ROM & Wonder Man team up sketch card

So in recent weeks I've been able to make it to a couple of comic shops not too far from me that have a pretty extensive collection of back issue discount boxes. A couple issues really stood out to me let's start with Wonder Man 1 (1986). Aside from the Kerry Gammill pencils and the Bill Seinkiewicz cover art what also made this issue cool was that it showed a very every day people side to the Wonder Man (aka Simon Williams) character we can all relate to. Struggling to manage his not so successful career as an actor with being a full time Avenger he finds even a cab ride is a luxury he can hardly afford. No Uber back in the 80s, too bad.

As I was reading this issue it occurred to me that Wonder Man was one of the many Marvel superheroes who appeared in ROM 65 sporting his signature leisure suite style costume. So all that combined with a nice and relaxing weekend made me feel like doing some art work and I thought it might be nice to do a sketch card for a change.

Avengers 226 letter column

I also picked up Avengers 226. Truth be told I haven't read the issue yet but based on some browsing I've done in it already it doesn't look like it has much going for it story wise. But the issue's letter column is another matter as you can see here. And check out the name of the dude who wrote this letter!

Avengers 221  Left click to enlarge

The giant sized Micronauts ROM cross over annual that never was

A big thanks to Gary for giving me a heads up about this commission piece by Brian Douglas Ahern for what I would assume is for a big time ROM and Micronauts fan. Most long time ROM fans will recognize the guy who's menacing the Micronauts as marvel's first evil spaceknight, Mentus. I like the creative aspect of this as a concept (taken from Micronauts 8) although I do have one little bit of criticism as far as the art work goes. I think the inking on ROM and The Micronauts is a bit too lite they lack depth but this is other wise a solid piece. There's also an interior page to go with this cover concept to help give it a bit more context  . . .
http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1258857&GSub=104286

Sept. 24th Update: Also just in from Gary who found this in the October issue of PREVIEWS comic book catalog magazine. Some of you may remember Christos Gage as the writer of the ill conceived 3 issue Hybrid return story arc from Avengers Academy a few years back. Well at least his heart was in the right place because he is something of a ROM fan. Plus we've seen this sort of thing before among marvel writers who like ROM like Abnett & Landing (The Annihilators) and Johnathan Hickman (Infinity).

Rom spaceknight 32

ROM sales pitch for DirectTV

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Marvel Age Magazine 34 Jan 1986

have you folks seen those NFL Direct TV commercials? I don't give a crap about football but those commercials are pretty funny none the less. I was talking to this dealer who looked like he was in the same age bracket as me about ROM and the last convention I went to a couple weekends ago. He was also telling me about how he hated the ditko art in ROM back when he was a kid but over the years learned to appreciate it or some shit like that. I told him fuck that it sucks now every bit as it did then. But this guy is another example of someone who hated ditko's work when he saw it at face value but later got caught up in ditko's legacy and now all of a sudden has a "new appreciation" for it, whatever. However there was one upside to ditko's work. It made the cancellation of ROM a lot easier to deal with I will say that even though at the time I thought it was being cancelled because readers were walking away from the series because of the shitty art.
I read Onyx#2 just before I went to work today it was pretty good. The story is definitely taking some interesting twists n' turns and you'll be happy to know Gary it does have some more ROM mentions in the back pages if you haven't discovered that already. I tell ya what would be cool if they inserted a ROM Easter egg some where in the story kinda like how they did in the first Predator movie with that one commando (Hawkings) reading a Sgt. Rock comic issue in a couple scenes.

September 13 Update: 
I just felt like adding something  to under score the point of this posting all humor aside. When you do a side by side comparison with an example of typical clip art from the pre-ditko era on ROM the contrast is almost shocking. So to all you "ditko mania" sycophants out there this is your wake up call.

Giant size Marvel Universe heroes and villlians fan art with something for ROM fans

Hey Gary a heads up on this sure would have been nice, I'm just sayin. All I can tell you folks is that this is done by artist Brian Douglass Ahern who is also a well known ROM fan. Not only does he have ROM and The Torpedo in his heroes collection he also made sure to include ROM arch enemy Hybrid and a couple of dire wraiths among the villains.

Can't believe no one else has ever noticed this 1983 easter egg yet

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This past weekend I went to a toy and comics collectibles show in San Jose where I grabbed a certain back issue from a $1 box. Not that it's all that hard to figure out what comic it was but for now I'll just not disclose that information. This is the first of a two page spread I was browsing through in which I was hoping to find Bill Mantlo or Sal Buscema in it. No luck there but on page one I did happen to catch something equally as blog worthy. I dunno if I'm the first ROM fan to ever catch this or if other fans out there never happened to mention it but there it is. Hopefully you've got a nice big monitor to look at this with.