I Love The 80s...except when IDW reboots it

So a couple of months ago I saw this at the library and figured what the Hell I'd give it a read all I had to lose was time. And indeed I did, and those precious couple hours or so of my life are now lost for ever. I was thinking I'd do a review back then but just never got around to it. Going into it I already had issues with ROM and The Micronauts as you all know.
But I also didn't like some of the Autobot line up I would have stuck with Autobots that were just from the first two generation of toys as opposed to these other later and more obscure Autobot characters (Windblade was it?) and I was never into the whole concept of female cybertronians even back in the 80s. And then ofcourse they had to make the Matt Tracker character from M.A.S.K into a black guy. I mean I understand the whole socially progressive thought process behind that but it didn't work for this M.A.S.K reboot in the same way that it did for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Nick Fury character. I guess G.I.Joe was handled ok but I didn't give a rat's ass about Action Man.
Ya know when I finished reading this trade I could hardly remember what the story was about it, the whole thing just seemed like a series of splash pages with an incoherent story line. Or maybe it just seemed that way because I just wasn't that into it for the before mentioned reasons and it didn't hardly at all invoke any sense of that 80s nostalgia with me. Kinda like all the Transformers movie after the first one. This whole thing was one big hot mess and felt like IDW threw all these 80s properties into a blender and poured out the hack job results on a printing press.

Even when you're knee deep in mud on the shores of The Dead Sea (Israel) it's still a good time to read some classic ROM spaceknight. I'm still trying to figure out my iphone I just found this photo from summer last year in some obscure location in it (the cloud maybe?). So I figured I might as well throw that into the mix here. Aside from the original ROM I sure do miss all things authentic 80s which brings me to the next items in this posting.

I found this cool Gobots fan art on deviant art a couple weeks ago. Pathfinder was always one of my favorites he looked cool in his robot mode and transformed into one of the coolest vehicles in the collection by far. That was a good 80s toy line it's a shame they never gave them a good back story and on top of that they had a God awful shitty cartoon series.

Speaking of authentic 80s awesomeness, remember Choose Your Own Adventure books? They used to have these books in the class rooms of my elementary school. On a whim I bought a copy of Underground Kingdom and it finally showed up in the mail yesterday. Not exactly great literature but still kinda fun to read with a strong dose of nostalgia.

One last thing I wanted to add to this posting. Just saw Wonder Woman today and I just gotta say, I love Gal! I wrote a brief spoiler free review over at The Suicide Squad blog for anyone who's interested....
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2017/06/wonder-woman-review.html

Transformers ROM team up and G.I.Joe ROM team up variant covers

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Well I would certainly like to hear from you all about this. Even I can't help but be at least a little bit excited about these even though we're not going to see any of it beyond the covers for at least another 3 to 4 months. ROM looks a lot more like he does on the cover art of the zero issue then he does in the interior art of that issue which as you all know I really hate so it makes me wonder what is ROM actually supposed to look like? Notice how on the fist bump Transformer 55 cover how ROM's armor design is more like the interior art of the FCBD day zero issue? Well at least he looks pretty cool on these other covers. By the way Micronauts 1 should be coming out next week but IDW hasn't had much in the way of any sort of sneak peaks beyond the endless cover variants ofcourse so who knows how that's gonna turn out. Looks like there's gonna be a lot to talk about on the weekend of FCBD not only will the ROM zero issue be released but that's also the weekend of Avengers Civil War which I plan to see. And by that time Micronauts 1 will have been out so there's that to. So what do you think folks are we going to be in for massive amounts of disappointment? A lot of great shit to look forward to or will it be a mixed bag on the first weekend of May? It seems IDW Publishing has become the contemporary Marvel 80s when it comes to toy based licensed properties.

April 20 Update:
Oh and just when you think you've seen it all with all these ROM cover variants I posted here it gets even more ridiculous . . .
http://ryallsfiles.tumblr.com/image/143093339268

Except for this one. This is pretty cool . . .
http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/exclusive-idw-celebrates-roms-return-with-micronauts-variant-covers

Hey Gary, I feel sorry for you bro. As a ROM curator you're obliged to buy all these cover variants for your collection. And don't forget, the Comic Book Fever book from Tomorrows Publishing is coming out around the same time with it's section on ROM so that's gonna be almost $40 bucks out of your pocket in addition to all this IDW shit. I guess there goes your kid's college tuition, or maybe a second mortgage on the home is an option?
http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_94&products_id=1195&zenid=ef7b3d584db968aae2d8f7382a40b381

Zack Howard

April 22nd Update: So I'm sure by now most of you all have figured out that all these ROM themed cover variants for other IDW titles aren't actual ROM guest appearances. The cover variants are strictly for promotional purpose only for now. The actual first issue of ROM ofcourse will have it's own series of cover variants which will result in Gary probably having to give up a kidney or lung in order to raise even more money. I think all the #1 cover variants suck including the one by Michael Golden and the one by Sal Buscema isn't all that impressive to me, but there is one exception. The one you see above you is pretty cool not just because it's drawn well but also because ROM looks most like what I expected him to based on the zero issue cover art. If this is what he would have looked like on the inside art I could be way more into this ROM reboot.

2016 Let the 80s revival continue

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2015 certainly has ended on an interesting and in some cases a hopeful note. If you do a key word search for "Rom spaceknight Hasbro" on Google you will get close to a dozen articles all saying the same thing about future movie prospects for these properties: Micronauts, ROM, G.I.Joe, Transformers, M.A.S.K, Visionaries as well as rumors of a shared universe in IDW comics. Same goes for doing the same key word search on youtube. As I said in the previous posting It's just too early to get worked up over any of that especially the movie talk. By the way, did  you all know that a live action JEM and The Holograms movie (who was the genius that came up with that idea?)  came out earlier this year? I'm sure most of you know JEM was an 80s cartoon that IDW picked up and made into a comic series. Anyways, as I understand it that movie is still trying to recoup it's 5 million dollar budget.
The Micronauts art work seen above turns up a lot in reference to those articles and videos and I'd love to know who did it and why. Is it some promotional stuff from Hasbro or IDW or just some really cool fan art? I'm inclined to think the later since it contains Marionette and Bug which are marvel properties. I think I'd prefer space glider in his more traditional head gear but this is otherwise a way cool updated interpretation of The Micronauts and done by one Hell of an artist obviously. All this has me wondering if IDW will have anything for The Micronauts on Free Comic Book Day this year like they will for ROM. I sure hope so.

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January 7th Update: Here's a little something from Rom curator extraordinaire Gary Martin Jr. found in the pages of Tony Isabella's 1000 Comic Books You Must Read. This Isabella guy has good taste to get a better idea what else is in his book go here: https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=19662600

And there's more from Gary brought to you from the pages of Mediascene magazine issue 37 (May-June 1979). Well as we know the joint marketing efforts for the toy by Marvel and Parker Brothers were in vain but for the comic series it's self was certainly another matter. A black n white image of ROM #1 went along with this blurb just so you know but how many times do I need to post that cover right it's not like we've never seen it before right?

ROM Jedi spaceknight. The Force is strong with this one! Yeah I just saw Star Wars

Fan art by J.K. Woodward

Perfect art work to go with this posting topic don't you think? In the back of my head I know I remember seeing some ROM wielding lightsaber fan art at one point and thankfully I was able to find it after doing a little digging. This concept isn't that crazy after all Jedi knights and spaceknights do have a lot in common.

But let's get on with what I really wanted to talk about . . . STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS! Let me start off by saying thank god is wasn't The Farce Reawakens as in another prequel quality film. I don't know if it was that The Force was with Abrams or that it was George Lucas having nothing to do with the production. Or perhaps it was some kind of combination there of but either way we finally got a pretty good Star Wars movie even though it took 32 fucken years. It wasn't sufficient to simply get something that was better then the prequels that would have been too easy of a project. It didn't have to be as epic as the original trilogy it just had to a solid sequel to the original trilogy and have at least a little bit of that old school SW magic. And ofcourse, no major fucks ups although it having some little things to nit pick at was pretty much unavoidable.
Well I'd say this movie pulled it off for the most part. At this point we can regard the prequels as nothing more then George Lucas's private project of his interpretation of the back story to the original trilogy. I mean many of the basics such as events like The Clones Wars is established history ofcourse but specific shit like jar jar binks might as well just be some obscure character that briefly appeared in one of the countless comic book spin offs over the years. And speaking of comics, it's the same as I've been saying about all the ROM related shit marvel has pumped out in the last 5 years it just never happened as far as I'm concerned. Same goes for the 2001 Spaceknight mini-series. So, who else out there The Force Awakens? Likes, dislikes or general opinions about the movie I'd like to hear from you.

Quickie sketch by yours truly

So the other matter I'd like to discuss here is the latest ROM related rumors swirling around the internet. In particular about a possible movie project for which I've received links to by several people already. Keep in mind ROM movie rumors have been around for many years now and they've proven to be as substantive as the rumors about ROM's return to marvel which we've had no shortage of over the years as well. And even when the director of The Guardians of The Galaxy talks about how he would like to include ROM in a future movie it doesn't make it any less fan boy wishful thinking then when some anonymous person says the same in an article. I mean is it possible it might happen someday as it did for The Transformers or G.I.Joe? Sure, but it could just as easily not ever happen and I'm not gonna get all sprung on something so very speculative at this time. The ROM Zero Issue in May next year and the series to follow are all coming that's for sure the rumors are long over so that's where the focus of my excitement is. Aside from that there's also talk about how ROM, The Transformers, G.I.Joe, M.A.S.K and perhaps even The Micronauts may inhabit the same IDW Universe. That's probably more plausible to me then a future ROM movie. If that is the case the cross over story line potential would be huge and would need to be handled by some very talented writers in order to do the characters justice. But even that stuff is probably a ways off if it happens, right now I just want to see a good ROM comic book series and hopefully the same for The Microanuts.

P.S. Venom spaceknight has nothing to do with actual spaceknights or ROM himself. It's just a title marvel added to Venom now that he's gone cosmic. So stop getting all worked up it's more of much to do about nothing from the assholes who are running marvel comics these days.

By Dann Phillips

Dec. 22 Update
It seems I'm not the only one who's been recently inspired to do some fan art with the IDW version of ROM.

Check out this douche bag when it comes to toy based Marvel comics

In my trolling of cool Rom related stuff over the years I've come across all sorts of stuff including what you see here. It's a portion of a page that's one of several which summerizes the history of The Micronauts toy line written and illustrated by doug chapel. Because the art work was so shitty I never paid much attention to this before while browsing the internet but something recently prompted me to take a closer look only to find that this idiot not only dumps on the Rom spaceknight comic book series, but also that of the Micronauts, Shogun Warriors and The Transformers as well.
In a separate spoof piece focusing on the Rom electronic doll he features the tag line "Based on a comic that basically went no where" 
http://www.dsquared.org/art/rom_bw.jpg  I'd say 75 issues, 4 annuals and not too mention the continued use all the way up until today of the Marvel owned characters and concepts that sprung from the series kinda contradicts that moronic statement. Plus, the comic series came from the toy not vice versa hence the phrase toy based comics. I talk plenty on this blog about Rom of course and also about The Micronauts but I've also devoted some blog space in the past to both The Transformers and Shogun Warriors as well since I loved both those toy lines and had many of the issues from their respective series back in the day. In fact, Shogun Warriors #13 was one of the very very first ever comics I ever had which was at least a couple years before I ever discovered Rom. Sure everyone is entitled to their opinion but if you're going to dump on some of my favorite late 70s and 80s comic book sci-fi stuff on social media then get ready for some pay back.