's!: http://mafus.blogspot.com/search?q=rom

Oh and one last thing, I should be getting my copy of ANNIHILATORS sometime Wednesday from my local shop (Crush Comics) which means I'll have a review of it up by Wed. night (Pacific time) or first thing Thursday.