FSC: ROG 2000

I’ve mentioned before just how gung-ho I was about the initial offerings from Pacific Comics, one of the fist of the new independent publishers who cropped up in the nascent Direct Sales marketplace of comic book specialty shops once it had been shown that it was possible to turn a profit there. While my enthusiasm for the group only lasted a year or so–I continued to buy their books after that when they appealed to me, but not absolutely everything as I had done at the outset–during that time I scooped up pretty much their entire output, whether I had any particular interest in it or not. This included fantasy and horror and science fiction titles that I’d typically leave on the shelves. But I didn’t want to be left out if Pacific Comics became a real contender in the market. Turns out I didn’t have anything to worry about on that score, as the firm overreached within a couple of years and was out of business by the middle of the decade. But in their early days, looking for potentially profitable books to publish, they put out this oversized collection of ROG 2000 by John Byrne, who was already by this point about the hottest artist to come down the pike in some time.

ROG 2000 had been a creation of Byrne’s in the final days of his time as a fan. The character had first appeared in a self-referential story in the pages of CONTEMPORARY PICTORIAL LITERATURE, a fanzine put out by a collective of fans most of whom would wind up working in the field in a short while. The joke of ROG 2000 was that there were two other members of the group named Roger–Roger Stern and Roger Slifer–and so Byrne wound up doing a spot illustration of a futuristic robot ROG that swiftly evolved into the mascot of the publication. The first actual story featuring the character had appeared in CONTEMPORARY PICTORIAL LITERATURE #11 and was written by Stern and inked by Bob Layton. The whole thing was simply a collection of jokes at the expense of the fanzine’s assorted contributors, all of whom appeared in the strip, as did Duffy Vohland, who had started working up at Marvel.

Byrne’s design for the character was a good balance between cartoonyness and plausibility, and he became something of a signature character in Bryne’s early days. After John broke in at Charlton, editor Nick Cuti suggested that he and Byrne might consider doing a more serious version of the character in a back-up strip that could run in the recently-launched E-MAN title. The CPL Gang had a strong relationship with the staff at Charlton, having produced the firm’s in-house FOOM-style fan magazine the CHARLTON BULLSEYE for them. As this represented an opportunity for Byrne, he leapt at the chance, producing four short ROG 2000 installments that ran in E-MAN #6, 7, 9 & 10.

These four ROG 2000 stories were a bit obscure, but they helped Bryne to hone his skills to the point where he could eventually pick up work at Marvel–Duffy Vohland, who appeared in the first of the four strips as a tavern owner, championed Byrne’s work to the editors up at Marvel. In this incarnation, ROG 2000 is a cab driver by vocation who winds up getting involved in a series of strange misadventures in the big city. The pilot outing has ROG contending with the super-villain Magno, who wields a weapon devised by ROG’s own creator, the inventor Burns. Burns has also perfected a plastic-based female android, Syntac, who helps ROG out in defeating the villain. It’s a light-hearted and not entirely serious strip, but it was loose and had a lot of Byrne’s signature charm in the artwork. Later installments would bring the robot into conflict with a haunted house containing an all-devouring protoplasmic blob, a bog-monster in the sewers and an urban witch who temporarily gives ROG the unwanted gift of humanity.

By 1982 when this collection was published, Byrne was riding high as a creator. His work on UNCANNY X-MEN had made that series a fan favorite, and he was now just starting to both write and illustrate his favorite childhood title FANTASTIC FOUR, a run that would later be acknowledged as a classic. Seeing the fan interest in Byrne and smelling dollar signs, Pacific offered to collect all of the ROG 2000 material in a single publication. The one potential downside was that the stories previously showcased in E-MAN would have to run in black and white here. Byrne was game, and he provided a new wraparound cover for this publication

ROG 2000 had a distinctive enough design that it went on to inspire artist Joe Staton when he was called upon to redesign the DC character Robotman as part of the New Doom Patrol tryout in SHOWCASE. Staton had been drawing the E-MAN series that the ROG 2000 back-ups had first seen print in, so there’s no question that he was aware of the character and took some points from his design, virtually lifting it entirely. After SHOWCASE came out, Byrne did a cover for the COMIC READER pointing out the similarity.

I had read two of the ROG 2000 stories after Modern Comics reissued a number of Charlton back issues in 3-Bags distributed through discount stores in the late 1970s, so I was familiar with the character when this compilation was offered for sale. As I’d liked those two stories, I was happy to pick it up and get the rest of them. The strip gets more sure-footed as each installment is released, moving away from its early self-referentiality and fannish roots to become a entertaining feature all its own. In the years since, Byrne has occasionally drawn new ROG 2000 pages and short features, and he’s become something of a signature character for the creator. A version of ROG 2000 almost turned up during Byrne’s first run on SHE-HULK as Roger Robot, but a conflict caused him to leave that series before that particular story had been completed, and it was never picked up again upon his eventual return.