New fan art, new curating and a look inside the ROM zero issue

 

Last weekend was one of those weekends where I got to chill the whole time and as a result was able to get some cool stuff done in the way of fan art and curating. Although I hate most of what marvel has come up with in recent years I always felt like the Ikon character had promise even though she was no ROM. In fact, the last time I had any hope for marvel to finally do a modicum of justice to the legacy of the greatest of the spaceknights was when we were treated to a panel in the pages of The Avengers of Ikon leading a squad of classic spaceknights to face some mysterious enemy looming over Galador. Anyways, even today I still think ROM returning and having Ikon at his side would have been pretty cool.

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Picked up this book at the library last weekend. I've seen it before but last weekend I decided to to give it a closer look to see if we might find ROM anywhere in the Marvel Comics The Untold Story. Needles to say I found the following passage rather interesting although it's hard to say how credible that claim is but I certainly hope it's true. There are two other passing references made to ROM later in the book in regards to Nova losing his powers and Secret Wars II tie-ins.

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As you can see I even did some other fan art of a satirical nature this past weekend.

ROM 2016

Alright so let's get to what you folks really want to talk about here today because everything on this posting was pretty much done by the end of this weekend. First off a big thanks to Lee Seitz for bringing this to my attention yesterday. If you haven't checked out the first few pages of the ROM zero issue for FCBD then do so now at the link below before you read on. I like how ROM makes planet fall at Pismo Beach California I was just there as part of a road trip with my wife on New Years weekend. So on another high note the art work looks great it's nothing at all like steve ditko thank god. Although I would have to say I found ROM's new design a bit jarring.
Now I don't say that because I think his new armor design sucks per se, but more because the cover art certainly didn't leave me with the impression ROM's new armor design would deviate that much from the original as seen in this clip art. It's kinda odd that a company would spend 10 years fighting through legal red tape to obtain the rights to a character and then make such drastic changes to their appearance. In fact, ROM some what resembles the watch wraith androids he used to fight in the original series. Just not sure it's the right look for him or maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it? I guess only time will tell. This has been a pretty labor intensive posting with all this art work, curating, writing and what not so this will most likely be my last one for quite a while. But I'm looking to hear from you people I want to know what's on your teeny tiny little minds about all this stuff I'm throwing at you in this posting . . . don't let me down . . .
http://www.previewsworld.com/catalogimages/STK_IMAGES_PDF/STK680001-700000/STK698017.pdf

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And a big thanks to our first commentator today for bringing some of the Micronauts cover art from IDW to my attention. This is pretty damn nice! Assuming the cover art we see here is an accurate reflection of what these characters will look like on the inside well then I gotta be honest I'm feeling a bit more optimistic here then I am about ROM. Baron Karza looks exactly the same as he did in Marvel and they gave Acroyear an updated look that's really slick but it's still in keeping with how he also looked in Marvel and also a bit like the original Mego toy.

Art by marvel and WTF Publishing

Jan. 25 Update: Two things occurred to me over the weekend. One is, that it seems like people are really squeamish about being forth coming about our first real look at ROM 2016. The second is how IDW's ROM looks more like the horrific manga inspired "spaceknights" of the 2001 mini-series then the Mantlo/Buscema series. I've always prided this blog on posting the sort of content you won't find anywhere else so here goes. I know most of you all are thinking this but I'm gonna just say it straight up, this new look for ROM sucks. After all the hype, fan support, lifting of the red tape and anticipation this is what we end up with? Well, I guess if it could happen with George Lucas then why not with Chris Ryall and Christos Gage as well?

IDW stepping up for ROM fans in Onyx 4

Well how about that almost right on the heels of my latest "fuck marvel" posting we see IDW stepping up for ROM fans in the final installment of the Onyx mini-series. First off, the letters pages doesn't just mention ROM several times but their mostly devoted to ROM related chatter not to mention the ROM fan art that's featured (not mine this time just for the record).

And as soon as you turn the page BOOM! We get to see the first time published full page house ad of the ROM zero issue for Free Comic Book Day. This is just a quickie posting I haven't even had a chance to read the issue in full with my impending start time at work today looming over my shoulder. But I most certainly will get a chance to read it after I get off work tonight and will also probably have more to say here. In the mean time I again say loudly and proudly FUCK MARVEL and bravo to IDW (so far).

.... Ok I'm back and for those of you who don't have a copy of Onyx #4 here's what the letters page consists of. It's actually just one letter by artist and fellow Rom fan Dann Phillips along with his Onyx fan art. But that only makes up the first half or so of the first page the rest is a lengthy reply from Chris Ryall in which we learn it took around 10 freaking years for him to secure the rights to ROM from Hasbro. In fact at one point not too long before Onyx #1 was published he had all but given up on any hope it would ever happen.
It certainly begs the question what the fuck was the problem here!? Could Hasbro like not find all the legal paper work and  product files for ROM that they inherited from their Parker Brothers buy out? Then you gotta wonder if marvel maybe tried at one point and got the run around from Hasbro to the point where they eventually just said fuck this. Did IDW have to jump through as many hoops when acquiring the rights to The Transformers or G.I.Joe? Sure would be nice to get some clarity on all that but I'm not gonna hold my breath for that to happen any time soon if ever.

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Jan.14th Update: Meanwhile over at marvel it's more meaningless "spaceknight shinanigans" as Gary Martin Jr. puts it. This comes to us in the pages of Uncanny Avengers 4 apparently that's Hank Pym in what appears to be some sort of T-1000 liquid metal armor. I don't know who these guys in the train engineer caps are but did they mean the Galador that was obliterated a couple years ago in Infinity #1 with all it's space knights on it? Well hey if we can have Ikon make more appearances since having been seen on a planet that was blown to bits with out any sort of explanation so why not throw these guys in the mix with some brilliantly written continuity faithful dialogue.

Can't think of a good posting title for this bullshit

Left click to enlarge . . . fuck marvel

Well I'm a spaceknight . . he's a spaceknight . . she's a spaceknight . . they're spaceknights  . . wouldn't you like to be a spaceknight to? Yeah it seems like every fucken space cadet in Marvel from Venom to a bunch of nobodies in the pages of some Guardians of the Galaxy spin off are now "spaceknights". Please do not try to brain storm this! These are not Galadorian spaceknights nor do they have anything to do with Galadorian spaceknights any more then Venom does. It's just that simple!
This is nothing more then the latest installment of the sullying process of ROM's legacy that marvel has been engaged in for the past 15 fucken years. A process I have blogged about extensively over the years with everything from that horrible spaceknights mini-series (2001) to The Annihilators (2011) and those those poorly handled Hybrid returns in recent years not to mention Galador's destruction and there's so much more as many of you followers of this blog know. As for you detractors of the IDW ROM reboot you need to understand that the ROM you knew is never coming back.
You think even if marvel obtained the rights to ROM again (which will never happen) they would reintroduce him exactly as you remember him with mittens and all? Think about what's been going on in the Marvel Universe in general as well as how marvel has so thoroughly fucked up everything they own that's ROM related and tell me you can just make The Greatest of The Spaceknights show up in the middle of all that shit just as you remembered him in the 80s? Folks, the 80s are over and same goes for the 90s which was a decade that was still giving us some good ROM related continuity in the pages of The Incredible Hulk, New Warriors and X-Man (Nate Grey).
By all means continue to enjoy those ROM back issues, tie-ins, Easter eggs, foot notes and of course the other random old school stuff I try to bring you here. But if there was ever a time to hit the reboot button I'd say it was now. I would certainly understand the cautious optimism most of you have about IDW's upcoming series I can't blame you all on that one but at the same time try to keep an open mind. Think of it in terms of Star Wars The Force Awakens. It may not be quite like reliving the thrill of seeing the original trilogy but it probably at least gave you a taste of it and was a Hell of a lot better then those shitty prequels. For ROM fans, marvel has been giving us nothing but Star Wars prequels (barring The 2010 Winter Gaurd mini-series) in the past 15 years but I think IDW's efforts will be something closer to The Force Awakens. But if not, I'll have a thing or two to say about that and it probably won't be G rated.

Speaking of bullshit related to all things "spaceknights" and Guardians of The Galaxy check out this video that will make you cringe at how uninformed the speaker in it is when he tries to talk about ROM it's really fucken annoying . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBE346xaocQ

On the flip side this is kind of a cool recent article about comics based on 80s licensed properties  (Rom, Crystar, Shogun Warriors, Micronauts, G.I.Joe, Transformers and He-Man) http://www.denofgeek.us/books-comics/action-figures/251402/the-7-greatest-comic-series-based-on-toy-lines

2016 Let the 80s revival continue

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2015 certainly has ended on an interesting and in some cases a hopeful note. If you do a key word search for "Rom spaceknight Hasbro" on Google you will get close to a dozen articles all saying the same thing about future movie prospects for these properties: Micronauts, ROM, G.I.Joe, Transformers, M.A.S.K, Visionaries as well as rumors of a shared universe in IDW comics. Same goes for doing the same key word search on youtube. As I said in the previous posting It's just too early to get worked up over any of that especially the movie talk. By the way, did  you all know that a live action JEM and The Holograms movie (who was the genius that came up with that idea?)  came out earlier this year? I'm sure most of you know JEM was an 80s cartoon that IDW picked up and made into a comic series. Anyways, as I understand it that movie is still trying to recoup it's 5 million dollar budget.
The Micronauts art work seen above turns up a lot in reference to those articles and videos and I'd love to know who did it and why. Is it some promotional stuff from Hasbro or IDW or just some really cool fan art? I'm inclined to think the later since it contains Marionette and Bug which are marvel properties. I think I'd prefer space glider in his more traditional head gear but this is otherwise a way cool updated interpretation of The Micronauts and done by one Hell of an artist obviously. All this has me wondering if IDW will have anything for The Micronauts on Free Comic Book Day this year like they will for ROM. I sure hope so.

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January 7th Update: Here's a little something from Rom curator extraordinaire Gary Martin Jr. found in the pages of Tony Isabella's 1000 Comic Books You Must Read. This Isabella guy has good taste to get a better idea what else is in his book go here: https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=19662600

And there's more from Gary brought to you from the pages of Mediascene magazine issue 37 (May-June 1979). Well as we know the joint marketing efforts for the toy by Marvel and Parker Brothers were in vain but for the comic series it's self was certainly another matter. A black n white image of ROM #1 went along with this blurb just so you know but how many times do I need to post that cover right it's not like we've never seen it before right?