Anyways, back in early 2018 my wife and I decided to go visit some family in Detroit but the trip didn't happen until later in the year. In the run up to our trip I learned about the Robocop statue project which was supposed to get it's unveiling just before our trip so I was pretty excited about that. Unfortunately that didn't happen and there would be over 7 years worth of delays. But as of November last year, the the seemingly endless delays finally came to end and Detroit has it's Robocop tribute statue for all to enjoy. I may be due for another visit to Detroit this year.
January 27th Update: I don't know any details as of yet but I just literaly learned a few minutes ago about the passing of the great SAL BUSCEMA! In some ways Sal Buscema is even more responsible for getting me into ROM then even Bill Mantlo given that I was following the stories in comics from the art more then from the writing back in the early 80s. Afterall I wasn't even quite into my teens back then. Sal also co-created the Sabra character which I'm a fan of so I'm grateful for that as well. Rest in peace sir, your work was one of the many things that made the 1980s epic.
Sal Buscema's last issue on ROM was issue 58. After that there was ofcourse a noticable decline in the quality of the art work. But thanks to the embellshments of other artists on Ditko's pencils the art work was still decent from issues 59 thru 63. In a sense it was the last issue in the series I was able to enjoy both from a story and visual stand point. After that it was only Bill Mantlo's story telling that made it possible for me to get through the rest of the series which ran for another 12 issues and 1 final annual.
March 16th Update: I came across this splitscreen art work in a youtube tribute video that was uploaded in recent months. I knew right away it wasn't actual clip art from the series yet it looks like it could be so ofcourse I wanted to know who the artist was. But after passing it along to a freind and fellow ROM fan it was suggested to me that it might be AI which actually makes sense. Well regardless of wherever it actually comes from I love it. It captures that late 70s and 80s Marvel vibe perfectly and in general is just all around damn good. This sort of look and quality art would have been a worthy successor to Sal Buscema in my humble opinion.
June 15th Update: Yeah I know all about this new blind bag M.A.S.K Energon Universe whatever so called ROM issue from Image and Skybox. From the preview clip art I've seen so far this might as well be idw ROM reboot 2.0, hard pass.
August 27th 15th Update: I've been a Transformers fan since the first commercial promo for the original comic book mini-series back in the day. And off and on through out the years I've talked plenty on this blog about the comparisons between Optimus Prime and ROM. So this was some pretty sad news today about Peter Cullin passing away but at 85 I'm glad to know this voice actor legend lived a pretty full life. Tributes have been all over social media today about his large body of work although I wish more of them would mention his epic voice over for the intro on the Voltron cartoon series.
Since it's the 4th of July let me open up this month's posting with some new fan art that features the red, white and blue by Greek artist and my friend Kapandais Nikolause. Actually, it's not exactly new per se, I used photoshop to take two separate fan art pieces from Nikolause and put them together into one scene with Captain America and Sabra together. I think Contest of Champions and Incredible Hulk 279 were the only times where these two characters appeared together in the same comic book story lines.
Now if there's any writer in Marvel that can get the hopes up of ROM fans only to shoot that hope down in flames it's the asshole known as Jonathan Hickman and this is exactly the kinda shit I talked about last month (*see previous posting). This panel featuring Ikon looking like a has been spaceknight suffering from depression in an alien dive bar is from Imperial issue 1 which is a new cosmic series. Now in Hickman's mind he might have actually believed he's paying tribute to the ROM legacy with sorry ass shit like but in reality he's doing it a disservice. It's shit like this along with IDW's ill conceived reboot is what made ROM fans give up on any sort of hopes for a return of The Greatest of The Spaceknights in contemporary story lines and instead pivot thier hopes toward stuff like Omnibus reprints and an articulate action figure which they finally got as of this year. One last thing, I'd like to give a not so honorary mention to writers Abnett & Lanning who gave us The Annihilators which was yet another big let down for the fans base.
This year has seen the loss of some major talents who have contributed to all things ROM over the years in one way or another. Jim Shooter passed away at pretty much the exact half way point of 2025. A controversial figure in some ways, he never the less was a big part of what made the Marvel 80s so epic with the Secret Wars series being just one of the many examples. On one hand, Shooter helped get greenlit Bill Mantlo's idea for the Micronauts and reached out to MEGO so ofcourse that was awesome. And ofocurse he was instrumental to getting the ROM series launched. But at the same time we know they also had a tenuous working relationship as well and unfortunately we'll never get Mantlo's side of the story about all that for obvious reasons.
Earlier this year we also last Peter David and Butch Guice. Guice, who was an overall phenomenal artist (as seen in the pages of the before mentioned Micronuats) also did the cover art for at least three ROM issues (55,58 and 70) that I know of. Peter David never worked on the original series but he certainly made sure to help keep the legacy of ROM going in a big way with the Rick Jones wedding issue of The Incredible HULK. David also included some clever ROM and Dire Wraith references in other HULK issues as well as in Captain Marvel in the 90s.
Rest in peace Kenneth Colley, you served the empire with honor & distinction
Sometimes when I reflect on Bill Mantlo’s legacy it’s not just about what was, but also about what could have been under different circumstances. A big thanks to Greek artist and friend Kapandias Nikolaos for helping make this imaginary cover art possible. Like many of you we sure do wish it had been a published hard copy found on a spinner rack back in the day.
And speaking of spinner racks. I'm sure you've all seen this photo before with this George Lucas looking guy it's been posted all over social media countless times over the years. By chance I recently found this color version on X/twitter.
Back to more collaboration fan art with my before mentioned Greek friend. I dressed up some fan art of his from 2021 to make a ROM Annual 3 cover variant. Now, no disrespect to Bill Sienkiewicz who did the original cover art we all still very much love. It's just that a different interpretation some times can be interesting and enjoyable as well.
If you grew up in the 80s and don't remember the show Airwolf, well I don't know what to say because I sure do remember it. Back when ROM annual 3 came out I noticed something very familiar about the helmets featured for the Wraith Hunter Rangers. I would find it hard to believe that redesign concept was not directly influenced that cool helmet design from the show.
Also, my hypothetical Tales to Astonish publishing those untold Mantlo stories would be penciled by just about any other artist other then Steve Ditko. Sal Buscema ofcourse would have been ideal but Bob Layton would have been a good alternative. The same Bob Layton who did this spectacular SABRA commission late last year.
I also have a message for marvel studios because even though the opening weekend of Captain America Brave New World is not quite over we can already do a post mortem. Well you idiots caved in to the BDShole woke antisemitic mob and how did that work out for ya? But that still didn't keep the hamas supporters from harassing Shira Hass at the premier in LA. Did you people learn nothing from the last election and see how all the double talk from the democrats on the war in gaza was just pissing every one off on both sides!? Like Nick Fury said in Captain Marvel ..."pick a side".
I mean Shira Hass was a questionable person for the role in the first place given that she looks like she's barely old enough to drive but was playing a character who's traded punches with the HULK in the comics. But you people really screwed this all up even worse then expected. And Marvel/Disney has got another money losing disaster over the horizon in the form of the semi live action Snow Woke film. Just as gaza has brought all this misery and destruction on it's self as a result of the October 7th terror attack, you've done much the same with your financial miseries and brand destruction. Well deserved in each case!
Instead of wasting your money on Captain America Brave New Whatever, just watch this instead. It's free, a better use of your time and I heard it has better CGI effects.
February 27th Update: Holy shit I just heard the news about Gene Hackman, his wife and their dog having been found dead in their New Mexico home! I don't even know where to start with this one. My personal favorite Gene Hackman films are Superman I and 2, The Unforgiven, Crimson Tide, The Firm and The Poseidon Adventure. My all three of them rest in peace.
April 1st Update: And here we go again with the loss of another iconic actor for early 2025. My all time favorite Val Kilmer films are Top Secret, HEAT and Tombstone. Top Gun was good in a cheesy 80s action drama kinda way but Mavrick really ended up far exceeding my expectations for a sequel to a movie like Top Gun could be. I'm so glad Val Kilmer was at least healthy enough at the time for that heart warming scene between him and Tom Cruise it was one of those great moments that made Maverick so damn good. In terms of science fiction, Val Kilmer was in the film Red Planet. Not at all a bad film although not as good as other Mars based films like Mission To Mars and The Martian.
Before we get to the Sabra stuff, have a look at this. A mere coincidence? I think not.
So just earlier today I came across something of a wonderful mystery involving Cloak n' Dagger issue 11 (Volume 2) from 1985. What you see here are two unpublished pages (9 and 15) for a story called O Little Town of Bethlehem in which Cloak n' Dagger get caught up in a West Bank weapons smuggling operation. The published story featured a non super powered female semi protagonist named Beth Stein who is on a personal vendetta to avenge the death of her daughter by terrorists.
There's no mention of Israel or of "palestinians" but it's very obvious that Beth is an Israeli and that the terrorists she's pursuing are palestinians. I always thought that was a bit odd when I first read Cloak n' Dagger 11 as a back issue a few years ago especially considering that Marvel had published stories with Middle East politics in the background in the early 80s with out any drama for first appearance issues (Incredible HULK series ofcourse) of Sabra and The Arabian Knight. And now it would appear as if at some point in this issue's production that it was intended to have Sabra (aka Ruth Bat Seraph) as the semi protagonist instead of this Beth Stein character.
I wish I had more answers about what the Hell went on behind the scenes at the time between original writer Bill Mantlo, penciler June Brigman and editor Carl Potts. I dunno maybe it had something to do with it already having been established that the Sabra character's background involved the murder of her son (presumably only offspring) to palestinian terrorists and that this revenge story line about a murdered daughter would then not make much sense for Sabra? I suspect the reasoning was more political in nature but really who knows?
All I can say for now is that I'm grateful for these two pages that were
uncovered even though I have no idea if they're are any more out there
from the unpublished Sabra version of Cloak n' Dagger 11. Interestingly enough in the 90s and early 2000s we would see Sabra make appearances in The Hulk, New Warriors, X-Men and Union Jack that took fairly deep dives into hot topics such as The Holocaust and Israel's conflict with the palestinians. And here we are in 2024 with the ongoing MCU Sabra drama for Captain America Brave New World in this post October 7th world with this shit hamas war still ongoing.
No ceasefire without the speedy return of all hostages still in gaza. Fuck hamas and all their useful idiot supporters!
September 9th Update: All I can say is damn! Not you to James Earl Jones! Another part of my childhood and so much more gone, but never forgotten. Rest in peace.
November 13th Update: Here's one I didn't see coming, at only 69 we lost Tony Todd a few days ago. Todd had a long film and TV career spanning decades but my favorite work from Todd was his countless appearances on Star Trek and when it came to his movie work there was the excellent Night of The Living Dead remake, Platoon and The Rock. I also want to make an honorary mention of yet another recent loss just prior to Todd of another Star Trek DS9 actor, James Darren. Darren played the reoccurring beloved holodeck character Vic Fontaine and you may remember him also from back in the day on T.J. Hooker.
There's a good chance you've seen this already but I feel like opening up this blog post with this awesome Sabra commission piece by Brazilian artist Adrianna Melo. This one is a version I colored in photoshop but you can see the original here
And you may have seen this awesome one to, it's by Greek artist Kapandais Nikolaos. Yep, the same guy who's work I featured in the previous blog posting. The guy's got a knack for great fan art for both Sabra and ROM.
On a fun side note, here I am in The Old City of Israel's capital of Jerusalem (2017) near The Jaffa gate with my copy of Incredible Hulk 256 which was the first full appearance of Sabra.
Speaking of which, issue 256 has been much in the spotlight for many months now but fans of Sabra and supporters of Israel in general should also the final panels of Incredible HULK 255 of some interest to. Kinda funny to actually. The Hulk wants to get away from fighting and have some peace of mind so he ends up stowing away on a ship bound for The Middle East, Oy Vey.
Now I just learned about these Captain America New World Order production photos of Shira Hass as Sabra like only a week ago even though they surfaced online at the tail end of March. But I think I may know why. Unlike September of last year when the Sabra MCU debut was first announced it appears as if the voices of the leftist antisemitic cry babies on social media was pretty muted this time around. I don't know if I should or shouldn't be surprised about that. Nice to see Liv Tyler reprising her role as Betty Ross. She was really good in what was a criminally under rated HULK film. It's too bad Ed Norton didn't continue to play The Hulk he's an all around great actor and I fucken hate that leftist antisemitic piece of shit mark ruffalo.
Not seeing Sabra in anything resembling her classic blue and white costume on the big screen certainly comes as no surprise. That aside, I do still have some reservations about the MCU's live action interpretation of the Sabra character given that the comic book version is older and much larger in stature then actress Shira Hass. But hey ya know what? The positive take away still is that the MCU is on track with getting it's first Israeli character next year. And that's despite all those antisemitic losers out there with their threats of boycotts, online propaganda and even public vandalism. If any of you are reading this I want you to know just how truly pitiful and pathetic you all are. You idiots have a big BDS fail waiting for you in 2024.
Where as the online antisemitism was fairly toned down with the most recent Captain America movie update I'm disappointed to see this "Not my Captain America" sort of sentiment still being pretty pervasive on social media. And this goes especially for those who are still saying that after having seen the Falcon & Winter Soldier Disney plus mini-series. That series did such a great job of analyzing what does Captain America represent as both a symbol and aspirational idea. And ofcourse, how that relates to racial matters both past and present. So I'm gonna call it out for what it is if even now you still just can't handle the idea of Sam Wilson as Captain America. In most cases when it comes to Americans, the hang up has it's roots in racism (subtle as it may be) rather you can admit it to yourself or not. Yes. many of you will scoff at this statement. But it absolutely does in every bit the same way that pathological Israel bashing has it's roots in antisemitism.
I love Marvel Comics of the 1980s, but by today's standards they were a bit socially problematic here and there. It's time for Sam Wilson to ascend to something far beyond what amounts to a supporting side kick type character he's certainly earned it by now. This is an excellent analysis video of the sociopolitical aspects of The Falcon Winter Soldier mini-series it's worth fifteen minutes of your life. Check it out . . .
May 9th update: In more news of pop culture hate mongering, what the Hell is going on with all this online hate these days? Star Wars fans having a difference of opinion about various aspects of the franchise is nothing new. Those differences and the resulting debates have been literally going on for decades. But in recent years it seemed like we could all pretty much unite under the common understanding that The Mandalorian was fucken awesome. Well apparently as of the conclusion of season 3 that's no longer the case. I cannot believe all the idiotic belly aching on social media I've been seeing since the season finale. An epic finale at that. I mean seriously, how was season 3 so different from 1 or 2 in terms of quality!? What a sad state of galactic affairs.
May 15th update: Since the theme of this posting seems to be all about unhappy people (cry babies actually) with the decision makers of their favorite pop culture media entertainment I figured I might as well include this to. This fan letter came from Marvel Age Magazine 34 (1986). But in this case, the anger is entirely justified.
Although this piece has been around for well over 2 years, for reasons unknown this is still largely undiscovered by ROM fans. I'm a bit more partial to ROM fan art that's a bit more creative theme wise, but still I gotta say I've got nothing but love for this one. Not because Valentine's Day is just around corner, but because the figure composition in this piece is so perfect along with how ROM's armor looks with this artist's (Idan Knafo) particular style. And the colors, the colors are almost down right mesmerizing. This is where I found it . . .
This is actually something I threw together in photoshop several years
ago with some borrowed 3D renderings I found online but for some reason
I never posted it. But back then this piece only consisted of Brandy
Clark and Hybrid. Thanks to photos that have turned up on social media
in the past year or so of Alberto Diaz's insanely awesome custom
electronic ROM doll I now can include him in the scene.
For those of you who have never read ROM Annual 3 or maybe it's been a
while I included this clip art in order to give the art work some
context. That last panel still grosses me out to this day
I
just by chance discovered this cool Sabra art work which belonged to a
podcast episode from early December last year. The episode covered part
of the Operation Zero Tolerance story arc in which Sabra was temporarily
teamed up with some members of The X-Men (Ice-Man and Marrow) as well
as with Dr. Cecilia Reyes. Hopefully most of you noticed the Giant Sized
X-Men Annual 1 cover art homage in David Wynne's art piece here.
February 14th Update: A poll closed this afternoon on the BacktotheBronzeAge twitter page. They periodically have these polls and sometimes ROM shows up in one of the categories. If memory serves me right, more often then not his category gets the most votes just like it did today. ROM had an early lead but toward the end The Micronauts started to close the gap but couldn't quite catch up by the time the poll closed.
The sketch card you see below was originally done by artist Erik Roman. I liked it, but at the same time I felt it was missing something and that it had the potential to be turned into a great ROM and Micronauts cross over fan art piece.
A number of photoshop tools and some borrowed elements from some Micronauts fan art of mine (see link) from many years back was all it took to give this sketch card a digital upgrade . . .
These are a couple of a few unpublished pages having to do with stories about Israel's premiere super hero Sabra on the farcebook page of writer Matt Yocum that was posted back in 2013. It turns out they were pages that Yocum pitched to Marvel in order to give more exposer to artist Jake Bilbao in the hopes they would hire him for a Wolverine story Yocum wrote. However, despite the quality of Billbao's work Marvel instead hired Yocum to write a Sabra story. Matt Yocum is a United States Air Force veteran with a history of deep ties to Israel both in a personal and in a professional capacity. The Sabra story that Yocum wrote was a fantastic 8 page Astonishing Tales (digital only unfortunately) feature which was beautifully illustrated by Brazilian artist Adriana Melo.
I had just completed putting this posting together prior to the sad news about Nichelle Nichols having passed away so for this posting I'm going to lead with her. I've been a Star Trek fan for pretty much all my life although my interest in Star Trek came on a bit more gradually and a bit later in my adolescence then in the case of Star Wars. I know that given the age of the original cast members that this sort of news shouldn't come as a huge surprise but it still feels like a punch bellow the waist.
Did you know that after season 1 of the original series that Nichols considered leaving the show despite Gene Roddenberry begging her to stay? Apparently it was Martin Luther King who ultimately convinced her to stay on the show. It can't be understated enough how much of a pioneer Nichelle Nichols has been in the history of America's civil rights movement with everything from the first interacial kiss on TV to her efforts for creating more diversity at NASA. She was 89, so when you think of all she achieved both professionally and personally you have to take into account what was going on in America in her life time as a black woman. A beautiful human being both inside and out, Nichelle Nichols leaves an amazing legacy for not just Star Trek fans but also for great achievements off screen to.
But I felt it had potential to be something more so I colored it and added the other necessary embellishments to give it that Marvel 80s touch.
Here's my latest envelope fan art. This one has an 80s properties or what might be today a "Hasbroverse" kinda theme to it. I think the "Hasbroverse" concept works better as envelope fan art then it does as an actual story line we all remember what a train wreck that was with IDW.
No photoshop nonesense going on here. The Godzilla prop on top of that high rise and the full size Gundamn robot are both quite real. A friend of mine is on an extended stay in Japan right now and he's been sending me some fantastic photos in recent weeks. Some have to do with all things in Japan that are related to the comic book/sci-fi/fantasy genre. Of those, I wanted to share these two in particular because this stuff is awesome and you'll only find in Japan. Those must have been a Hell of a sight to see in person.
Just on a whim today I decided to revisit a fan art piece that I did 11
years ago although it doesn't feel like it was that long ago. I was
always happy with how Ikon came out from a figure composition stand
point but I kinda lost my focus with the other elements in the sketch
piece and as a result it never did look quite right to me plus it also
felt like it was missing something to. you can see the original here romspaceknightart.blogspot.com
IKON
was Marvel's attempt to fill the Greatest of The Spaceknights void. And
at times there was some promising moments as we saw IKON team up with
cosmic powerhouses like Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator, Quasar, Silver Surfer and Ronin. We
even at one point got to see her lead a task force of classic
spaceknights giving us a bit of the old Mantlo magic from the original
series. But that was very short lived and Marvel true to form fucked it
all up with her apparent untimely demise along with Galador. We would
see a couple brief unexplained appearances not long after that and then
that was it. Haven't seen her since 2014 so fuck you very much Marvel
Comics. And don't think I forgot about you also IDW with your shitty ROM and Micronauts reboot fails you fucken suck also.
This piece is a combination of what is mostly black n white art work
borrowed from 4 different artists and arranged together and colored in
photoshop. The Torpedo is by Anderson Mendes, ROM is by Steve Butler,
Starshine is by Kapandais Nikolaos and the Dire Wraith and Skrulls are
by me.
As you can see by the signature this Ron Joseph piece was done 7 years ago and although I've posted Ron's stuff here in the past I never posted this one for reasons I can't explain. Well, I'm gonna correct that little oversight right now.
Here's another one that's been around for years now but I never posted it before for whatever reason. But I think it deserves a second look obviously. The scene here between ROM, Firefall and The X-Men's Dark Phoenix certainly suggests an interesting story going on here. Would have been nice to get artist Scott Reed's take on his inspiration for this piece.
Here's some more stuff from Ron Joseph with some embellishments from me again. In this case I added ROM to this scene of The Soviet Super Soldiers trying to take down The Hulk and added a little bit of depth with some shading effects. Check out the original source material from Joseph at these links...
Here's some unpublished Michael Golden Micronauts art I came across last
year. It would make for a nice coloring project. albeit a bit a labor
intensive and time consuming one.
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