Awesome Torpedo illustration by artists Bobby Kro & Matt Web

Here we have an absolutely perfect work of art! When it comes to fan art this kind of thing is really what I like to see. That is too say that it looks anything but amateurish. The action pose, the movement your eyes feel and the figure composition you see here is exactly what is meant when it comes to things drawn the "Marvel way". Penciled by Bobby Kro and colored by Matt Webb. The illustration looks even more awesome magnified. Yes, regardless of all my ex girlfriends trying reassure me it wasn't so we all know bigger is better!

How to give Bill Mantlo something to smile about this holiday season

One of the followers of this blog (Rick Hansen, thanks!) posted a blog link on Facebook to an article about Bill Mantlo's situation these days. I'm sure you all don't need me to retell the sad tale about his accident and hospitalization. The article largely consists of an update on his condition but more importantly it'll let you know what you can do to make his life a bit easier. For all of you who are hard up financially right now (who isn't these days!?) don't worry it's not about money save perhaps a postage stamp. It has to do with mailing him a little something like a short thank you note or perhaps a copy of some fan art related to his past work. I'm going to be putting something of a care package together for him with hard copies of this blog and the ROM Spaceknight Forever 2.0 Youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iU_Q-KHiWk&feature=related among other things so that he can see how much his legacy still lives on. That would be cool if he had internet access there at the care taker facility he is at.
All the information about how and where to mail your letters/art work can be found at this link: http://www.co2comics.com/blog/2011/11/21/give-thanks-to-bill-mantlo/comment-page-1/#comment-1724 Please read it carefully and follow the instructions before preparing your letters/slash art work. If you've been thinking about doing some kind of fan art related to Bill's work during his career in the comic industry now is the time to get up off your butt and just get it done in time to send a copy of it to Bill before X-Mass and New Years. Please don't delay, it's really a small thing that could make a big difference to a man who gave us so much and most certainly is not better off then you are in all probability.

Now hear this! I'm in the process of producing another ROM multimedia slide show presentation video. I will feature any fan art produced for Bill Mantlo in it as well as on this blog. By the way folks Mike Mantlo just left a comment on the blog posting I left a link to just above.

The Universal Inhumans & The Dire Wraiths, ok finally now I get it. Fantastic 4 #577 found in $1 bin

I was browsing through a dollar bin at this book store in downtown Berkeley after I got off work today and happened to find Fantastic Four #577 which introduced the Universal Inhumans who live in a region of the Moon known as the Blue Area. There's been numerous postings about this issue over the past year or so but as of yet not one of them have been able to explain to me just who are these Universal Inhumans and how is it that a segment of the Dire Wraiths are part of it.
After having read the issue once, and the last 10 pages or so over a couple of times it finally started to make some sense. Apparently the Kree experimented on not just humans but several alien species as well in the hopes of finding a way create a compatible yet diverse gene pool to break the Kree's evolutionary dead end. But only 5 species yielded any positive results. Of course The Inhumans developed from the experiments done on homo-sapiens but in Fantastic Four 577 we would also learn that the Dire Wraiths made up one of 4 alien species that now carried a universal "genetic marker" that would somehow provide the bio-diversity the Kree might need some day.
Evidently Black Bolt of the Inhumans didn't like the idea of being some sort of pawn of the Kree and decided to travel to the Kree home world (Hala) with an Inhuman army to kick some ass and take names. In the meantime a Black Bolt messianic like cult following formed among the other 4 species who are now known as the Universal Inhumans. Their prophecy involves his return and to make all 5 former Kree experimented species one big happy family through a "Big Love" type marriage in which Black Bolt would take an Inhuman wife and one from each of the Universal Inhumans species. This would be a good time to take special note of the dialogue in the clip art. As you can see from the FF #9 (Future Foundations) clip art to the left from September it looks like they all tied the knot already. I wonder how that honey moon went? I'm a bit on the kinky side so I probably could have hooked up with the centurion chick and with his Inhuman wife Medusa. But as far as the other three go forget it not even after a 6 pack!

ROM #32 Cover art re-imagined

I really like where the artist was going with this it's too bad they never quite got around to finishing it. I don't think I ever had a name to go along with this art work but if the artist should happen to find this posting please let me know who you are so that I can properly accredit your work here. At any rate good job this coould have made for a really good variant cover of this issue that features the return of one of ROM's most deadliest enemies.

A BIG thanks to all the commentators & what sets ROM apart from other toy based comic book titles

Thank you everybody who left a comment of support in the previous posting in regards to my ROM out of Limbo initiative. We can only hope that Marvel is paying attention because certainly they are aware of the cult following by now for this character. The Floating World fund raiser auctions for Bill Mantlo's medical care (all ROM fan art), the first Annihilators series, the continued presence of Ikon on the team and even Jonathan Hickman's nod to the ROM legacy in FF#9 which only came out a couple weeks ago is clear evidence of that. And the Dire Wraiths who are synonymous with ROM have been a pretty regular menace in the Marvel Universe for over 30 years now.
I know just as there are ROM fans out there, there are also those who don't understand all the bruhaha over him. All I can say is that for those of us who grew up with him he was the Optimus Prime/Robocop of his time. Like Optimus he was a powerful and noble figure with obvious leadership qualities but as a cyborg he also was in constant torment like Robocop always yearning for his former life as a man. As a kid you could look up to him but also relate to him as a stranger in a strange land who was often uncomfortable in his own "skin".
Also consider this when thinking about comic book titles that are based on toy lines which basically fall into two groups. On one hand you had comic book titles that had the benefit of toy lines that enjoyed some success on the market first. In the case of The Transformers and G.I.Joe we're talking about wildly successful toy lines. In other cases like The Micronauts and Shogun Warriors it was toy lines that enjoyed at least some success for a period of time. But there's more titles then I can remember that were based on toy lines that were virtually D.O.A when they hit the market for which the comic titles they inspired soon followed usually cancelled within 4 to 9 issues. The Inhumanoids, Visionaries, Sectaurs and Air Raiders are among the many who are good examples of that. Don't feel bad if you don't remember or otherwise have never heard of these titles you obviously didn't miss much.
But not ROM Spaceknight! Despite being based on a single electronic doll that was poorly marketed and fell flat with the public his series never the less spanned 75 monthly issues and 4 annuals. And that was over 25 years ago and as you've read already in this posting ROM still has plenty of staying power despite this licensing bullshit that's dogged the mythology. All we can do at this point is hope that my correspondence with Dan Abnett will be the first step to something great happening in the near future as opposed to just going nowhere. Any new information that comes my way on the matter I'll be sure to post it here right away.
Another good reason why Marvel needs to bring ROM back is because he's bad ass rather a spaceknight or human. At one point during the series ROM makes a deal with Quasimodo The Living Computer to exchange his armor in return for being cloned from the living cells contained within the armor. The deal goes bad when ROM realizes that his new body is faulty and starts to decay. Despite this however when ROM crosses paths with Dr. Dredd (a wraith warlock) who he instinctively recognizes as a Dire Wraith he attacks him unarmed with out hesitation. Despite Dredd's shape shifting abilities and ROM's dying body ROM manages to strangle Dredd to death with his bare hands! In or out of Galadorian armor ROM is bad ass and that's why Marvel needs to man the f__k up and get him out of legal limbo and back into the mainstream Marvel Universe again!

Barring anything Earth shattering ROM related falling into my lap I'm probably gonna be on something of a hiatus for a while but I'll still be checking and responding to comments.

Dan Abnett's response to my idea about how to bring back ROM! Hope we can hopefully believe in

I just came up with the idea of trying to contact Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning on FB yesterday and woe and behold look who I hear back from first thing early in the morning about taking my idea to Marvel's legal department. I replied to Dan by letting him know about what I've seen and heard about the buzz surrounding ROM on this blog as well as stuff like the Comics Alliance ROM http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/09/rom-spaceknight-comics/ posting just before the 1st Annihilators series and more recently what went on at Jim Shooter's blog http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/06/coming-of-rom-knights-tale.html So let's just hope Marvel's legal department seriously takes this under consideration. So while we wait here's some for your viewing pleasure in the mean time . . . .

Left click on FB screen image capture to magnify This is a commission piece that had been worked on for some untold melania now by Scott Rosema for Tony who is one of the billions of followers of this blog. But now that it's done we can all marvel at it. There's so much cool stuff going on I don't even now where to start. The colors are the first thing that really grabs me about this. The flames on Firefall, Starshine's light eyes or the reflections on the Deathstar like flooring are just a few of the features that makes this such an awesome illustration to ogle at. Be especially mindful of how the artist maintained the integrity of the Galadorian Hall of Science setting and the attention to detail. Tony, the proud owner of this piece has a few words he wants to share with the viewers,
"This is another awesome commission piece done by Scott Rosema for my buddy Tony the Fyrfall. Set in the Hall of Science, we can see the Spaceknights defending their human remains against some unseen threat. Notice the attention to details like the reflections, colors, wall art, and names on the crypts."

ROM referrences from new comic book day this week, new digital art & my Youtube rant

I was tinkering around with this ROM drawing from his page in the Marvel Universe Handbook (#9 Vol. 1) art work. I ended up giving the drawing a black back ground, glowing eyes and some Micronaut style fonts. Then I came across what I think is the coolest Torpedo custom figure I've seen out there. And believe it or not this one is at least 1 of the 3 that I know of. His visor looks especially awesome! So I thought it might be cool to dress up the image with some cool fonts along with some lighting affects.
The link below will take you to my Youtube video on Annihilators Earthfall #1. I'm not happy with the decreased pg count and the cover price along with the RR back story but for what it's worth it did have some high points such as this nod to the ROM legacy with this line IKON drops on these aliens which happen to be disguised as humans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2ueLWAmq9o

And here's something I just learned about Friday afternoon thanks to a comment left on the last posting before this one by a fellow who goes by the name of Brandon. The comment was vague but it prompted me to check out FF#9 on Youtube where I fortunately found a reviewer (majinoni6) who pointed this out. What you see here is one of several Reed Richards from different dimensions involved in some sort of conflict with the Inhumans. There is a sect of Dire Wraiths who are part of some alien cult that worships King Black Bolt. As you can see here "Reed" turns a familiar looking weapon on some Dire Wraiths. We've been seeing the Dire pop up in the FF series a couple of times now and I know we'll be seeing more of them in issues 10 & 11.
So if you've seen my Annihilator Earthfall Youtube video you know I'm not too happy with Marvel right now. But I must say this homage to ROM has made some in roads to Marvel getting back on my good graces. So last year we had Darkstar: Winter Guard and this year we've got the Annihilators and now this. It seems if nothing else the ROM buzz has made it's way to Marvel's high ups in the last year or two so I guess that's cause for some cautious optimism. Operative word here "cautious".