Can't think of a good posting title for this bullshit

Left click to enlarge . . . fuck marvel

Well I'm a spaceknight . . he's a spaceknight . . she's a spaceknight . . they're spaceknights  . . wouldn't you like to be a spaceknight to? Yeah it seems like every fucken space cadet in Marvel from Venom to a bunch of nobodies in the pages of some Guardians of the Galaxy spin off are now "spaceknights". Please do not try to brain storm this! These are not Galadorian spaceknights nor do they have anything to do with Galadorian spaceknights any more then Venom does. It's just that simple!
This is nothing more then the latest installment of the sullying process of ROM's legacy that marvel has been engaged in for the past 15 fucken years. A process I have blogged about extensively over the years with everything from that horrible spaceknights mini-series (2001) to The Annihilators (2011) and those those poorly handled Hybrid returns in recent years not to mention Galador's destruction and there's so much more as many of you followers of this blog know. As for you detractors of the IDW ROM reboot you need to understand that the ROM you knew is never coming back.
You think even if marvel obtained the rights to ROM again (which will never happen) they would reintroduce him exactly as you remember him with mittens and all? Think about what's been going on in the Marvel Universe in general as well as how marvel has so thoroughly fucked up everything they own that's ROM related and tell me you can just make The Greatest of The Spaceknights show up in the middle of all that shit just as you remembered him in the 80s? Folks, the 80s are over and same goes for the 90s which was a decade that was still giving us some good ROM related continuity in the pages of The Incredible Hulk, New Warriors and X-Man (Nate Grey).
By all means continue to enjoy those ROM back issues, tie-ins, Easter eggs, foot notes and of course the other random old school stuff I try to bring you here. But if there was ever a time to hit the reboot button I'd say it was now. I would certainly understand the cautious optimism most of you have about IDW's upcoming series I can't blame you all on that one but at the same time try to keep an open mind. Think of it in terms of Star Wars The Force Awakens. It may not be quite like reliving the thrill of seeing the original trilogy but it probably at least gave you a taste of it and was a Hell of a lot better then those shitty prequels. For ROM fans, marvel has been giving us nothing but Star Wars prequels (barring The 2010 Winter Gaurd mini-series) in the past 15 years but I think IDW's efforts will be something closer to The Force Awakens. But if not, I'll have a thing or two to say about that and it probably won't be G rated.

Speaking of bullshit related to all things "spaceknights" and Guardians of The Galaxy check out this video that will make you cringe at how uninformed the speaker in it is when he tries to talk about ROM it's really fucken annoying . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBE346xaocQ

On the flip side this is kind of a cool recent article about comics based on 80s licensed properties  (Rom, Crystar, Shogun Warriors, Micronauts, G.I.Joe, Transformers and He-Man) http://www.denofgeek.us/books-comics/action-figures/251402/the-7-greatest-comic-series-based-on-toy-lines

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.

The Inside Scoop

Previews Comic Shop catalog January 2016 issue 328 

Something interesting I came across last night. No time for a fancy posting just a quick copy and paste . . .

Rom the Space Knight #0 will feature an introductory 10-page story of Rom’s arrival on Earth, an incident that sets up an ongoing Rom series launching in July 2016.
“Many people have only heard of Rom but that’s it,” continued Ryall. “And those that do know of his past iteration might have some preconceived notion of what this series will be. And while we can promise that the DNA of the character as established with the original toy remains intact, there will be surprises galore as people experience a new universe built entirely around Rom and company.”
As an added bonus, the issue will contain additional content including character sketches, creator interviews and a glimpse of things to come. This debut represents a major launch for IDW and Hasbro next year, and this special first story will be free throughout the universe next May!

The only thing missing from the ROM 2016 zero issue cover

There are so many different things that would have been great to insert into those dialogue bubbles it almost boggles the human mind (examples: Always bet on silver! Wassup bitches!? or just simply wwwassssssup! and so on). Big thanks to Gary Martin Jr. for bringing to my attention a very cool article (Dec.10) by Trent Hunsaker about what will hopefully be a triumphant return for ROM next year. And I'm not just saying that because Trent made it clear in his article that he's something of a fan of this blog (which makes you a ROM fan who's most certainly not a dick) but he does offer some insight as to what we might expect and reasons to be optimistic about the new series. I would especially recommend this article for those of you who are feeling a little more on the pessimistic side about ROM's non marvel return.
I just want to correct you on a couple little things Trent the IDW announcement for the new series (along with a new Micronauts series) came out back in July. And also, thus far "Venom spaceknight" has shown no indication of having any sort of ROM related continuity to it. The expression "what's in a name" totally applies here the spaceknight title seems to pertain to venom as a cosmic adventurer as opposed to Galadorian spaceknights. So now that we got all that out of the way let's get to the article . . .
http://www.bigshinyrobot.com/59400/rom-returns/

Also, this is why I love people who leave comments on this blog like nikoskap in the previous posting. The cover artist has this art work (uncolored) on deviant art and he actually responds to comments so here's your chance to let him know what you think about it  . . .
http://spacefriend-krunk.deviantart.com/art/Rom-0-Cover-for-FCBD-577222062

By artist Andrea Shock left click to enlarge

Dec. 13th Update: Look what Gary found just in time for me to post while Hanukkah is still going on. How many of you out there remember that mid to late 80s TV show Small Wonder about the android girl care taker known as V.I.C.I?

Cover homage or coincidence?

It recently occurred to me that there was a stained glass themed cover in the original ROM series as well although I have no idea if that served as any sort of inspiration for the Onyx 3 variant. Not much new going on but I do have something cool to share I've been sitting on for a while for reasons which I can't quite remember. This ones comes to us from the letters page of New Warriors 65 (thanks Gary).

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My collaborator Gary Martin Jr. wanted me to include the following information in this posting. Apparently it's possible we might see some sort of sneak peak of the new ROM series as early as later this month. But don't quote me on that because here's the following from Gary and I quote . . .
"Chris Ryall had mentioned on twitter recently that he has sent the cover art & issue info of ROM The Space Knight #0 to Diamond Distributors, who would then reveal all to the public sometime in December. Diamond's Previews catalog that came out last week says that next month's issue, Previews #328 due to be released 12/23/15, will have extensive information about all of 2016's Free Comic Book Day comics, of which ROM #0 is our most anticipated participant. Depending on whether or not Onyx #4 would have an unexpected sneak-peek or, more surprisingly, would come out ahead of Diamond's reveal...PREVIEWS #328 should be the first printed appearance of IDW's new ROM!"

December 2nd Update: Big thanks to Joseph for giving me a heads up on this from farcebook! Looks like Gary was onto something obviously but I dare say even he didn't see this coming this soon. Its' gonna take a bit of getting used to with ROM having fingers and all but so far this is looking good. For ROM fans seeing this cover is the equivalent of fans of STAR WARS seeing that scene from the trailer where Han Solo says "Chewie, we're home". Really looking forward to that to it better not suck like those shitty pre-quels!

Thanks again Joseph for bringing this to my attention. As a mutual Transformers fan you might like my latest sketch card. To see it in full . . .
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/Optimus-Prime-Bluestreak-fan-art-sketch-card-575875140

Damn, both my letter and fan art made it into Onyx

Onyx #3 November 2015 left click to enlarge

I seem to be on a roll lately with discovering my letters turning up here and there. First it was Avengers Academy 27 from 2012, then earlier this year it was BACK ISSUE Magazine 76 and this week it's with Onyx 3. The funny thing is I never wrote a single letter back in the late 80s when I was at my comic book collecting peak. You can get a better look at the art work here . . .
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/Rom-spaceknight-and-Onyx-team-up-sketch-art-550782374