"Parker Brothers"

I'm sure Rom fans and all others in general who understand the complications of comic book titles and characters based on licensed properties will understand and appreciate the humor here. A big thanks to Bruce who hails from far away Spain for bringing this Amazing Spiderman 672 clip art to us.

And speaking of which if you want to see my video overview of the IDW Mars Attacks trade paper back with a very special bonus pin up page you can see all that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALieUDk_l1Q

It's Earth Day Galactus, in your face!

Left click to enlarge

Here some digital fan art I made from some borrowed images on the net. I had a version of this in which I had dialogue bubbles that read "You dare deny the hunger of Galactus!?" / "I do great one, for I am ROM. And you will not have Galador this day so swears the greatest of the spaceknights!". But somehow it looked better without the text. Either way doesn't this just make you miss the good ol days of Rom and and Marvel Comics of the 80s?

Now this is something that comes from another digital artist at Deviant Art. This one is just described as a Rom spaceknight sprite. I never really thought about this but I guess sprite is a general term for some little digital icon animation sorta thing. Anyways I totally dig it good job who ever you are that did it. And on a side note Sprite the soft drink is my all time favorite soda.

Some cool ROM related moments from the HULK

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I came across a copy of  Incredible Hulk#279 (Bill Mantlo & Mark Gruenwald) in the dollar bin yesterday at my local comic shop. In the opening splash page of the issue we see The Torpedo along with Sabra and Jack of Hearts among many other Marvel superheroes. The story line for this issue has to do with an award ceremony for the HULK in honor of his presidential pardon thanks to his Bruce Banner intellect now in control.
I actually really liked this issue outside of the splash page at first I thought it might end up being a bit tongue n' cheek but it wasn't really like that at all. Through out the issue we get guest appearances by a ton of Marvel superheroes many of which from various countries around the world. It was actually pretty heart felt, my favorite moments were with Rick Jones in which Jones laments the absence of the late Captain Marvel.

Some of you may remember the battle Rom had with The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from ROM#31. If so you may also remember that Avalanche was in that issue with his arms all busted up. Well you can find out how that happened to him in this HULK 263 (Bill Mantlo &, Sal Buscema, Al Milgrom) review:
http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/hulk_263.shtml

P.S. Bruce, remember not to look at the quality grading on this issue it'll probably upset you.

Rom bonus pin up to be printed in Mars Attacks TPB

 

I thought you all might like to see this recent Rom fan art by Sal Buscema in color and with the cover art from Rom spaceknight #3 next to it. But aside from that this colorized version was posted along with this message from IDW's Chris Ryall, "The color version of Mars Attacks Rom by Sal Buscema. Colors are by Andrew Elder. This is a bonus pinup running in this week's Mars Attacks IDW trade paperback. So whatever else happens, I published Rom, although now more than ever, it just makes me want to keep pushing to get a new series rolling."

The two big questions here: Does IDW have the balls to go through with printing ROM despite not having the rights to the character and if they go through it will there be any legal fall out?

I'm adding this update to the posting in light of finding out from Chris on Facebook that the Mars Attacks TPB with the Rom bonus pin up indeed has been published and should be at your local comic shop tomorrow for new comic book day. On behalf of all the Rom fans world wide, we salute you and IDW for having the balls to do this. This fan art comes from artist Mark Torres done for Chris as a birthday gift.

The Marvel appearance that sadly never was, Rom in the pages of Machine Man

Talk about a cool crossover that never happened. One a cyborg who was desperate to be human again and the other a machine desperate to become human some how. And as irony would have it both were far more human in terms of nobility and a respect for living things then many people out there. I thought I'd also throw in The Torpedo since Brock Jones and Machine Man's human alter ego both worked at Delmare insurance.

In light of Bruce's comment about Beta Ray Bill and Rom I'll add this Thor 354 clip art from Gary Martin Jr. I've been sitting on into the posting. I guess you can say in a sense there already has been a Rom/Bet Ray Bill crossover. Along with an appearance inside, Bill was even on the cover of Rom#65 if you remember.

New Rom fan art galore! Plus, Bill Mantlo's Paradox

by Manos Lagouvardos

This one comes to us all the way from Greece. Unfortunately these days Greece's economic problems are even a bigger mess then the legal red tape Rom is caught up in.

by Jean Louis Sanglan

Another good piece of Rom fan art done by someone who has excellent figure composition skills when it comes to illustration. Also, I think that may be the the most faithful fan art rendering of Rom's neautrlizer I've ever seen.

 4/12 Update: If you didn't see this before it's because I didn't have this in the posting when I first published it last night. Today by chance I found Bill Mantlo's Paradox in a magazine back issue bin for just $3 so I figured what the Hell I'll check it out.  Hopefully I'll be able to read it in the next day or two and add a brief review of it to this posting so stay tuned if you want to know more about Paradox.

4/13 Update: The setting for Paradox is 200 years in the future in which the entire solar system has been colonized. Earth (referred to as Terra in the story) has genetically engineered a series of new "people" in order to survive as slave labor in the various hostile environments through out the Terran Empire. Paradox is a popular anti-gravity dancer and shape shifting agent of the Interplanetary Security Agency. He is sent from Terra to the moon (which is a large colony now called Luna) in order to investigate the death of the Terran Ambassador to Luna. There he discovers the connection to the ambassador's death to an addictive  hallucinogenic drug called firelite in which the state of euphoria the drug induces becomes more intense as it gets closer to being fatal when it causes the user to spontaneously combust which is called going "ferno".
As Paradox's investigation continues he discovers the connection to the Ambassador's fireflite addiction to a blackmail scheme which was part of planned revolt by Luna's slave population.

It should also be noted that Paradox was apparently a switch hitter as well as a dancer although we only see him being with just women when it came to overt sexual scenes. I liked the premise of the story it was kinda like The America Revolution in space (although in this case Earth was playing the role of England) with some Blade Runner and Total Recall mixed in there. The story read fairly well with themes being touched upon such as drug abuse, racism and human sexuality. I'm going to say that the reason Paradox failed to find an audience is that I don't think readers
of Marvel Magazine Group in 1980 were ready for a leading character that was basically a "James Bond" who was also a ballet dancer that hooked up with guys from time to time. I applaud Mantlo's vision and for what he was trying to say with certain social justice narratives in Paradox but at the end of the day issue #24 of Marvel Preview from Marvel Magazine Group was just a head of it's day. I also don't think it helped win over the predominately male heterosexual readers of Marvel Magazine Group publications to Paradox with what he was wearing through out the issue.

Tigra vs Rom, the power of the pussy

Ok it seems the last bit of fan art I featured didn't go over that great with every one but I'm betting this will appeal to you all more. This is a convention sketch by Chris Rich-McKelvey. I'm not sure what inspired this piece from a conceptual stand point but I love it cause I don't think Tigra is gonna be able to claw her way out of Rom's grasp. Although I think she looks more surprised then scared so my guess is that Rom just saved her ass (I just had to say it) from trouble. Aside from the concept this is just an all around well drawn illustration from everything from the figure composition to nice touches like the partial background.

 
And finally I've found some new Torpedo fan art. This fantastic illustration comes from artist Don Newton. Newton's work here is a little reminiscent of Berni Wrightson's style (early Swamp Thing). How ironic that I should find this fan art of  The Torpedo almost in conjunction with the Tigra fan art above given the nickname we have for cats as described in the posting title.

I also would like to thank Rick Hansen for sending me a publication by some independent publisher that was full of parodies having to do with Marvel 80s superhereos. As warned in a note from Rick that accompanied the issue it was rather bizarre but it did have a couple of things in it worth sharing.   

Just as a disclaimer I kinda like this one for the Robocop reference and Man-Thing grown hallucinogenic mushrooms as opposed to the Marvel politcs in the punchline.

Virtual Marvel superhero figurines and new fan art

These virtual figurines are based off those really nice and detailed 3" metal statues they've been carrying in comic shops for a couple of years now. It seems like this guy's online gallery largely consists of figurines that haven't been produced yet or won't ever be. The Rom figure was obviously made by "contorting" the M.Helder statue in Photoshop. I recognize The Torpedo from a custom figurine I've seen before and I'll wager the same goes for White Tiger and Darkstar. There's at least a few other figurines from characters that were co-created by Bill Mantlo in that virtual figurine gallery along with some 80s characters I bet you forgot about. Check it out let us know what you think: http://virtual-cmfc-a-z-gallery.blogspot.com/


And next up we have the latest bit of Rom fan art that's recently turned up. This one comes from Deviat Art by the artist who goes by the handle of Stalk. Very distinctive style with a dynamic action pose all around good stuff here. Did you know I usually come across 2 - 3 new pieces on a given month?

And the Rom fandom just keeps coming! There's already quite a few Rom custom figures out there but as of a couple of months ago there's now one more: http://www.figurerealm.com/viewcustomfigure.php?FID=46808  For any Rom curators out there I recently found a Dire Wraith and Rom reference in the All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe 5 of 12 (same issue that had Hybrid) entry for Immortus in the power/abilities/stats section. There's a cool Immortus addition in that Virtual Figurine gallery.

Darkstar of the Soviet Super Soldiers. First appearance Incredible HULK #258 (Bill Mantlo/Sal Buscema). I found this nice heromorph of her and I thought it could use some dialogue added to it.

Next up, the power of a spaceknight verse the power of the pussy (it's not quite what you're thinking ;)