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 Nikolause Kapandais. 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.
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Ikon spaceknight cameo in IMPERIAL issue 1 by Hickman Coello Vicentini |
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. 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 for The Greatest of The Spaceknights in contemporary story lines and instead look toward stuff like Omnibus reprints and a 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.
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Rest in peace Kenneth Colley, you served the empire with honor & distinction |