I decided to go dollar bin diving at my comic shop this weekend as I got word they made a ton of new acquisitions. Turns out they picked up a good chunk of the ROM series. I was intrigued. I had never actually seen this book before and they had quite a few; perfect if I wanted to start reading it. Then I opened up an issue and rediscovered that ROM was done by the writer/artist team of Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, who did some kick ass runs of Iron Man in the 1970's. I was sold right there. I got a total of 17 issues in two good size runs. I only have a chance to go to my shop about once over 2-3 weeks, so I took the chance and picked up a good run of issues. So far I've only read one issue, but I'm hooked. This book is excellent. Now I have to get to my shop to pick up every other issue they have! The series is 75 issues + 4 annuals, and annual #1 was among my acquisitions.
To start, I read the Wikipedia page for the fair spaceknight to get the character background before diving into issue #26 (which was the earliest issue I found). There were quite a few awesome bits in that one issue alone that I'd like to share with you.
Galactus on Galador! Galador is ROM's home world, so right there you know that this issue is going to be action packed! "ROM" is a three letter word. You know what else is? "BAM". I'm just saying...
It doesn't take long for things to get AWESOME. Page three contains this very serious warning.
That's right kids, Stan "The Man" Lee HIMSELF says that this issue contains so much action that it will FUCK YOU UP! Now I was going to read this issue while eating lunch, but when I saw this I had to stop. You see, when encountering Xtreme Xcitement I follow the same rules as swimming: I don't do it within 30 minutes of eating. After I had digested for a full 40 minutes (to be safe), I continued reading. Let me tell you, it did not disappoint. Although part of it did get a little gay.
But it just gets more MOTHER FUCKING MIND BLOWING AWESOME from there! Turns out that in the last ish there appeared a twin of ROM named "Terminator." Terminator battled Galactus while ROM snuck aboard Galactus' ship to wreck up the place. Galactus gets mildly irritated by Terminator and, as the panel says, he suffers a punishment such as no other spaceknight has suffered before.
HE GOT HIS FUCKING BALLS BLOWN OFF!!! JESUS CHRIST!!!!!
Seriously, never have a I read a comic and reacted so strongly to a combat scene as I did when I saw this. I need to frame this panel or something. It is too awesome for words.
Now you know why I must own every single issue of this series. Honestly, how can you not want to read a series that has this as a cover to an annual?
His metallic package and glowing eyes herald the Awesome.
2 comments:
Great blog, Doktor! I discovered it through a link on Bully's site, and I'm really enjoying "Iron Man Versus"! I just picked up a bunch of ROM, too, and agree the character is great-- I'd read him sporadically as a kid when the comics were first coming out, but never in any regular way. Mantlo was a really great comics writer. Thanks for all the great posts!
Thanks for the nice words! Manlo is one of my all-time favorite comic writers. I'm really enjoying doing the Iron Man Versus segments, and I don't think I'll run out of material for quite some time.
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