Fan made Rom CGI video & a Rom custom figure made from Iron Man

From the video's creator, "Test ROM animation. As per the usual disclaimer, I do not own the character. If it looks somewhat amateurish, that's because I'm an amateur at it. Makes sense, eh?" Amateurish it may be but it's also ironic that I found it on the heels of the meteor impacts all over Russia the day before. Plus on general principle I still dig it after all how many Rom CGI type videos are there on Youtube?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxDlFZXP3RA&feature=player_embedded

Just making a little update today Saturday the 17th here with something I found recently on Deviant Art. The original image features this custom Rom figure with the Guardians of the Galaxy set. But it looked familiar to me and then I realized that I actually have that Iron Man figure that the Rom custom is made from. Now why didn't I ever think of that?

Bill Mantlo from this past weekend

Just wanted to share with you all this nice photo of Bill from his brother's latest visit. As you can see he came bearing gifts. Regardless of most anything going on in your life if you're a fan of Bill Mantlo's work it's gotta make you feel better about things over all when you see happy moments like this for Bill.

 

The following clip art was published in Marvel titles (Captain Marvel #6 vol. 3 2001 & Universe X #3 2000) for issues that came out right after Marvel lost the rights to both Rom and The Micronuats. What I like about these panels is how the respective artists managed to represent both Baron Karza and Rom with out actually drawing them technically speaking. That sort of thing takes a unique skill set as an artist. So here comes my pun you might say in the case of Baron Karza you might say he's just a shadow of his former self in comparison to my last posting.

Unlike Rom spaceknight and The Micronauts The Human Fly was not inspired by a toy line but instead by real life daredevil Rick Rojatt. There's not a whole lot of fan art for The Human Fly out there on the internet but I would have to say this rendering I found on Deviant Art is the best I've come across so far.

Also, there's a number of  fan art pieces in the Cloak & Dagger fan folder on Deviant Art. be sure to scroll through all 6 pages there's some really great stuff there http://cloak-n-dagger-fc.deviantart.com/favourites/?set=48825402&offset=0

New Rom commission art & cool 70s Underoos ad

Another big thanks to Rick Hansen for sharing this newly acquired commission piece today which he is the proud owner off. The artist is Cory Hamscher, has done work for Marvel, Image and DDP. Magnify the image it looks even cooler then.

Left click to enlarge

I was browsing at a copy of Micronauts #11 recently when I came across one of those full page ads for all sorts of comic book related merchandise. This one really brings back some memories aside from a couple pairs of Underoos I also used to have that Incredible Hulk utility belt when I was a kid. Micronauts 1-12 was what I like to call that Mantlo/Golden era of the series that gave that amazing combination of great writing and bad ass art work as scene here in this panel with Baron Karza on page 2.

February 11 update: for a better look at those cool super hero utility belts check this out http://marvel1980s.blogspot.com/2012/03/1980-incredible-hulk-utility-belt-by.html

Rom related trading cards and recent Brian Bendis commentary

A big thanks to Rick Hansen who sent me this card along with this Facebook message: "I know you're familiar with this scene, but I thought I'd share. The owner of my LCS gave me an entire set of 1991 Hulk trading cards and this one is obviously notable." The panel used on this trading card is from Incredible Hulk 374 in which Rick Jones was being tortured by skrulls who among other things impersonated heroes he's been a side kick to.

Left click to enlarge

Most of you already know about these Over Power cards as described at Lee's site Rom Spaceknight Revisited: http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/comics/Rom/othermedia/index.shtml
Also, note worthy is the Rom electronic toy trading card by Plaidstalliones: http://www.plaidstallions.com/tradingcards.html

You may also be interested to know about Turbo having had her own Over Power card. And indeed Turbo is quite over powering here especially with her huge boobs but I'm not complaining. It appears as if these Over Power cards had original illustrations created for them. Beyond that I couldn't tell ya anything about these cards since RPG games have never been my thing. I also couldn't tell ya anything about this Dire Wraith trading card which seems to part of some sort of Magic The Gathering type card game. But I can tell you the clip art used for the card is from the first page of Rom# 49 that kicked off the Massacre Of Clareton which among other tragedies in the series was the death of Brock Jones (Torpedo II).

Brought to my attention recently by Gary Martin Jr. are 3 other Marvel trading cards that feature the covers of Marvel titles that have Rom and Dire Wraiths on them. I'm only making a text mention of the first two because neither card features any sort of distinctive decorative trim so there's nothing to see there that you all haven't seen before: Marvel 1st Covers series II (1991) -West Coast Avengers #1 / X-Men Cover Trading Cards series II (1990) - X Men #187.

Now this one from last year's Avengers Assemble trading cards series is kinda interesting. I say that because this is now the second time I know of that Marvel published Rom's name and likeness in the last couple of years. The first time I noticed it at a local comic shop in the Secret Wars II Omni Bus TPB late last year and as far as I can tell no one is screaming for a law suite over it.


Brian Michael Bendis: Sometimes it's the thought that counts the following is a quote from an iFanboy article from three weeks ago with Bendis on upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy projects:  "While all this info about the Guardian of the Galaxy is interesting, we did ask the question that was on everyone’s minds: what does this mean for ROM: SpaceKnight? After stopping laughing, Bendis responded, “Listen, no one would love the return of ROM: SpaceKnight more than myself. I have made it clear to anyone who will listen, the minute anything like that ever became available to us…” and then clarified that Marvel doesn’t own the rights to ROM: SpaceKnight, “I would stop the story I was in the middle of doing…and I said this about Avengers too. Right in the middle of any event or any storyline…when I was doing Moon Knight,  the minute I was able to write the words “ROM: SpaceKnight” into a script, he would literally just crash into the story. Boom! That would be it”.

What a difference some color makes and my latest back issue find

You can see the original art work here:

 http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&global=1&q=rom+spaceknight#/d2dnhtm

 A couple weeks ago I found Cloak & Dagger #11 vol. 2 (1986) in a back issue bin for a couple of bucks. I was interested in it because part of it takes place in Bethlehem and in essence was another story revolving around the Israel arab conflict written by Bill Mantlo and penciled by June Brigman. This would have been a great opportunity to have CnD team up with Sabra but I think Mantlo wanted to avoid controversy for this issue given Bethlehem's disputed status. Instead, a new character by the name of Beth Stein is used in the story and she never uses the name Israel for her country of origin even though it's obvious she's an Israeli counter terrorist agent out for revenge on islamic terrorists who are responsible for a bus bombing.

The drug and arms trail that CnD follow later takes them to South East Asia in which they are forced to take down a Vietnam war vet turned drug Warlord thanks to his latent mutant powers triggered by the opium he's forced local villagers to harvest.

Left click to enlarge

I have to say I enjoyed this issue more then the other Cloak & Dagger stories I've read in recent months from 80s back issue boxes. Taking CnD out of the New York City street level adventures to something more broader in scope that brings history and politics into the story telling.

Those last page preview headlines for Rom guest appearances

Rom made countless cameo appearances in various Marvel titles (usually as flash backs) through out the 80s and 90s but as far as I know he only made three actual appearances in other titles in which he was the central focus of that issue's story line. Those issues being Power Man & Iron Fist #73, Marvel Two in One #99 and Incredible Hulk #296. So I thought it might be cool to feature all the last page preview headlines for the proceeding issues of the before mentioned titles.

First up is Power Man & Iron Fist #72 . .



. .  and for some reason there was also a preview headline in Power Man & Iron Fist #71 as well. Don't ask me why I got all this stuff from Gary Martin Junior and I just work here.



This one's from Marvel Two In One #98 . . .

 

. . . and last but not least Incredible Hulk #295



In just a couple of days we'll see boisterous Bill Mantlo take on the international drug and arms trade don't miss it!

How Bill Mantlo Created A Universe

Ok one more posting before February is here. I want to share this which comes from the pages of Amazing Heroes magazine published in December 1981. I think this is really a special story so I posted the article as text so that those who don't speak English, or at least not as a first language can use the translation feature on this blog.

How Bill Mantlo created a universe
How did the Micronauts come to be? Unlike most such merchandising comic books, which are the product of business deals, Micronauts came straight from the creator of the book: Bill Mantlo. "My son had just reduced a mountain of X-Mas presents to disposable rubble," Mantlo wrote in an issue of Comics Journal a few months before the issue came out, "and sat, in the midst of this mess of paper, tearing a group of tiny shiny figurines out of their vacuum sealed packages. The figures seemed to catch the sparkle of the lights from my parents' Christmas tree. They were unlike any toys I had ever seen - and I've run the gamut in my time, from Dodge City to G.I. Joe to the Shogun Warriors. I asked Adam (that's my son's name) if I could see them before they went the way of all plastic and, when he handed them to me, I held in my palm the four basic figures of a new concept in toys called…The Micronauts." Standing there that Christmas morning, Mantlo began to fantasize, to make up the foundation for what would soon become one of Marvel's most popular series. "I envisioned them as small, microscopic even", Mantlo remembered, "inhabiting an other-verse apart from, but conjunctive with ours." Not only did Mantlo create the basic concept for the comic, but he began to consider the possibilities for characterization the characters possessed. "Space Glider seemed to suggest a Reed Richards nobility, an aspect of command, of dignity. Acroyear, faceless, his armor gleaming, a fantastic sword clenched in his coldly metallic hand, seemed to hearken back to a warrior Mr. Spock. For some reason Galactic Warrior seemed insect-like - I can almost hear clicks and whistles and strange scraping interjected into his speech. But Time Traveler…there was a mystery there, glimmerings of cosmic vastness, intimations of knowledge and space and time all having been broken down and reassembled to produce something entirely new… unexplainable…different." If this were you or I, we would just sit and indulge our fantasies for half an hour, perhaps, and then go on to our jobs. But Bill Mantlo's job consists in indulging his fantasies, and he knew he was onto something good. The following week, he walked into Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim shooter's office and told him of his idea; Shooter, interested, got in touch with the manufacturer, Mego. "A month later," Mantlo went on, "we had preliminary photographs of the entire Micronauts line. I was, to say the least, floored. I had already begun extrapolating, based on just the four original figurines, a whole series of concepts. Now here, in front of me, were literally hundreds of additional figures, thousands of new suggested concepts…in effect, a whole world in need of a rationale for being." And thus, a Christmas present resulted in the creation of a whole fictional world- in a comic book that has now accumulated an impressive run of 40 issues and was, because of it's popularity, selected as one of three titles to be sold exclusively on the direct-sales market. Maybe Adam Mantlo deserves a co-creator credit on the book. After all, it was his toys that started it all. 

And lest we not forget that it was not too long after that Bill Mantlo would again create another universe that contained spaceknights, dire wraiths, a Golden Galaxy and a Dark Nebula. Sadly we never got a cross over of these two Mantlo inspired universes as scene in this awesome fan art.