Well isn't that cool BACK ISSUE Magazine printed one of my letters again

BACK ISSUE Magazine 88 letter column

Big thanks to ROM curator Gary Martin Jr. for finding this in the letter column of BACK ISSUE Magazine 88 (May 2016). I had actually forgotten about having written this letter which as you can see was in response to BACK ISSUE Magazine 82 which had a long article about the Secret Wars series both I and II (see blog link below). Ironically I had picked up issue 82 because that issue had a letter of mine in it as well which was feed back from yet an earlier issue featuring The Micronauts. Unfortunately all print copies of issue 88 are sold out so for now I won't be able to get a copy to add to my growing collection of comics and magazines that have my letters published in them. I didn't have any luck on ebay either that blows.
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/search?q=back+issue+magazine

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August 20th Update: Just found this Spanish language cover art for ROM 72. Aside from the obvious (spanish and not english), notice some other differences from the original? The left hand corner art has the Beyonder instead of ROM and instead of the little Secret Wars logo dog eared in the opposite corner they have a tag line running along the bottom. For those of you who don't have a copy of the original here's a link for a quick reference to compare...
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Rom_Vol_1_72

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?

Just like I said, Marvel still loves ROM and they know about the fans but . . .

 Apparently early this year this wasn't the only blog out there that was discussing the matter of the the ROM name and likeness licensing issue which was prompted by the return of  Hybrid in Avengers Academy back in March. The slamonstrobot blog authored by Snell posted on the topic with more feed back from Marvel. What you see here is from the Christos Gage in the Avengers Academy letter column.
For those of you who have been following this blog you pretty much know all of this. So really, here this information to the left is just more not so positive reinforcement on the ugly reality of the situation. And there's more:  http://slaymonstrobot.blogspot.com/2012/03/donald-duck-spacekinght.html

It's not that I disbelieve Gage in this letter column but Marvel has found a way in the past to fudge that legality as shown in Universe X #3 (2000) http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2009/10/rom-universe-x.html

 Yeah I know that blows. So I endeavor to keep digging into the past to bring ROM fans today something to smile about. Although sometimes even the stuff from the past doesn't make me entirely happy. Here's a good example. I forgot I used to have this issue of Secret Wars II until I saw an entry for it in Lee's Rom Spaceknight Revisited data base site. I think the reason why I didn't keep the series or this issue was for two reasons. One is that the Secret Wars II was massively inferior to the original. As to this issue of course it was cool that they had a ROM cameo/reference to ROM#72 but it pissed me off that Al Milgrom who did some of the original ROM covers back in the day drew ROM in that horrible Steve Dikto style. God! I especially hated the way Dikto drew ROM's eyes.

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Look what else I found at RSR. This is something I didn't know about before. Here's a Rom head shot from Web of Spiderman #7 during a dream sequence Peter Parker is having.

You can see the full page here:

 http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/web_of_spider-man_7.shtml

 Just found Avengers 268 in a $1 bin recently. I remember when this issue first came out I happened to see it on the shelf at some dime store in San Francisco back in the day. After I thumbed through it I kinda waffled for a bit but ended up not buying it. I guess at the time this loose ROM tie-in didn't seem like that big of a deal to me since this issue came out in June of 1986 which was just a few months after the last ROM issue (#75 Feb. 1986) It featured a few pages of all these suicidal Dire Wraiths attacking some of the Avengers who had been kidnapped and temporarily stranded in Limbo by the timelord Kang. Now of course, finding something like this now is a bigger deal then it was over 25 years ago. I'm a sentimental kinda guy and for just a half a buck it was money well spent.

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As you may have figured The Avengers didn't kill all the Limbo dwelling Dire Wraiths in this issue. Many others were still there and they would eventually find themselves in conflict and ultimately subjugated by another timelord in Limbo by the name of  Immortus as told in the pages of the Darkstar Winter Guard mini-series (2010).