Those "critters" from X-Men 187-188

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Alright it's back to the wonderful 80s today! And this time I'm hoping I found a Rom related reference that even Gary Martin Jr. or Lee Sietz don't know about yet. So this morning I found an issue of New Mutants #24 in a 3 for $1 box while I was in S.F. when I noticed these panels that make an obvious reference to the Dire Wraiths. If you recall Uncanny X-Men 187-188 was part of the story arc involving an attempted assassination of Forge by the dire wraiths which was in part prevented by the timely arrival of The X-Men and Magik (Illyana Rasputin).
The pages of the X-Men wasn't the only time Magik would find herself battling those sorceress "critters". In Rom Annual #3 she helped Rom fend off some dire wraiths and escape from Limbo after having been sent there by Hybrid. After their return from Limbo they fought Hybrid together and along with the assistance of Brandy Clark defeated Hybrid's ugly ass  . . .
http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2009/07/spaceknight-saturdays-many-happy.html

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So here's some fan art (unknown artist) I've appropriated from Gary's stash for this posting. To me this is an example of some art work that was so close to being great. I like the setting the artist put Rom in it certainly plays with your imagination. I like the detail on the armor and I also like the off center slightly over head point of view that's harder to pull off well then you think trust me on that. But there's a couple details when it comes to figure composition that don't quite settle with me. Rom's forehead is a bit too high and his arms are overly robust and long. So what do you think?

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8/19 Update: So I got an email earlier today from Gary Martin Jr. "A Rom curator" with some photos he took of some Guardians of The Galaxy HeroClix play sets he ordered online in order to obtain the Rom related figurines. So here we have the Ikon spaceknight figurine and of course you've seen the Dire Wraith one already. Just so you know there's a Dire Wraith Queen Volx figurine which is just a green colored version of the Dire Wraith sculpt and there's also 2 spaceknight warrior figurines that are gold colored and basically a version of the Ikon sculpt. You may have noticed in the bottom left hand corner of the information card a ROM #1 appearance mention for Ikon I assure you that's either some sort of misprint or somebody's idea of what would sound cool for gaming purposes or what not. I'm trying to keep this posting from getting any more long winded then it kinda is already and I don't think there's anyone here who plays HeroClix any ways so if you have any more questions I'm sure Gary will be happy to answer any questions you might have in the comments section.

Foot notes, dire wraiths and mutants

Now I was talking in another posting recently about the Wraith War spill over in X-Men issues 185, 186, 187 and 188. So to find this footnote (thanks Gary) in a future issue (#225) with Rogue's reflections on the X-Men having saved Forge from a Dire Wraith assassination attempt was not at all surprising.

But I was having some trouble with this X-Men foot note in Iron Man 190. I've been sitting on this clip art for a while now but I recently did a double take on it . . . .

X-Men #181? Well I checked out some online reviews on that X-Men issue and as far as I can tell it's got nothing to do with anything that Wanda is talking about in the clip art. In fact it's pretty much just a Godzilla tribute story that takes place right after the events of the first Secret Wars mini-series. But I later found out by commentator RT who does have the issue that there's some mention of the mutant registration act or something like that. But it still seems to me X-Men 184 or even 185 would have been a more appropriate for that foot note.

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But just in case you didn't know, or forgot Forge's first ever appearance in the Marvel Universe was in X-Men 184. Thanks to an online review I discovered recently along with some clip art from the issue provided by Rom curator Gary Martin Jr. I now see that this X-Men issue is an important tie-in to the Wraith War story line in the Rom series. Not only do we see the hand held neo-neutralizer prototype for the first time Forge also makes a direct Rom and Dire Wraith reference.

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On a side note here it's too bad we never got to see Forge's neutralizer used on Hybrid that would have been interesting. We've seen it's effects on dire wraiths and homo-superior alike and even though the X-Men's computer Cerebro identifies Hybrid as a mutant he's still in a class all his own.

Foot notes from S.H.I.E.L.D

Continuing with Gary's foot notes and the S.H.I.E.L.D. theme from of the last posting. You all remember this charming little scene from Rom #43? Back in the day I felt like I could just stare at this page for hours. Yeah S.H.I.E.L.D almost lost their helicarrier that the Dire Wraiths had had it with all the panzy ass infiltration games they'd been playing with S.H.I.E.L.D since the beginning of the Rom series.

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And it seemed like the Wraith War had taken it's toll on S.H.I.E.L.D in more was then one as mentioned in the Incredible Hulk 298 clip art above as well as in the Incredible Hulk 297 clip art below. By the way I dunno if the agent shooting the Hell Hound in the mouth is supposed to be Gabriel Jones or just the token black S.H.I.E.L.D agent on that page but either way he should have had a dialogue bubble saying "EAT THIS!" (that's from ALIENS).

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A package full of fan art for Bill Mantlo's birthday

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So before I dropped all this stuff in the mail for Michael Mantlo I decided to take a snap shot of it all for you good people. So I'm sure you recognize my latest fan art which I made some high quality laser prints of. I wanna thank Randomnerd for sending me her copy of  geek magazine from last month which allowed me to make that very readable quality xerox copy. My buddy Randy whipped up some fan art of the U-Foes which first appeared in Incredible Hulk 254 ( Bill & Sal ). We should be seeing a color version in the near future. And from one of my regular commentator's (Joseph) we have something from his ten year old son who loves both the Hulk and Rom and also has half the Rom series but swears who will have them all some day.

There was a little bit of trash talk about the Power Pack series in the comments section of the last posting. But in all fairness I did have at least one issue back in the day. Ironically it wouldn't be for about 27 years later that I would learn the very same issue I had contained a Rom foot note. I can thank Gary Martin Jr. "a Rom curator" for that and in the next posting we can all thank Gary for some of the other Rom related foot notes I'll be posting.

And we're back with some more Dr. Doom even though unlike What If #39 (Vol. 2) this clip art is totally unrelated to Rom or to Bill Mantlo's birthday but I love it so much I'm adding it to this posting anyways. This is such classic Dr. Doom the dialogue and so in keeping with what makes the character so awesome. For the low down on where this clip art is from http://majorspoilers.com/2011/07/10/retro-review-marvel-graphic-novel-27-emperor-doom-1987/
Ok so look, since Dr. Doom mentioned the Sub-Mariner (or Namor if you prefer) I'll stop my childish posturing and throw in this other foot note into the posting I just got from Gary recently that comes from Incredible Hulk 277.

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More classic 80s and 90s foot notes next week!

Cosmic Marvel sagas & what could have been

Let's kick off 2013 by going into the past about 30 years. There's a few ROM spaceknight issues that I think have at least some notoriety as being iconic in the Cosmic Marvel genre of the 80's. No doubt ROM #24 (1981) was one of them with his timely intervention for Xandar during a Skrull invasion which saw at the end of the issue Richard Rider relinquishing his Nova powers and returned to Earth.

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But also, who could forget Galactus and Terrax vs the spaceknights of Galador in Rom 26 and 27!? I dunno what was more awesome the spaceknights taking down Terrax or how Rom ultimately managed to defeat Galactus by out whiting him. But those two epic Rom issues had something of forerunner at the tail end of Dazzler #11. A big thanks to Gary Martin Jr. and Ptor from The Sanctum for sending me the following clip art. And in case you forgot during Terrax's fight with the spaceknights in Rom#26 a Dazzler #11 footnote appeared on page 17.

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 Lately I've been finding in $1 boxes a lot of issues from the 2009 War of Kings saga that saw yet another conflict between the Shiar Imperium and The Kree Star Empire. Pretty epic stuff it had great action, great art and plenty of interstellar politics which I love. It was some of the best Cosmic Marvel adventure I've read since Operation Galactic Storm and The Annihilation Wave. How cool if  War of Kings were to have had Rom (Galador's King) interwoven somewhere in the story line. That's of course assuming Abnett & Lanning would have produced a better narrative for Rom fans then the crap that was The Annihilators.

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The King of Kings by Motorhead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0vCqEgarBY&bpctr=1357068142

More of Rick Jones's Rom memorabilia

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I recently found a copy of Incredible Hulk #381 (1991) in a $1 bin. I'm sure most of you have this issue or at least know about the Rom reference in it. But just in case you happen to be one of the few people who may not have seen it yet here it is.

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Now we all love Rom appearances and cameos but Gary Martin Jr. "a Rom curator" also really loves those Rom related footnotes scattered through out the Marvel Universe. Here's one I'm betting you don't have yet. It's comes from Fantastic Four #281.

The Parker Bros. doll turned up earlier this month on Youtube. It was featured on a collectables show about retro toys. Not much here most of you don't know about already but some of you might still like it anyways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9ymPawmMzK4#!