Saturday, March 24, 2012

1981 COMICS FEATURE magazine year in review of ROM spaceknight from Marvel Comics

I want all you people to know I actually bought this on Ebay based on what the cover eluded to after having had it brought to my attention by a fellow ROM fan who lives in West Virgina of all places (thanks Frank!). I knew something like this was not gonna be well known even among our little silver spaceknight cult so I knew this would make for a great blog posting. I tell ya, the things I do for you people. This blog is the gift that keeps on giving.
The article was 2 full pages but I scanned it in 4 quarters so that it could be much more easily read when magnified. You'll see at first it opens up with a basic introduction of licensed comics.

In this portion of the article it talks mostly about Bill Mantlo's approach to ROM as a character and how it would contrast to his work on The Micronauts which was another licensed comic as you all know. It also, talks about Sal Buscema's pencils on the book.

Here we see comparisons between ROM and the Silver Surfer and Mantlo also catches a little bit of criticism on how he has characterized the Dire Wraiths.
The last portion of the article talks mostly about ROM's integration into the Marvel Universe and the Dire Wraith infestation of Earth. In general the article was pretty good and the author wrapped it up on a pretty positive note.

11 comments:

  1. WoW! That is a remarkable article

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    1. i told ya i had something cool coming on this blog you probably hadn't seen before. your English is pretty good Bruce if you were able to read that whole thing so soon and understand it pretty well. glad you enjoyed it.
      i still have so much more stuff to post but i think i better save it for next month.

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  2. It's a lot of fun reading about the strip in its early days (second year---before the X-Men appear), when most of the stories we know so well have yet to develop. In the back of my mind, I think about "what if the supporting characters had more deeply developed personal stories?" and finally, the possibility of Wraiths that believe they are NOT evil---but all that's left to the imagination, some parallel version of the series which we've never known. We did eventually, in year three, get a lot of great guest stars, as well as Akin & Garvey. Who knows? Those rights may be resolved one day, and when ROM 2.0 hits the stands...well, who knows. When I read #1 for the first time, a year and a half back, I closed it and just imagined 1979, STAR BLAZERS playing in the background on TV, the smell of corduroy, and the awe of finding a hulking silver figure stalking a backyard in Anytown, U.S.A.

    By the way, Rom himself really hates the part of the Captcha that reads "Prove You're Not a Robot."

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    1. relish those years that made up of the tail end of the 70's and all the 80's. Star Blazers was a favorite of mine too. i just recently found a great deal on 6" model of the Andromeda on ebay.
      as much as i wish it were not the case i don't believe sadly there will be any ROM 2.0

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  3. Okay. I am now on the hunt for all back issues I can get my hands on. Thanks for sharing Dave!

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  4. Awesome article. It is a shame some of those matchups never happened.

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  5. David,

    2 things:

    1) Glad you like the little ROM neutralizer-zap gif.
    It was one of several cool animated gifs I blogged a while back. I'm surprised you didn't see it then, but glad you finally did.

    2) Yup, this COMICS FEATURE magazine is one of the multitude of weird eclectic ROM items I have (like the Marvel Team-Up poster you guys requested a peek at) for that oft-alluded-to mega-post that I want to post (eventually).

    If you continue to unearth items like this, you will negate my need to write the post.
    ;-)

    Keep up the good work.
    ~P~
    Sanctum Sanctorum Comix

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    1. oh i did see it ~P~. i left 5 comments under that posting. i just hadn't figured out how to apply it to my blog until recently. as for who posts weird eclectic ROM items i'm always content to let you go first. . .within a reasonable time frame of course.

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  6. better late then never though right? but then again that's what i do at this blog which is find the obscure ROM stuff still out there instead of posting the same old clip art and retell the ROM doll and origin story over and over again.

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