RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books ROM: Spaceknight

I remember saving up my allowance when I was a kid to buy this. When I finally got enough money the Ben Franklin store sold out. I instead purchased Micronauts!


I loved the Rom comic, I haven;t read one in years I wonder if it still holds up well?

Rom was one of those books I got into long after it had ceased being printed, like Alpha Flight as it was always in the 20p bins.
Really enjoyed reading it.

I usually dislike Al Milgrom's artwork so much I skip a book but it was tolerable on this.

ROM is the Hamlet of toy-based comics.

-Chris Oakley

I think I may still have the complete ROM and Micronauts runs in a bin at my dad's with my first run, thanks to the crappy prequels they have no value anymore, Star Wars comics.

The Dire Wraiths invaded Earth at some stage didn't they? I remember seeing a crossover in X-men.

i never heard of rom or a ben franklin store. though micronauts were the bomb!

I had some Micronauts toys as a, uh, kid. Only Micronauts comic I read was the crossover with X-men when Baron Karza and Kitty Pryde swap bodies. And I never read the last issue so I don't know how it turned out.

I didn't care for the Micronauts comic, but I did like the toy line, I has a dozen or so figures.

Rob, I think Ben Franklin stores were mainly in rural areas, they died out in the late 80's I believe.

It looks like there still are some around:
http://www.benfranklinstores.com/storeselect.asp

I just read an issue of Byrne's FF where they're fighting Mephisto and suddenly earth starts being invaded by aliens. A couple of pages later the invasion is over and a caption box tells you to read ROM for the full story. Kinda annoying.

I remember that issue.
Quite funny really that it looked like the war that was a huge deal in the Rom comic, was just a short footnote in another!

And now I read an issue where they just found out Psycho-Man has been fucking with them for the last few issues and they're about to fight him, but another fucking caption box tells you the story continues in Secret Wars II issue 2. Right. So I look up and download the fucking issue, and it's a bunch of drivel about The Beyonder walking (or floating) around New York. At one point he bumps into the Fantastic Four and sorta stands there while they comfront Psycho-Man, who disappears half a page later. Then Beyonder is off to fuck with another comic. That's all. There's no reason that one and a half page scene couldn't have been in the Fantastic Four comic.

Fucking Beyonder, man. Fucking asshole.

I remember Jim Shooter getting a lot of heat for those tactics from fans but the company loved it because it really catapulted Marvel's sales.

At least in the first Secret Wars series they had the decency to only interrupt the story for one issue, and then in the next the characters would be back after the whole thing was over, which is a pretty damn good hook if you think about it. Looks like the second one is just Beyonder going around the Marvel U, fucking with readers.

They did a bunch of cameos with a villain killer out of Captain America around that time as well. Shooter forcing those things on writers is part of why even though successful, creators don't care for him.

I remember the Secret Wars 2 crossovers. They were like fucking termites - popping up everywhere, undermining everything. I had no interest in a story where the Beyonder takes human form (in a gay white track suit at that) so the entire thing drove me nuts.

Dave is crazy for a man in a gay white track suit.

But that doesn't mean I don't like your tight pale blue ensemble.

There was also some sort of shit about the X-men being made by El Beyonce to forget the New Mutants at some stage which seemed very pointless.

When in Australia....

Dude, you obviously have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. If you did, you would know that Secret Wars II is the gold standard that all other cross-overs were measured against...

You need you some learnin' boy!

ROM was a great series. I have issues 1-58. It's a storyline as if you took a pre-marvel alien-invasion short story from the 1959-1963 period ( a la TALES TO ASTONISH, TALES OF SUSPENSE, STRANGE TALES, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, etc.), and turned it into a regular series.

I especially liked the issues 36-50, inked by Akin and Garvey, that really enhanced the art. Mantlo wrote all 75 issues, plus annuals.
Sal Buscema pencilled issues 1-58.
Ditko pencilled issues 59-75.

Great Cold War-era alien invasion stuff. And ROM himself is about as classic a hero as you'll find.

Mantlo also did the MICRONAUTS series, and was blessed to have an even better run on that series, with great collaborative artists Michael Golden (1-12), Pat Broderick (19-38), Gil Kane(38, 40-45), and Jackson Guice (48-58)

Funny but true !