Sometimes when I reflect on Bill Mantlo’s legacy it’s not just about what was, but also about what could have been under different circumstances. A big thanks to Greek artist and friend Kapandias Nikolaos for helping make this imaginary cover art possible. Like many of you we sure do wish it had been a published hard copy found on a spinner rack back in the day.
And speaking of spinner racks. I'm sure you've all seen this photo before with this George Lucas looking guy it's been posted all over social media countless times over the years. By chance I recently found this color version on X/twitter.
Back to more collaboration fan art with my before mentioned Greek friend. I dressed up some fan art of his from 2021 to make a ROM Annual 3 cover variant. Now, no disrespect to Bill Sienkiewicz who did the original cover art we all still very much love. It's just that a different interpretation some times can be interesting and enjoyable as well.
If you grew up in the 80s and don't remember the show Airwolf, well I don't know what to say because I sure do remember it. Back when ROM annual 3 came out I noticed something very familiar about the helmets featured for the Wraith Hunter Rangers. I would find it hard to believe that redesign concept was not directly influenced that cool helmet design from the show.
Also, my hypothetical Tales to Astonish publishing those untold Mantlo stories would be penciled by just about any other artist other then Steve Ditko. Sal Buscema ofcourse would have been ideal but Bob Layton would have been a good alternative. The same Bob Layton who did this spectacular SABRA commission late last year.
I also have a message for marvel studios because even though the opening weekend of Captain America Brave New World is not quite over we can already do a post mortem. Well you idiots caved in to the BDShole woke antisemitic mob and how did that work out for ya? But that still didn't keep the hamas supporters from harassing Shira Hass at the premier in LA. Did you people learn nothing from the last election and see how all the double talk from the democrats on the war in gaza was just pissing every one off on both sides!? Like Nick Fury said in Captain Marvel ..."pick a side".
I mean Shira Hass was a questionable person for the role in the first place given that she looks like she's barely old enough to drive but was playing a character who's traded punches with the HULK in the comics. But you people really screwed this all up even worse then expected. And Marvel/Disney has got another money losing disaster over the horizon in the form of the semi live action Snow Woke film. Just as gaza has brought all this misery and destruction on it's self as a result of the October 7th terror attack, you've done much the same with your financial miseries and brand destruction. Well deserved in each case!
Instead of wasting your money on Captain America Brave New Whatever, just watch this instead. It's free, a better use of your time and I heard it has better CGI effects.
February 27th Update: Holy shit I just heard the news about Gene Hackman, his wife and their dog having been found dead in their New Mexico home! I don't even know where to start with this one. My personal favorite Gene Hackman films are Superman I and 2, The Unforgiven, Crimson Tide, The Firm and The Poseidon Adventure. My all three of them rest in peace.
April 1st Update: And here we go again with the loss of another iconic actor for early 2025. My all time favorite Val Kilmer films are Top Secret, HEAT and Tombstone. Top Gun was good in a cheesy 80s action drama kinda way but Mavrick really ended up far exceeding my expectations for a sequel to a movie like Top Gun could be. I'm so glad Val Kilmer was at least healthy enough at the time for that heart warming scene between him and Tom Cruise it was one of those great moments that made Maverick so damn good. In terms of science fiction, Val Kilmer was in the film Red Planet. Not at all a bad film although not as good as other Mars based films like Mission To Mars and The Martian.
This is some fan art by Greek artist Kapandais Nikolaos that's based on the unpublished pages from Cloak & Dagger featuring Sabra as seen in the previous posting. I've had this art work for a little while now but I've been waiting for the right time to feature it as I love to do with good fan art. So with it being my birthday today I guess this is a good time as a treat to myself.
Coincidentally I also discovered this new fan art commission by artist Jeff Slemmons which was posted to Comic Art Fans just a few days ago. I would definitely say this is the best ROM related fan art for 2024 I've come across. ROM blasting away Dire Wraiths is nothing new when it comes to ROM fan art including this year with a fictitious cover by Bob Layton and a 3D rendering I saw on farcebook more recently that was kinda cool. But Slemmons does it best here hands down.
December 12 Update: And look what else I just found! A new commission piece by one of the best and possibly most under rated Marvel 80s artists Ron Frenz. All that aside I'm always happy to have more Jewish superheroes in my posts.
December 21 Update: Here's the color version. I can't decide which version I like better . . .
I was going to save all this stuff for a New Year's Day posting but screw it I just feeling like posting it tonight instead. For openers, this Bill Mantlo tribute fan art envelope is something I mailed off about 3 weeks ago (from California to Greece) but as of this blog posting it still hasn't arrived. The last time it took a whole month for one of my fan art envelopes to get to Greece but the one before that never arrived at all so who knows this time around? Good thing I always take a picture of these at the post office.
As in my last posting here's something else I've had for a while but never featured on this blog. It comes from The Micromails letter page of issue 40. It's a wonder ROM was not mentioned more then a couple times or so in the published fan letter pages of The Micronauts given that Bill Mantlo was the writer on both titles but we'll take what we can get. Look at that last sentence. Might as well have been another life time ago when you had a new issue of ROM, Micronauts (the real thing, not that fake shit from idw publishing) and The X-Men to look forward to every month.
A while ago somebody mentioned something on social media about a dire wraith appearance on something having to do with Marvel Legends Darkstar. They didn't include a photo so I had no idea what they were talking about and I just dismissed it as internet noise. Bet then I saw this packaging art lifted from the cover art of Darkstar Winter Gaurd #3 at a big box store recently and it suddenly all made sense. That's pretty cool I'm fairly certain this is the first time the dire wraith have appeared on any published media outside of a comic book or magazine format. The Darkstar Winter Gaurd mini-series is just about the only decent thing Marvel has done when it comes to any ROM related continuity in the past 20 years.
And I also have some newly discovered comic book/sci-fi related public art from The Bay Area to share. I found these murals at Ochoa Middle School in Hayward. How frigging cool that would have been to go to a school back in the day and have these to look at all the time.
Speaking of Iron Man, I was reading issue 164 online recently. This guy who is from what was then (1982) West Germany wrote a pretty long letter to the staff working on Iron Man at the time. As you can see he had no shortage of ideas and suggestions including a couple good ones when it came to all things ROM.
Got time for just a quickie posting tonight. The last time I found any fan art from another artist I felt that was worth posting was around Fall of last year. This guy has a good grip on figure composition his art doesn't look amateurish at all. And unlike almost all the ROM related fan art that's turned up in recent months this guy actually puts ROM in an interesting and imaginative scene along with these street level Marvel characters. Most of the time lately it's pretty passe stuff with ROM just standing around or floating in space by himself with his neutrilizer.
I'm making this posting on the fly in order to feature some newly discovered videos. This one here probably won't tell you much of anything new but it's well produced and would make for a nice intro to the world of ROM for other people out there who don't know the series very well or at all. Also worth checking out is this Cloak & Dagger video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqS2dCaAYG4 and this short CG video of Rom's confrontation with Firefall IIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTb4gddlEjQ
I just wanted to do a quick follow up to Lee's Seitz's posting a couple of weeks ago for a Rom reference made in Avengers Forever #1 in regards to Rick Jones's back ground. In that posting there was some question as to the legal legitimacy of the use of Rom's name in that narration box. But I still feel based on the Rom related stuff that came out just before 2000 (Nova #2 Vol. 2) and the stuff that appeared during and right after 2000 (Universe X #3 and the Spaceknights mini-series) that it was just before 2000 that Marvel lost the rights to the Rom name and likeness.
As for Jones his first appearance in Rom spaceknight was in issue 54 but it wouldn't be until 55 that they would team up against the Dire Wraiths in what turned out to be an ALIENS like story line. Jones was a regular character in the series until issue 72. A similar reference was also made back in Incredible Hulk #319 (1986) http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2011/04/rom-spaceknight-cameo-from-hulk-319.html
I found this photo of the Rom doll and it's Marvel house ad and it really reminded me of my days working as a graphic designer in advertising because it looked like he was proof reading his ad. So I came up with what I thought was a funny dialogue bubble to go with the image. And don't forget Avengers Prelude to Infinity #17 comes out this up coming Wednesday let's hope we'll get to see what happens next with Galador and it's spaceknight guardians. You can bet I'll be talking about it here.
And as you can see we've got a new custom figure to show off, a dreaded Dark Nebula Hellhound. As for that Starshine II spaceknight (Brandy Clark) custom figure I've featured it here before but from a different angle. Light beams compliments of some of my handy dandy photoshop magic of course. By the way here's the best Rom custom I've ever seen I would love to get my hands on one of em: http://www.toyark.com/spaceknight-galador-4322/
Literally only minutes before I was about to publish this posting I came across another page for that Bill Mantlo benefit Rom spaceknight #1 re-creation project. Of the three pages I've found now, this one by far is the best yet not only can this guy draw like a pro but I personally really dig his style. Go ahead and check out the rest of the page here: http://www.deviantart.com/art/ROM-Spaceknight-389369223
I want to make a very good point about what made the original Micronauts series (especially the "Golden era") so awesome and why the idea of it's legacy getting turned into some kind of "happy meal" cartoon (see previous post) makes my skin crawl. If you haven't read issue #5 of The Micronauts please take a moment to read this page it's a real eye opener . . .
Just think, this was written in 1979 and look what it was dealing with. You have some socially significant commentary being made here about everything from people living under fascistic governments to religion and even class warfare. Just look at what's going on right now in countries like North Korea and Egypt or even right here in Americawith our own social and economic ills. For those who might continue the Micronaut legacy either do it right or don't fucken do it at all there's already enough Ben 10 bullshit kind of cartoons out there to "dumbify" today's kids. And now, for the lighter side of life . . . .
In part 4 of The King of Thessaly's Flea Market finds we get to find out more then we ever wanted to know about what goes on under Cloak's cloak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykZiyx7N4Kk
Hat tip to Rick Hansen again for providing me with these photo images of the front and back covers of Marvel Now's Indestructible HULK. The awesome custom front and back cover art (by artist Corey Hamscher) is part of a raffle fund raiser for Bill Mantlo's care.
I really like this guy's dynamic drawing style. And look at the faces too. He even managed to make Rom's "face" look expressive.
And one other cool thing from Rick to share. Here's a Michael Golden signed copy of Micronauts #1.
If you're a fan of Bill Mantlo, of Rom spaceknight, of the Jack of Hearts or of just hearing someone dropping the "F" bomb every other wordon Youtube then this is the video for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVVENVVYRgc
Next up, Marvel team up digital art featuring Rom & Iron Man
Anybody know who did this black n white Rom drawing? I think it's pretty good although this version or Rom's armor makes him look a bit like he's on steroids. Ironic that the neutralizer which is Rom's primary weapon is a bit on the smallish size in contrast to his armor's beefed up look. You all get where I'm going with this and the steroid analogy right?
Rom by Santi Cass, Captain Universe by the Brothers Hildebrandt
I was having one of those what if moments in regards to Rom and Captain Universe. I dunno what would have been cooler. If Rom were himself to become Captain Universe or if a close friend of Rom's were to become the Captain in order to help Rom out with some raw cosmic power. Outside of Brandy Clark Steve Jackson (her fiance) was Rom's first friend and ally on Earth.
Rom Spaceknight #4 (1980)
He was Rom's unofficial side kick pretty much exactly as Rick Jones was later in the series after Steve was murdered by the Dire Wraiths during the massacre of Clariton in issue 49. That was definitely one of those "holy shit!" deaths in the series. So at any point in the series it would have been pretty cool if either
Steve or Rick had inherited Captain Power even if it was just in a
single issue. It would have also kinda unofficially bridged the Rom
title to The Micronauts given that the licensing restrictions kept these two Bill Mantlo creations from crossing over into their respective titles.
Modeled by Simonia Amanda
You don't need to be a Cloak & Dagger fan to appreciate this but if you are all the better. The same artist (Daswook) who did Dagger also did this Sabra Heromorph as well as the Marionette one from The Micronuats I featured a couple of weeks ago. But there's so much more where these came from. Go check out his Deviant Art gallery I'm sure you'll find more Heromorph images of your favorite super heroines and villains from both DC, Marvel and some independents http://daswookofheromorph.deviantart.com/gallery/
