Captain America 4 and The Fantastic Four . . . you need to do better Marvel!

Over the years I've seen quite a bit of foreign cover art for reprinted ROM issues and stories. Mostly they were made up of lifted images of both clip art and cover art from the Marvel series. In other cases it was more like mediocre fan art style reproduction from the original series. But in a handful of cases they were actual original art work created for those foreign reprints. This one here, which is based on the cover art from ROM issue 20 is my favorite original art foreign cover although there's also one from Strange Magazine (French) that features ROM and The Sub-Mariner that I think is a close second . . .

https://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2014/04/of-spartans-spaceknights.html

  It's been a while since I've posted any public art based on comic book/science fiction pop culture. I recently discovered this pretty cool mural in downtown Oakland Califonia. Kinda surprised to find this rather patriotic Steve Rogers Captain America in such a "progressive" town like Oakland which might as well be renamed to Wokeland these days. Speaking of all things Captain America, we all know that Captain America 4 is debuting in theaters in just a couple weeks from now and it's pretty much a guaranteed box office bomb. 

  Rumor has it that the would be SABRA appearance has been stripped of her Israeli identity. Needless to say that pisses me off but it comes as no surprie that Woke Disney/Marvel Studios would cave into BDS post october 7, 2023. But it's also the least of this movie's productions problems with all the reshoots, multiple failed screen tests and the latest comments from actor Anthony Mackie. I'm really feeling like that whole MCU story arc with Steve giving Sam the shield should have just been wrapped up with the Falcon Winter Soldier mini series. It wasn't with out it's problems but overall I really enjoyed it to be honest. I'll pass on this one I can wait till it shows up on streaming.

 

As I was reading this online article from late last year about this series of variants based off the classic Marvel Two-IN-One series I realized that issue 99 was the second to the last issue of the series. So glad they decided to get ROM into the mix before it's end it was one of my favorite Marvel team ups ever.
 https://comicbook.com/comics/news/marvel-the-fantastic-four-the-thing-two-in-one-variant-cover-series/

 

Around Hanukkha last year I thought it might be fun to rework the recent ROM and THING fan art from Ron Frenz by substituting ROM for Sabra by artist Darryl Banks. I think the Banks Sabra blended pretty seamlessly into a Marvel Two-In-One issue that would have been awesome. Speaking of all related things Ben Grimm, I'm not seeing that not so Fantastic Four shit either in theaters. Sorry but not sorry Pedro, you're not Reed Richards. Because despite his work on The Mandalorian I can't stand him as a person. And on top of that, Norrin Radd is now going to be Nora Radd as I understand it. No thank you to all that!

 

Chadwick Boseman, you left us too soon wise king. May your after life rewards be great.

The Black Panther is dead at 43? I just don't even know what to say about this bomb shell of a news story today. Right now it doesn't even quite feel real. I want to wake up tomorrow and have this God awful news story be nothing but a bad dream. In recent years I've almost grown accustomed to celebrities from my child hood passing away but this is really different. Just because of his age alone, in a way this feels like more of an emotional gut punch then when Stan Lee passed away. This kinda feels like the real life version of the iconic and classic 80s Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel. Just so sad, I really fucken hate 2020. Boseman was diagnosed with colon cancer 4 years ago which means he was still working as an actor while fighting this shit disease. Truly a real hero both on and off screen.

I think we can all relate a bit more to these panels especially from The Death of Captain Marvel (Jim Starlin).

 Chadwick Boseman with vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris who I'm prying will be our next vice president. In a bit of irony here, The Black Panther movie opens up and ends in Oakland California which is where Harris is from. So tragic also that he didn't at least live long enough to vote in November.

One of the best SNL episodes in years!
 

ROM spaceknight issue 32 spotted in the making of Black Panther feature

So this past Memorial Day weekend I was watching a special behind the scenes making of Black Panther. Unfortunately this smart phone snap shot of the tv screen was the best I could do with capturing the moment where a copy of ROM 32 is briefly spotted as Black Panther director Ryan Coogler is reminiscing about his experience growing up in Oakland and seeking out comics that featured black super heroes. Ya know it was kinda cool to see a contemporary TV program that had a ROM issue in it even though it's appearance was purely coincidental.

In other news of this past weekend I saw Solo a Star Wars Story in Alameda which is a city that sits on an island right next to Oakland. I didn't think too much of the movie but the theater it's self is always fun to go to for a number of reasons including the cool promotional props they usually have there.

May 31st Update: Apparently these new spaceknights Heroclix figurines are the latest buzz among ROM fans. For some reason they looked really fake to me at the website they were first found on it's as if they were just some sort of fan produced digital art or something. So for the sake of verification I went to ebay and sure enough I found them so it appears they are quite real.

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Ya know I gotta ask. Do people ever buy these type of gaming figurines or ships/vehicle sets like from Star Wars and Star Trek (I have a couple) to actually play the games or to just have the pieces to play with or for display purposes? I don't know one person who actually plays these games in fact.

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June 4th Update: Saw this Thanos issue at a comic shop yesterday in Oakland and I knew right away what 80s classic cover art it was paying homage to.

Always bet on black...Black Panther that is

   I'm going to give away one, just one spoiler because in some ways this was the coolest part of the film for me. The Black Panther opens up in Oakland California which is right here in The East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. Oh I can just imagine how audiences in theaters in Oakland must have reacted to that. And on a related side note the director of Black Panther (Ryan Coogler) was born in Oakland.
   So now that I got that out of the way how was the film? It wasn't great like Civil War but overall it was pretty good. We're treated to a lot of that Marvel cinematic universe humor we've become accustomed to along with the continued development of Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther which Civil War did such a great job of getting started. Also, a lot of good supporting characters that you actually get into fairly early on in the film. I liked how Black Panther featured so many strong black female characters with out it ever feeling like they were some kind of mandatory tokenism.

   Now all that being said it was kinda hard to see Michael B. Jordan (Killmonger) as a bad guy. I've had my eye on that actor for years now and he was superb in movies like Chronicle, Creed and Fruitvale Station. I'm so used to him playing a hero or some sort of sympathetic character as opposed to being a real dick of a villain but he certainly demonstrated his acting range here. Now make sure you keep your butt in your seat for the end credit scene even though it's a bit of a slog having to wait through the entire credits scroll. The end scene has the most significant Avengers tie-in moment and quite frankly the movie would have been incomplete with out it.
  Pretty sure trump isn't going to be in any rush to see this movie. Too many black folks in it, not to mention all those empowered female characters. But if he did manage to see it in between his FOX News binge watching schedule he would probably end up tweeting that Wakanda was just another shit hole country.

As I've said before, the vast majority of new ROM related fan art that turns up every month is amateurish looking crap as far as I'm concerned (especially when it comes to twitter) but once in a while something worth posting here comes along. Found this at some obscure site I'm not familiar with and unfortunately I couldn't find the artist so that I could accredit it accordingly. The biggest strengths of this piece are the way the dire wraiths are drawn and the over all colors they really pop. He or she did a fair job on ROM himself but making the neutrilizer bigger would have helped.

The Defenders 62 left click to enlarge

Here's a little random something from the tail end of the 70s which was basically the lead into the awesome 80s. This panel I believe is the only real moment of action with The Torpedo during the some what silly Defender For A Day story line.

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When I saw this I just had to post this here also this is pure political satire genius. Hopefully, you're someone who's watched The Rocky & Bullwinkle show and know the always conspiring russian characters Boris and Natashia. The Rocky & Bullwinkle show wasn't a Saturday morning cartoon like Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends or one of the ones that came on in the afternoon like The Transformers, G.I.Joe, Thundercats, Voltron, Robotech for example. I remember it being on early in the morning before school. If only the writers of The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show could see what was going on today with the russians.

And finally here we are with more of my photoshop trickery. I did this years ago but just posted it here for the Hell of it.

Just a couple of days I was at one of those dollar stores looking for some cheap snacks when I saw this little E.T. Lego set. The E.T. figurine in particular just gave me this on the spot rush of nostalgia. I loved this movie like so many other kids back then. And ya know what? I caught part of the movie on some channel a few months ago and I gotta say it doesn't hold up too bad even these days. I had a number of E.T. memorabilia items back in the day including a garbage can this is the only photo I have of it. Ofcourse you also see my old X-Wing ship and on the wall a mini Star Wars poster featuring The Millennium Falcon and some tie-fighters I wish I could remember where I got that from.

The ROM legacy Heroclix collection

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I've loved dioramas ever since I was a kid, and this one comes to us by Gary Martin Jr.who did a fine job on it. The top left silver figurine is Ikon with some gold color variants that are supposed to be some kind of standard spaceknight soldiers in the Heroclix universe. Along the bottom to the left we have Forge from The X-Men which I'm sure most of you ROM fans remember as having had a pivotal role as an ally to ROM in the final days of the Wraith War both in the pages of The X-Men as well as in ROM spaceknight. Moving to the right we've also got Turbo from The New Warriors although for nostalgia's sake I wish they had made that figure outfitted with the original Torpedo costume as opposed to the updated version as seen in the 2nd New Warriors series.
Moving on to the right we've got the bad guys starting with a standard female dire wraith along with the dire wraith queen Volx. Notice how Volx is made of the exact same mold but done in green. Last up in the top right corner we've got the worst of the worst when it comes to ROM's enemies. Arguably the best sculpt of the bunch that there is Hybrid. Spawned of a dire wraith father and human mother Hybrid was a mutant of sorts possessed of vast powers both mental and physical.

It also so happens that this past weekend I was at the latest San Jose Super Toy comic and collectibles show. I really like this con I've been to it a few times now over the past couple of years it's not as big as most other cons but it's not bad at all and for a measly $10 admission fee (plenty of free parking nearby to) you get quite a lot of bang for your buck as the saying goes. It was kinda cool to see a dealer decorate one of his comic boxes with ROM 18. Also, Sam Jones from the awesomely cheesy 1980 Flash Gordon movie and more recently from the Ted movies was there.

1989 Oakland CA Wonder Con convention program

October 7 Update: First off I wanted to say I'm disappointed to not see some words of appreciation for that ROM legacy Heroclix diorama which no doubt was a real labor of love for Gary. Ok moving on, here's a little retrospective when it comes to the local convention scene. I just found this in an old 1989 Oakland Wonder Con convention program I still had. Ofcourse I've sung the praises of Akin & Garvey's work on ROM numerous times here over the years but I hadn't realized until today that they had also done inks on the Micronauts (Vol. 2) as well. I don't know about the first ever Wonder Con in 87 but I know they were also guests at the one in 88. Looking back I wish I had made a point to see them while I was there but unfortunately back in the late 80s I was in a different head space. The names behind the comics I loved to read and collect were not that big of a deal to me as hard as that me be to believe in the here and now.