New kick ass custom figure and some cool fan art

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I really enjoy doing these side by side cover comparisons of these X-Men back issues with the corresponding X-Men Classic reprints. On this one I'm so torn because I love the original but the cover variant looks pretty damn good too especially with how they included Forge's neutralizer which was a pivotal part of the issue. An issue I'm happy to remind you all which launched a four issue story arc (X-Men 186, 187, 188, 189) of the attempted assassination of Forge by the Dire Wraiths only narrowly avoided by some help from The X-Men. But as it turned out Forge had almost as much to worry about from Storm despite her having lost her mutant powers. Here's a back posting of the side by side comparisons of the next two X-men issues  http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/search?q=classic+x-men

2.5"x3.5" Watercolor over inks sketch card by Danny Kuang

Now as we all know sometime not too long before the Wraith War spilled into the pages of the X-Men the Dire Wraiths had something of a "changing of the guard". In other words the females killed off all the males so they could do things they're way proving that indeed the female is the more deadly of most any species  : )

 

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But that certainly doesn't make this new custom male Dire Wraith from Chris any less cool. In fact it's not just merely cool it's down right bad ass. And to save you the trouble of asking the base figure was The Thing from the Fantastic 4.

It's funny when artists who are Rom fans seem to almost be thinking about the same thing at nearly the same time. It wasn't long ago I did a piece that included Rom and Acroyear and even more recently Firefall. Have a look what just turned up yesterday http://dannphillips.deviantart.com/gallery/

Sunday Update: I think Firefall must be the spaceknight of the month or something look at this video that just turned up today http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvXLbM6Womc

The custom figure that's too hot to handle!

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Well this now makes the third Micronauts cover I've strategically inserted Rom's image into and I think this is a good time to post it given that it's Bill Mantlo's birthday. Thanks to Mantlo's imagination these characters would live on for many years after their respective toy lines long since disappeared from store shelves and stock rooms. It just sucks that we never got to see them together but of course we've had that discussion already here on more then one occasion.

Here's a digital project I've had in the back of my mind ever since Chris produced this awesome Firefall custom. Aside from the custom it's self Chris had an assortment of well staged photos of it that almost begged to have something like this done to one of em. You all know about the back story for Archie Stryker and the Firefall spaceknight armor I don't need to get into that right?
Good, so with that said let me move on to presenting the last of Gary's foot notes. This one comes from Nova #10 (Vol. 2). Rom spaceknight #24 sure did have some staying power given all the flash back cameos and foot notes out there for it. The art work is done by Erik Larsen who I'm not a big fan of.

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And now my latest back issue discount box finds from earlier this week . . . 

Fantastic Four Roast special (1982)

This panel comes from the 1982 Fantastic Four Roast 1 shot spoof. Did anybody else out there know about this Torpedo appearance in it that I discovered?

Avengers Academy 25 (April 2012)

Onward to some other shit I found in the same discount box that wasn't so cool. Coming right off the heels of the massive disappointment that was The Annihilators mini-series we were then treated to a shitty 3 issue (#23, 24 and 25) story arc in Avengers Academy that featured the return of Hybrid. By the time I got done reading 24 I was getting irritated with how they hadn't explained Hybrid's return as they did in X-Man 31 (1997).
By the time issue 25 came out I decided to thumb through it first and woe and behold I came across the clip art you see here. Oh man was I ever pissed! Why couldn't he have just said something like "He left Earth years ago" or "We don't know where he is and we don't have time to try and fins him". Did ya have to say Rom is dead Marvel? really!? I didn't buy that issue nor did I buy any new Marvel comic since then up until recently with Infinity and we all know how that turned out. But I decided to pick up Avengers Academy #25 for a buck just so I could share this bullshit with you all. To all Rom fans, don't buy new marvel comics it's just rewarding bad behavior and Infinity is just the latest example.