Marvel 80s Assemble

Here's my latest sketch card and as you may have guessed it's based on the events of issue 65 (1985).  But in terms of it's layout it's loosely based on based on the movie poster for Iron Man 3. No particular reason why I just always thought the movie poster was pretty cool even though the movie certainly was not the best of the three Iron Man films by a long shot. Speaking of art, the art in most of today's comics is really outstanding but I never the less feel very uninterested beyond their visual appeal. More style then substance as it were.

Continuing the theme from part of the last posting in terms of the half baked continuity of the original one and only ROM series. I'm back to talking about Avengers Academy after having ripped into Hickman's Imperial in the last posting. Avengers Academy from 2014 saw the return of Hybrid in a 3 issue story arc. Unfortunately, unlike the 1997 X-Man (Nate Grey) Hybrid return one shot story this one was not at all written well and ultimately ended up being a big disappointment. I've got several blog postings and a published letter to the editor from back then expressing my grievances. For the one or two of you over the course of the next decade who might actually be interested in seeing those they're just a key word search away but I'm not going to go into all that now I don't want this posting to be any more too long winded then it already is. But those Avengers Academy issues did have one little bright spot of genuine 80s nostalgia in the form a single panel featuring a flash back of ROM 65. It also acts like a preview of what that issue might have looked like with a different artist then Steve Ditko.

 

One of the other things I miss about the Marvel Comics of the 80s are those corner boxes on the front pages. Although like every one else at the time I liked them, while at the same time they were such a standard fixture on Marvel covers to the point where you almost stopped noticing them on a conscience level. But, like many other things in life you sometimes don't miss something or really begin to appreciate what you had until it's gone. This one here is what a version with Starshine (art by Kapandais Nikolause) might have looked like back in the day.

Fast forward to today, more specifically to the San Diego Comic Con a couple weeks ago. This is the front and back cover art variants for the Comic Con one shot Dread The Hall H which is a satirical anthology of the challenges, mishaps and the sub culture of the world of Comic Con. ROM has made some waves in the past year between the Legends figure, omnibus collection and other reprint publications. Not to mention the actual ROM cosplay that has been at the Comic Con in recent years so it's nice that they were able to get him into the mix on that cover art.

https://fanbasepress.com/press/event-coverage/item/57166-sdcc-2025-syzygys-dread-the-hall-h-takes-comic-con-by-storm-with-its-all-too-relatable-convention-horror-stories/ 

I seldom post things here that are from the horror genre but this mural I spotted a while back is never the less worth sharing. Like most of the other murals I feature on this blog this one is also in the San Francisco Bay Area although I can't recall which city exactly but I'm pretty sure it was in or around oakland. Anyways, I like this it looks like something you'd see as the cover art for some kind of horror magazine or comic.

 

September 17th Update: I just heard the sad news about Terence Stamp having passed away this weekend. Between Stamp and Gene Hackman that's two main actors from the original Superman films we've lost this year. Aside from playing General Zod, don't forget Terence Stamp also was in the movie Red Planet along with Val Kilmer who as you know we also lost this year.

I saw these at a Half Price Book store the other day. Talk about bringing back great 80s memories. Too bad they were in a locked glass case it would have been interesting to see how much the set with the Shogun Warriors was going for as well.

October 30th Update: This morning I was watching a video about the rise and fall of the New Universe project back in the mid to late 80s when this still image of Archie Goodwin appeared with him holding a copy of ROM 5. Would have been interesting to hear what he was saying at that very moment in time.

December 16th Update: We lost Gil Gerard with just about 2 weeks left in 2025. Saw the theatrical movie in theaters back in the day and I loved the TV series as re-runs for so many years. Great memories, rest in peace Buck.

For this 4th of July 2025

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.

THE COMING OF ROM: A Knight's Tale by Jim Shooter June 2011 http://jimshooter.com/2011/06/coming-of-rom-knights-tale.html/

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

 

Neal Adams, the passing of a titan 1941-2022

With William Hurt's reoccurring role as General "Thunderbolt" Ross, this is now the second time this year someone who made their mark on the comic book genre industry has passed away. In honor of Neal Adams legacy in all aspects (as an artist and advocate for artist rights) of the comic book industry I'm posting this mind blowing splash page of Armor 2 from Continuity Comics that Adams penciled. This scene definitely gives new meaning to the splash in splash page. His art work is really timeless. You could take anything he did like on Batman or in The X-Men of the late 70s and it'll hold up to anything in contemporary comic book art. Unlike Ditko, Adams would have made a great replacement for Sal Buscema on the ROM Spaceknight series. On an interesting side note I just learned that Neal Adams was Jewish although as far as I can tell Adams is the family name he was born with.

And speaking of all things ROM, here's the latest envelope fan art for my friend and artistic collaborator in Greece. Turns out aside from our mutual love of science fiction and comics we're also on the same page politically on most things so bonus points to the 4 or 5 people who will see this posting and get the significance of ROM and company attacking the military forces that this tank belongs to. 

It's been quite a while since I've had something to post outside of fan art so today is a pleasant change of pace. This is no doubt one of the most obscure ROM Easter eggs I've ever come across. This panel is from issue 11 of the mid to late 80s comic book series X-Thieves published by COMICS Interview Publications. From what I've seen of it online it's a rather quirky and all around bizarre story line that probably is best enjoyed if the reader doesn't expend too much time and energy trying to make sense of it. I don't think it's any coincidence that right next to the ROM mask is another one of a toaster oven.

 May 7th Update: It's down right creepy how the death of yet another legendary artist from the comic book industry (George Perez ofcourse) should not only happen basically a week after Neal Adams passing but also on this year's Free Comic Book Day. As an artist, pretty much all the words of praise I gave to Adams also applies to Perez. His work was timeless in it's quality and appeal. Rest In Peace George.

June 5th Update: I just got back from a weekend in Sacramento California and I saw this Thanos mural in the downtown area so I was like...."yeah I need to do one more update to this posting". It's a real pleasure to post some little known sci-fi or comic book based public art once in a while. I have no idea who did this all I can tell you is that upon a closer look I could see this was painted on two separate horizontal pieces of plywood like boards.

Finally! An animated series from marvel that doesn't suck. The Black Panther

I'm only 2 episodes into this 6 episode Black Panther series and I'm already convinced that this is the first good animated series from Marvel Comics in over 20 years! What makes it so good exactly? I'm glad you asked. First of all, it's well written. And not just because it's boarder line R rated with shit like booby traps that impale people and villains seeing prostitutes. It's funny with out being campy, touches on social issues like religion and race in a very fearless way and is heavily steeped in history and international politics in something of a James Bond kinda fashion. It takes everything that was good about The Black Panther movie and expands on it but at the same time it feels a little more like the Black Panther you grew up with in the Marvel Comics universe. I usually expect this type of sophistication in animated features from DC so it was nice to see it in Marvel for a change.

Did I mention all the appearances by other characters in the Marvel Universe? Even within the first few episodes you'll see over a half dozen of those. Here's Captain America while on a covert mission in Wakanda having something of a misunderstanding with Black Panther during WW II.

So far, I really can't say enough good things about this animated series and it's got me even more stoked for Avengers Infinity War later this month. Who doesn't love Storm right? And you'll get to see several other X-Men to.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to get back with my Black Panther binge watching today on Youtube. I'm trying to get through the rest of the episodes (just 3 more to go) before I have to go to bed it's Monday tomorrow and we all know what that means.

So here we are a few hours later and I managed to finish watching all 6 episodes and even our sweet little 12 year old corgi beagle mix (Chevy) enjoyed it. So much so that we managed to get her to hold still just long enough to get this adorable photo. So in closing folks this was some really good stuff and little did I know this series goes back to 2011.



Episodes 1 - 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry8e5ldzLDQ&t=667s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGTw6pfKayg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWr5oIRueTQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF2OWH7vghQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2Q721QWX2w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBm2-TPxIuY&t=2s

Also yesterday, I saw this on the news and it had me cracking up so I recorded it with my iphone and posted it on youtube.

Captain America vs nazi scum david duke

It seems appropriate to open this posting with this bad ass Sabra splash page (Patrick Zircher) from New Warriors 59 that I've been looking for an excuse to post for a few months now.

I gotta say I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I only recently learned about a twitter feud between Chris Evans and the piece of shit Jew hating trump supporting kkk nazi asshole david duke going all the way back to February of this year. Talk about missed by the mainstream media! I'm not gonna bother to post the actual tweets here because they're easy enough to find through a Google search but suffice it to say the feud started over duke expressing his disapproval of the sort of women Chris Evans has been known to date. Being the classy guy that he is, Evans responded to duke's white supremacy fueled ramblings with some heart felt and thoughtful rebukes as opposed to the more straight up ad hominem attacks I would have unloaded on duke.
Now that being said, I certainly hope the obvious irony here isn't lost on any of you. Captain America, who is a virtuous symbol of American idealism is a character that was created by a couple of Jewish guys. And as you all know he's been fighting his entire super hero career against every incarnation of nazi ideology from the 3rd Reich during WW II to Hydra and The Red Skull. So now you've got Chris Evans, who as a person seems to be almost as virtuous as the character of Captain America he plays. Who also happens to have had a series of heated twitter exchanges with a real life nazi based on their ideological differences. Chris Evans may only be a regular guy in the real world but he's no less of a hero then the Avenger he plays so very well.

Left click to enlarge

So let's close out this posting with another match up that's a little less ideologically charged. Hopefully most of you remember the classic ROM vs The Herculoids 4 page sketch story arc from Ron Joseph a couple years ago. Some other artist on deviant art did a fantastic job of coloring the last page. Hopefully we'll get to see the other pages in color in the not so distant future.

The original uncolored Ron Joseph pages....
https://www.deviantart.com/art/ROM-vs-THE-HERCULOIDS-inks-pg01-545293978
https://www.deviantart.com/art/ROM-vs-THE-HERCULOIDS-inks-pg02-547745355
https://www.deviantart.com/art/ROM-vs-THE-HERCULOIDS-pencils-pg03-544320568
https://www.deviantart.com/art/ROM-vs-THE-HERCULOIDS-pencils-pg04-05-544320573

Customizing your comic collection box lid

For many many years my dad used to work in data processing going all the way back to the tail end of the 70s. He used to bring home "computer paper" boxes like the one you see here for storage purposes and one day some where in the mid 80s I think I started using them for my growing comic collection at the time. At one point I had about 7 of these boxes filled with comics but I've down sized over the years to now only 3. In the past I've decorated my comic boxes with pasted on clip art from beat up issues that were worthless but had cool and corresponding art with whatever collection I had in that box.
So right now I have a ROM spaceknight box, a Suicide Squad box and one other newly acquired box re-purposed (I like that word) for my miscellaneous issues that didn't contain any art work on it. But it does now, although not with published clip art. Instead I wanted to personalize it a bit more by using color copies of my own fan art featuring ROM with other Marvel characters. Maybe some day I'll get around to also covering the sides of the lid and perhaps the whole box to but this will do for now.

A couple weekends ago I picked up this People magazine special on Carrie Fisher. It was really interesting especially in regards to a lot of crazy shit going on behind the scenes during the shooting of the original STAR WARS trilogy including and affair with Harrison Ford and even Fisher doing coke in between shoots. I also really liked some of the vintage photos of Fisher and felt like posting them for other fans who might not know about this issue of People.

A Doctor Strange movie review quickie and more cool stuff

Although we could all tell pretty easily from the initial movie promos that Benedict Cumberbatch was gonna make a great Stephen Strange I never the less felt that the movie trailers didn't really give you a sense if this movie was gonna be any good or not. My biggest fear was that this was gonna be one of those comic book based movies in which they handle the main character fairly well but wrap him up in a forgettable story filled with dull secondary characters a tedious special effects dog n' pony show. I'm really happy to say that was hardly the case and that this film is yet another fine edition to the Marvel cinematic universe. I don't want to turn this into a long winded review but suffice it to say this movie has most everything you'd expect from a well done comic book adaptation film. It's faithful to the source material and yet a bit different where it needs to be. Good character development, a well paced story, Easter eggs and good humor mixed in with serious drama. There were a lot of great moments but perhaps one of my favorites was what felt to me like a tribute scene to The Empire Strikes Back with Luke on Hoth. The script does a fairly good job of explaining things so you don't get too lost given the very supernatural nature theme of the film. And perhaps best of all we most certainly will see Stephen Strange team up with The Avengers some where down the road the movie makes that pretty clear. If you wanna know more just go see it. Just on a side note I wanted to mention that I knew a guy in high school named Chris Strange. Yep that was his actual last name.

Not to be confused with the Doctor Strange character, Strange magazine was a french publication which basically reprinted Marvel comics for french speaking readers ofcourse. In the case of this cover art they used elements from a splash page on page 4 and 8 of Rom spaceknight 41.

Left click to enlarge

As supposedly the more highly evolved members of the primate family we humans tend to be drawn to shinny things so in a way I guess that's kinda how I found this on the internet this morning. This is pretty bad ass but unfortunately not much in the way of information like who the artist is and what not was available. Perhaps somebody out there who knows a bit more about this can help us out with that in the comments section?

Left click to enlarge

November 11 update: My buddy Dale did a similar clip art Donald Trump meme in which he made Trump into a skrull so I told him I'd do the same and make him a dire wraith. All post election drama aside you gotta admit this is pretty funny.

ROM zero issue FCBD and Avengers Civil War

Left click to enlarge

What a thoroughly underwhelming introduction this zero issue was for this supposed revival of the greatest of the spaceknights. All those months of hype, controversy and even anticipation and this is the result. There's really not much point in summarizing the 13 page story it's pretty much what you'd expect. ROM makes planet fall, encounters some local cops and the military . . turns out the military are dire wraiths . . .fight ensues . . human cops get a reality check. Not much more to it then that and the couple little nuanced stuff in it is really not worth talking about.
Well, like Micronauts #1 the ROM zero issue is DOA. I still hate the way his armor looks they should have left the design concept alone after releasing the zero issue cover art. Hate this neutralizer it looks like something you'd see in an infomercial. But not the good kind like slapchop more like a shakeweighty kind. The new analyzer concept consists of these ruby red eye looking things on his wrist, that's also stupid the people at IDW are trying waaaaay too hard to make this new ROM concept uniquely IDW. The art work isn't ditko bad but it's pretty unimpressive as well it feels very flat and in some panels really looks much like some of the mediocre fan art we've seen over the years.

Now for those of you who are about to reply with a "well it's just the zero issue give it a chance you can't judge it yet oh and somebody come change my diaper . . " and so on. I challenge you all to grab your copy of ROM #1 (Sal and Bill ofcourse) and give it another look. That was done in 1979 and it kicked ass in every way from ROM making planet fall to when he blasts for the first time a pair of dire wraiths. And this is what IDW came up with after all these years here in 2016. It's hard to believe this is what some old school ROM fans came up with given all the resources at their disposal as a major comic book publisher.

There's a full page add in the back of the issue for ROM#1. It has the the following tag line in it "The beloved galactic warrior is reborn for a new generation!". They're very much right about that, because from what I've seen so far this stuff IDW has come up with is not for my generation and further more Micronauts#1 and ROM zero has served to remind me why new comics are just not for me any more. I'm not gonna twist any body's arm here but I'll be writing a short and not so sweet letter to IDW and if you feel the same I would recommend you take a few minutes to do so as well. Because if you find yourself around 6 months from now seriously missing having a good ROM series to read you only have yourself to blame ROMcomics@idwpublishing.com

Moving on to the better half of my day, Avengers Civil War. I liked the first Avengers film and Age of Ultron seemed to get better and better the more times I watched it. But I gotta say, it was a nice change of pace to not see The Avengers fighting another CG army of aliens or robots. This was a really well done film especially the way it handled all the character development. At no point in the movie do you ever question the motivations behind everybody's actions. This was not just due to good screen writing but also due to the exceptional effort by all the actors involved. There's a lot going on in the movie just by virtue of the massive cast ensemble but it's all handled in a cohesive story line that flows well.
They also did a good job with just the right amount of screen time for the new characters into the Avengers cinematic universe such as Spiderman and Black Panther. Again, we understand why they are on Iron Man's side and we see and understand it in a way that doesn't feel rushed or added into the script at the last minute. Ofcourse we're treated to a lot of great action, drama and shocking revelations that further fray some of the relationships. It also appears that Avengers Civil War is in part a set up for the future Black Panther movie which I'm more excited about now thanks to the Black Panther character having been handled so well in this movie. An all around good film off hand I have nothing to nit pick at I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

Avengers Civil War fan art by Nikoskap

So a big thanks to the Marvel cinematic universe for giving us yet another epic film to enjoy for years to come. However when it comes to the more mainstream Marvel print universe I say yet again fuck you marvel. I present to you this lame ass response from Marvel to a fan of the original ROM spaceknight series. We know all about those "all new all different spaceknights in the pages of guardians of the galaxy" by now don't we? This comes to us from the letter column of Venom spacewhatever 006. So thanks Gary yet again for taking another one ($) for the team.

Some undiscovered clip art from Universe X

Just can't seem to stay away from this blogging shit for long for one reason or another. This morning I was browsing on the internet as I frequently do for anything interesting or other wise cool that's ROM related both new and old. That's how I found this clip art of Captain America with ROM's neutralizer. Now I happen to have Universe X #3 and based on some other clip art on the internet from the series as well as clip art that was sent to me by Gary Martin Jr. (who I haven't heard from in over a fu&%$@ month now) some years ago I know that Captain America was featured in action with ROM's neutralizer in later issues. But this is the first time I've seen this clip art I actually couldn't get to the page it was on which belonged to some marvel comics site that you had to login to. But fortunately the Google preview image was pretty big so here we are.
For Valentine's Day my wife got me this really nice set of Supracolor Soft coloring pencils. They're so smooth the way they lay down color on paper even though I'm not feeling especially creative these days I should give them a proper "test drive". So maybe within the next couple weeks I might be able to update this posting with some new fan art.

Feb. 25th Update:
Indeed you are correct Joseph (see today's comments) the clip art above as well more clip art of alternate reality Captain America blasting away with ROM's neutralizer is located in Universe X #4. But there's more, issues 10 and 11 and even a 0 and "X" issue will also give us more dire wraiths along with a ROM flash back cameo to issue #3. Plus we also find out in a editorial mention that the Universe X Galador was consumed by Galactus as opposed to ROM having tricked Galactus into trying to consume Wraith World instead as we know it. So for all of you clamoring to get a copy of Universe X #3 it looks like you'll need to dig a little deeper into your pockets get at least 4 more issues to have the full story on the ROM and dire wraith related tidbits of Universe X. A little curating birdie gave me the low down earlier this morning but more on that later. By the way I'm still intent on giving my new coloring pencil set a try with some new fan art very soon.

Feb. 28th Update: And here it is, the finished product.This isn't one of those fan art pieces I didn't thoroughly think through while doing the sketch. It just started with ROM and then I just kept adding characters with the right color scheme to their costumes I wanted to try out my new coloring pencil set on. Obviously I already had Captain America on my mind and who doesn't like Wolverine? Although with Sabra I added her because I'd been hoping to see some new fan art of her turn up some where for a while now but some times if you want to see something get done you just gotta do it yourself.

Walnut Creek California

Ya know with all this Captain America and Sabra talk I just feel like adding this photo of a billboard that just showed up here in the San Francisco Bay Area last week.

Left click to enlarge

March 3rd Update: And getting back to more ROM spaceknight and Sabra themed fan art check out this Official Marvel Universe Handbook #9 front and back cover spread redux I just happened to come across tonight. You can see the full view here . . .
http://superadaptoid.deviantart.com/art/Marvel-Universe-Old-School-118212599

P.S. As far as all this new stuff I've updated this posting with in the past week don't everybody speak up all at once now.