GH: ROM #43

ROM, SPACEKNIGHT is one of the better-remembered series of the early 1980s, this despite the fact that it was a toy tie-in comic. The toy was a bust, but the comic wound up running for 75 issues, a respectable run by any metric. Along with MICRONAUTS, it was writer Bill Manto’s greatest success in this period, as he invested these series with the same amount of imagination and energy that he would have for a typical Marvel book, and used the backdrop of the Marvel Universe aggressively to convince readers that the events taking place in the pages of ROM were a legitimate part of the overall tapestry. In only a few more years, the approach to licensed comics would become very different, as people realized how entangled the later reprint rights became.

The first issue or ROM that I read wasn’t purchased by me. Rather, it was bought by my younger brother Ken. I don’t know what attracted him to this issue–he may have seen the TV commercials for the ROM action figure. But I also read it, of course, but I wasn’t sucked into the story enough to continue buying it. I did pick up the next issue, #5, as it featured the House of Shadows from a very old Doctor Strange story that I had read, and so I felt a connection with the material. But that was it for the moment.

The issue that made me a regular ROM reader was the same one that did this for so many other fans of the day; #17, the first half of a two-part crossover with the X-Men. X-Men was the hottest title in teh land right at that moment, and so an appearance by those miraculous mutants made the issue a must-buy–if for no other reason that that, if you passed it up, its back issue price would inevitably soar higher than the issues around it. So it was an investment, you see, making sure to pick up appearances of the X-Men outside of their home series. And once I’d devoured these two issues, as had happened multiple times before, I simply carried on following the book almost out of habit. It was always an entertaining read, never the best book of the month, but never the worst, either.

ROM was blessed with a very simple story engine that was infinitely flexible and allowed for a broad span of stories, especially ones that intersected with the odd corners of the Marvel Universe that writer Mantlo was keen to play in. ROM was a Spaceknight, a cyborg soldier from the planet Galador who had given up his humanity in order to do battle with the shape-changing Dire Wraiths. As the Wraith menace spread throughout the galaxy, including Earth, the Spaceknights went forth to meet the challenge, and ROM arrived on our planet intent on rooting out the alien menace that was living among us. He carried among his arsenal an Analyzer that could detect the Wraiths even while hidden, and a Neutralizer that would exile them to limbo (since the Comics Code still frowned on killing one’s enemies, even if they were shape-changing blobs.) But because he’s seen gunning down seemingly ordinary people, ROM is branded an alien menace and is often at odds with the conventional authorities and other super heroes, who think he’s the bad guy.

Another of the real strengths of ROM was the consistent presence of artist Sal Buscema. Sal had his ups and downs in terms of his overall popularity in the fan community, but he always delivered a rock solid story in the accepted Marvel house style. And a Sal book always felt like a Marvel book, which was something that benefitted ROM greatly. By the time of issue #43, he was being inked/finished by the team of Ian Akin and Brian Garvey, who gave the book’s finish a lush flavor similar to that of the Marvel black and white magazines of the 1970s. It was an attractive pairing, one that made Sal’s work look fresh after so many years (Sal didn’t always get the best inkers over his stuff, and guys like Mike Esposito spent a decade absolutely massacring his work.)

By this issue, ROM’s quest to defeat the Dire Wraiths had been going on for a while and not really getting anywhere. He’s root out some nest of Wraiths, then move on to a new location, rinse and repeat. What kept the series from becoming totally repetitive is the other Marvel heroes and villains who would show up along the way. So in this issue, ROM has had his humanity restored to him by Quasimodo, the android foe of the Fantastic Four who desires ROM’s armor for himself. So everybody is happy, right? Wrong! Because Quasimodo’s cure is only temporary, and that means that ROM’s new human body is going to decay itself to death in a stone cold hurry. But Quasi has his own problems, as he’s mistaken for the genuine article by the Wraith wizard calling himself Doctor Dredd, who has implanted the essence of ROM’s girlfriend Brandy Clarke inside the cyborg armor of his old love Starshine and now intends to have Starshine battle ROM to the death.

Quasimodo wants no part of this fight, but if he’s going to have to do battle, he’s going to approach it lethally–anything to protect his newfound liberation and mobility. So he and starshine fight a battle that ranges to teh edge of space and back, eventually continuing within the valley where the human ROM is located. While that’s going on, despite the fact that his body is decomposing swiftly (in a relatively horrific manner that it’s surprising the Comics Code of this period allowed), ROM has managed to find Doctor Dredd and he’s attempting to kill the Wraith with his bare hands for what he’s done to Brandy. Starshine, meanwhile, is able to defeat Quasimodo, destroying his essence completely. She thinks it’s ROM that she’s killed, and experiences immediate regret. But the truth comes out a moment later.

Starshine heads back for a reckoning with Dredd, only to find that the half-dead ROM has already killed him. What’s more, she recognizes ROM–but it may be too little, too late, as the Spaceknight passes out, his body having decayed perhaps to the point of no return. It was a good story, but at the point when I was forced to make cutbacks in my purchasing, I had no hesitation about putting ROM on the chopping block. And unlike the other titles that I dropped at this point, I was never able to pick it up again, as teh series wrapped up with #75 as I said earlier. And being a licensed book, there was never a Marvel revival (though other companies have fielded their own versions of ROM over the years. I have read none of them.)