Friday, July 20, 2012

Just like I said, Marvel still loves ROM and they know about the fans but . . .

 Apparently early this year this wasn't the only blog out there that was discussing the matter of the the ROM name and likeness licensing issue which was prompted by the return of  Hybrid in Avengers Academy back in March. The slamonstrobot blog authored by Snell posted on the topic with more feed back from Marvel. What you see here is from the Christos Gage in the Avengers Academy letter column.
For those of you who have been following this blog you pretty much know all of this. So really, here this information to the left is just more not so positive reinforcement on the ugly reality of the situation. And there's more:  http://slaymonstrobot.blogspot.com/2012/03/donald-duck-spacekinght.html

It's not that I disbelieve Gage in this letter column but Marvel has found a way in the past to fudge that legality as shown in Universe X #3 (2000) http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2009/10/rom-universe-x.html

 Yeah I know that blows. So I endeavor to keep digging into the past to bring ROM fans today something to smile about. Although sometimes even the stuff from the past doesn't make me entirely happy. Here's a good example. I forgot I used to have this issue of Secret Wars II until I saw an entry for it in Lee's Rom Spaceknight Revisited data base site. I think the reason why I didn't keep the series or this issue was for two reasons. One is that the Secret Wars II was massively inferior to the original. As to this issue of course it was cool that they had a ROM cameo/reference to ROM#72 but it pissed me off that Al Milgrom who did some of the original ROM covers back in the day drew ROM in that horrible Steve Dikto style. God! I especially hated the way Dikto drew ROM's eyes.

Left click to enlarge

Look what else I found at RSR. This is something I didn't know about before. Here's a Rom head shot from Web of Spiderman #7 during a dream sequence Peter Parker is having.

You can see the full page here:
 Just found Avengers 268 in a $1 bin recently. I remember when this issue first came out I happened to see it on the shelf at some dime store in San Francisco back in the day. After I thumbed through it I kinda waffled for a bit but ended up not buying it. I guess at the time this loose ROM tie-in didn't seem like that big of a deal to me since this issue came out in June of 1986 which was just a few months after the last ROM issue (#75 Feb. 1986) It featured a few pages of all these suicidal Dire Wraiths attacking some of the Avengers who had been kidnapped and temporarily stranded in Limbo by the timelord Kang. Now of course, finding something like this now is a bigger deal then it was over 25 years ago. I'm a sentimental kinda guy and for just a half a buck it was money well spent.

Left click to enlarge
As you may have figured The Avengers didn't kill all the Limbo dwelling Dire Wraiths in this issue. Many others were still there and they would eventually find themselves in conflict and ultimately subjugated by another timelord in Limbo by the name of  Immortus as told in the pages of the Darkstar Winter Guard mini-series (2010).
 
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3 comments:

  1. The Graphics WizJuly 20, 2012 at 10:49 AM

    Well, you've done it again. While I recall the SW2 vaguely, this is the first I've seen of the other appearances. Especially the link to the UX stuff which I've never found. Doesn't it just seem INSANE that a property that people WANT cannot be done because of some now mythical legalities? At some point someone has to find out the details that are preventing the use of Rom. It just doesn't make any sense in ANY universe.

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    1. Shlomo Ben HungstienJuly 20, 2012 at 2:25 PM

      i got something on ebay that should show up in a few days. won't know until i get it if it'll be blog worthy but i'll let you know either way.
      on a general note, our whole legal system both in terms of criminal matters and business matters is such a complete cluster fuck. the ROM licensing quagmire is really just a minor example in the bigger picture but a good one never the less.

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  2. RandomnerdJuly 20, 2012 at 9:10 PM

    No, it makes sense in the universe of people that want crap not to get done because they might get money out of it at some later date. Personally, I'd think they'd rather sell the rights and get money out of it now, but maybe Marvel doesn't want to ante up. I don't know. I'm not the fly on that wall. I remember SW2. Vaguely. My daddy had all of them. I used to sneak them out of the "comic vault" along with prohibited copies of SW1 and all of the Teen Titans and X-Men I used to love reading. (That includes the classic issues that involved Storm losing her powers to a device invented by Forge and all the wraithiness that ensued). I'd never heard of the Avengers tie-in though, so thanks Dave, once again, for the heads up. Seems like I'm always thanking you. I think someone needs to make a flo-chart. With all the ROM, Dire-Wraith, Marvel Universe Tie-ins. Just to prove how much we need the Knight Himself back to clean up this mess.

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