Thank you everybody who left a comment of support in the previous posting in regards to my ROM out of Limbo initiative. We can only hope that Marvel is paying attention because certainly they are aware of the cult following by now for this character. The Floating World fund raiser auctions for Bill Mantlo's medical care (all ROM fan art), the first Annihilators series, the continued presence of Ikon on the team and even Jonathan Hickman's nod to the ROM legacy in FF#9 which only came out a couple weeks ago is clear evidence of that. And the Dire Wraiths who are synonymous with ROM have been a pretty regular menace in the Marvel Universe for over 30 years now.
I know just as there are ROM fans out there, there are also those who don't understand all the bruhaha over him. All I can say is that for those of us who grew up with him he was the Optimus Prime/Robocop of his time. Like Optimus he was a powerful and noble figure with obvious leadership qualities but as a cyborg he also was in constant torment like Robocop always yearning for his former life as a man. As a kid you could look up to him but also relate to him as a stranger in a strange land who was often uncomfortable in his own "skin".
Also consider this when thinking about comic book titles that are based on toy lines which basically fall into two groups. On one hand you had comic book titles that had the benefit of toy lines that enjoyed some success on the market first. In the case of
The Transformers and
G.I.Joe we're talking about wildly successful toy lines. In other cases like
The Micronauts and
Shogun Warriors it was toy lines that enjoyed at least some success for a period of time. But there's more titles then I can remember that were based on toy lines that were virtually D.O.A when they hit the market for which the comic titles they inspired soon followed usually cancelled within 4 to 9 issues.
The Inhumanoids,
Visionaries,
Sectaurs and
Air Raiders are among the many who are good examples of that. Don't feel bad if you
don't remember or otherwise have never heard of these titles you obviously didn't miss much.
But not ROM Spaceknight! Despite being based on a single electronic doll that was poorly marketed and fell flat with the public his series never the less spanned 75 monthly issues and 4 annuals. And that was over 25 years ago and as you've read already in this posting ROM still has plenty of staying power despite this licensing bullshit that's dogged the mythology. All we can do at this point is hope that my correspondence with Dan Abnett will be the first step to something great happening in the near future as opposed to just going nowhere. Any new information that comes my way on the matter I'll be sure to post it here right away.
Another good reason
why Marvel needs to bring ROM back is because he's bad ass rather a spaceknight or human. At one point during the series ROM makes a deal with Quasimodo The Living Computer to exchange his armor in return for being cloned from the living cells contained within the armor. The deal goes bad when ROM realizes that his new body is faulty and starts to decay. Despite this however when ROM crosses paths with Dr. Dredd (a wraith warlock) who he instinctively recognizes as a Dire Wraith he attacks him unarmed with out hesitation. Despite Dredd's shape shifting abilities and ROM's dying body ROM manages to strangle Dredd to death with his bare hands! In or out of Galadorian armor ROM is bad ass and that's why Marvel needs to man the f__k up and get him out of legal limbo and back into the mainstream Marvel Universe again!
Barring anything Earth shattering ROM related falling into my lap I'm probably gonna be on something of a hiatus for a while but I'll still be checking and responding to comments.
I really like where the artist was going with this it's too bad they never quite got around to finishing it. I don't think I ever had a name to go along with this art work but if the artist should happen to find this posting please let me know who you are so that I can properly accredit your work here. At any rate good job this coould have made for a really good variant cover of this issue that features the return of one of ROM's most deadliest enemies.
