#ROM the Spaceknight

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Rom the Spaceknight - art by Jean Frisano (1981)

[therobotmonster]

The Dire Wraith, Marvel's Perfect Monster

It's no secret I love ROM: Spaceknight.

I've been relatively cool on latter reboots, largely because the things they change to dodge the IP holdings of Parker Bros/Hasbro or Marvel (respectively), always lose something essential.

The largest problem is that the dire wraiths are incomparable villains, and Marvel invented all their meaningful lore. And what lore it is.

The Dire Wraiths are alien demons, creatures that come from a world orbiting a black star in the center of the Dark Nebula. They distill the paranoia of cold war pod-people infiltrators and the demon-loving satanism scare villains of the 70s (and 80s... and 90s... and...) into a single, diabolical package.

Well, two packages, actually-

The wraiths are revealed to be a highly sexually dimorphic species, both in form and social role. Male wraiths were the bulk of who we had dealt with before. They used science and stealth to their advantage.

Their base form was always a placeholder for when Parker Brothers eventually made a Dire Wraith toy for ROM to fight. They never did, so Marvel got to come up with their own finalized design.

And like comic artists are wont to do, they wanted ladies to draw. Look, the artists couldn't resist disrobing them in their first full on-page appearance. Typical.

The Dire Wraith women had been hidden in spooky robes the whole time, so this made it easy. A gender-based murderous uprising later, and we've got our new wraith phenotype.

Now that's a monster! Not some vaguely humanoid, vaguely froglike pale imp, but a starborn demon in the flesh. Froglike hands and feet with melty, loose wax-like flesh pooling about them, more adept at prowling on all fours like a predatory beast than walking like a human being, long whiplike tail, and the face! A lobster-like maw with a lengthy barbed tongue.

A barbed tongue that drips acid.

Before the ladies showed up, it wasn't explained what happened to humans the wraiths replaced. They'd get snatched, there's a replacement, you're pretty sure they're dead.

Now the truth is revealed. The tongue is used to pierce the victim's skull, allowing the wraith to devour their brain and absorb their memories and personality, reducing the whole body to foul ash.

Mind you, they don't have to do this. They can shapeshift all they want on their own. Its questionable if the males even had these barbs, and they may have been doing it like their skrull ancestors.

Yeah, the wraiths are an offshoot of the skrulls... in the same way a cenobite is an offshoot of humanity.

It's the feeding/replacing process that really makes the Dire Wraiths shine as bad guys. They take your life and everything that came with it, your memories, your shape, your identity. But it isn't some infection that changes you into one of them. There's no transition to stop, no 'real you' to reach. It's not a possession you can shake off or have exorcised.

You're dead, and some thing from space is wearing your face, doing unspeakable horror in your name, using your knowledge to do it.

And their motivation is pure malice.

The dire wraiths seek to conquer not just to acquire territory, but because they loathe other forms of life. The science wraiths were merely genocidal and ruthless, moving in secret were possible.

The sorcery wraiths embrace sadism and intimidation as primary weapons, and they love their work.

A science wraith plot is "bind a human bigot to the armor (read: corpse) of a fallen spaceknight so he can kill Rom for us and we can get back to infiltrating the world governments and SHIELD."

A sorcery wraith plot is "torture kidnapped people to death in a sewer so their blood can be infused with a ritual curse, then add that blood to the transfusion supply so demons can hatch out of the most vulnerable in the places where all the medical resources are so we can spread terror, make people afraid to seek medical attention, and kill as many doctors and nurses as possible to make reacting to our other plots more difficult."

Now, some people may say that a group of villains that are literally pure evil are boring. Sometimes this is true. But the wraiths have a couple of advantages.

The first is they're written as having an intense need to be clever. They like their enemies off-balance and afraid, so straightforward villainy is off the table. They have to show off to their fellows by being not just brutal, but diabolical.

The second is the chain of command. Moral ambiguity is for all the various dupes that wraiths set in the Spaceknights' way and individual villains looking to cause trouble, whether its the wraiths pitting the police, SHIELD, or the Jack of Hearts against Rom, the Mad Thinker looking to get a chunk of his tech, the Mole Man mucking things up, or Hybrid setting the X-Men (and later brotherhood) on Rom while plotting a mind controlled harem of X-Waifus...

The wraiths get to subsist on an unrelenting delight in the suffering of all other creatures.

And on the subject of attracting third party attention, Some of that's on the Spaceknights themselves. Because their weapons that send the Wraiths to limbo: Rom's Neutralizer, Starshine's eye-beams, Karas's living fire? The knights see the wraiths revert and get banished.

Outside observers see a metal man disintegrating their neighbors on the street. Even in defeat the Wraiths cause suffering and sow distrust.

A World that is Hell Orbiting a Star that is the Devil

But as witches, the wraiths need their devil to serve and draw power from. And that power is their home solar system: Wraithworld and the Black Sun it orbits.

Both are living things, lovecraftian horrors with will and desires of the most malevolent sort. The black sun radiates dark sorcery and vile mystical energies to sustain Wraithworld and the rest of the dark nebula, and is actually a hole to a reality that is anathema to life as we know it.

Wraithworld is hostile to all life that isn't dire wraiths, and will adjust itself to be hostile to anything that can survive it, up to and including Galactus. The big guy tried to eat both, and was soundly rebuked to the point he fled in fear for his life.

The star's entire surface is covered by an inky blackness that it turns out is hordes of deathwings, living shadow-demons that are among the most potent weapons in the wraith arsenal.

Compared to most of the marvel universe, they're more demonic than most demons, more alien than most aliens, and more horrifying than the vast majority of the monsters. The only other contenders in my book are the Warwolves (who execute a similar shtick in a more surreal and undignified fashion) and maybe the Brood on body-horror merits if they weren't overplayed.

In the end, Wraithworld may have been banished to limbo, but only a more powerful demon could keep the wraiths out of the spotlight permanently.

That demon is, of course, intellectual property.

[sandmandaddy69]

[deepdreamnights]

Spaceknights in Training

From the 1981 "ROM the Spaceknight" TV series.

I'm going to be posting my various reference pieces for my 80s Rom Music Video through the week.

The premise of the project was "What if ROM got a TV Show in 1981." I don't think I entirely hit the mark as Vidu couldn't consistently give me the tokusatsu look I wanted for the Spaceknights and effects, but perfect is the enemy of the good, and I wanted it out in time for Valentines weekend.

And it was an excuse to do some fan-casting.

I couldn't just pick A-listers of the time, however, because if it was a Marvel project in 1981, you got Reb Brown, not Burt Reynolds.

Ron Ely as ROM. Tarzan was over, he could grow his hair out or wear a wig.

Haywood Nelson as Karas/Firefall I - Haywood would have been two years out from the end of What's Happening? and Karas's human form in the comics was yet-another-long-haired-white-guy, so a good fit in my book for Rom's best bud.

Cheryl Ladd as Landra/Starshine I - She would have been one of the major draws from the show, as an ex-Charlie's Angels actress.

Erik Hexum as Rem/Terminator - We never saw Terminator's human form or got his Galadorian name in the comics. Here he's reinterpreted as Rom's brother and Erik Hexum, because I'm still upset about Voyagers being canceled.

My thought is that a TV adaptation would use flashbacks to Galador, dream sequences, and "how I see myself" VS "the real me in the mirror" scenes to give the lead some actual face-time.

Thinking like a TV producer, matching the Galadorian uniforms to the eventual spaceknights they would become, and while i love Galador, it's civilian clothes are dorky as hell. Rom's was first, with Karas and Terminator's photoshopped and in-painted off his.

I generated roughs of them in Midjourney with a combination of text and image prompting. Once I had a stack, each of the costumes were inpainted and photoshopped, and composited faces from various 1978-1981 actor head shots both the old fashioned way and with some help from Huggingface spaces.

Video post is here.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@thealmightyemprex @piterelizabethdevries @themousefromfantasyland @professorlehnsherr-almashy @themetropoliskonboy

"Yes, it seems Rick Jones and Brandy put out a distress call for the heroes of Earth to come to ROM's aid.

And they all answered.

And that, everyone, is why it's nice to be a professional sidekick sometimes. You make so many friends.

And like with "The Technis Imperative", we see that an event doesn't need to have the death of characters in order to show how serious the situation is or to cause drama.

"ROM" is not an event comic. Hell, it's a toy-licensed comic for a toy that wasn't even being sold anymore.

And yet, after 65 issues of ROM fighting alone, the stakes growing larger and larger, seeing the threat the Wraiths bring first-hand, and the fate of the world unclear, we can see in this story something more awesome and glorious than half the big crossover event comics where heroes are slaughtered for no good reason, or heroes fighting each other, or the dark, dreary depression that comes with some of those tales.

The superheroes of the Marvel Universe stand alongside ROM and fight a great evil.

We're invested in these characters after everything they've been through: emotional connection, a difficult journey, and a triumphant finale.

That's all you need!"

(LINKARA: ATOP THE FOURTH WALL - THE ROMTROSPECTIVE, #41-75)

[farsight-the-char]

ROM THE SPACEKNIGHT AND JUBILATION LEE VARIANT BY PEACH MOMOKO

(X-men 30)

[spidersonicbatl0]

In case don’t why I pick these characters

Transformers comics in the 1980s were published by marvel. There also did take place in earth 616 before getting retcon.

Godzilla also have a comic series published by marvel that took place in earth 616. The only difference is, it still canon to earth 616.

Marvel zombies did a crossover with evil dead. It also canon to marvel zombies timeline.

Dr who comics were punished by marvel and canon in marvel multiverse.

Predator and alien comics rights are own by marvel currently.

Ryu, marvel vs capcom

Mega man x & zero. Marvel vs capcom

Rom the space knight was a toy that got a marvel comics series that introduced a ton of cosmic lore.

Invincible has a crossover issue with Spider-Man that is canon to his series.

Conan the barbarian has comics published by marvel that made him more popular

[luimnigh]

Wait, Forge was first introduce creating weapons to help fight the Dire Wraiths?

Fucking hell, ROM is really integral to a lot of Marvel characters.

[tomfowlerstuff]

Rom

[rzc11]

Rom the space knight

[doodlebags]

[webshootersandwingdings]

Captain Marvel (2023) #4

ROM Variant Cover by David Marquez

[therobotmonster]

Most of us don't like to look down.

It's how we're kept under control. Most can't stand seeing chrome where there should be skin. The eternal near-hunger is worse in the first few weeks after the augmentation but one adapts to it quickly. There's a dozen little nudges like that that all work to push your desire toward a single overriding goal.

Reclaiming our humanity.

I want mine back, too, but my desires are still my own. In my mind I never had a body. I was a perspective with hands. My reflection never interested me. When I saw myself in my mind, I was just a abstract person-like shape, only as detailed as child's self-portrait.

Chrome, seen or unseen, doesn't bother me. Nor does my mission.

The choices in my design, however, those I resent.

The living armor would have bound to us whole. It would have functioned without making us a part of itself. The hunger and feelings of confinement could have been simply turned off with a flip of a switch.

They could have given us fingers.

The impulses that would have driven us mad in our palandanium prisons were shut off easily. I cannot feel boredom. The constant hissing of my respirator systems feels like breathing with my old lungs. My more primal passions were subdued. Why then did I still feel the need to pop joints I don't have? Why was my absent mouth always slightly dry?

The answer is obvious. They didn't want their knights to become lords. They made us to frighten demons and were shocked to find us frightening to themselves. So they made us addicted to our humanity and hold it hostage. To keep us from becoming kings they tried to make us into dogs starved for the hunt.

But in the un-boredom of deep space, I did not dream of the warm embrace of living flesh or the taste of wine in the summer as did so many of my comrades. I turned my mind inward to quiet, unseen ends.

I found my switches.

The elders engineered magnificently. Without their shackles I am the perfect machine or retribution they envisioned. The demons I once feared, on this world, now fear me.

Those cackling bloated abominations that gleefully call themselves Dire Wraiths pretended to be devils, but when unseen hands tear their witch-mother's acid barbed tongue from her mouth in front of their eyes, their truth was revealed. I saw sniveling, pathetic, fragile creatures who die in fear and confusion, no different than any other strain of talking meat.

They were not the demons I had been sent to banish. They were parasites supping at the power of greater beings, servile insects who mewled and worshiped greater evils like the vile, black star at the heart of their dark nebula. When they see power and cruelty, they worship.

I have both in excess. They see nothing else.

Yet unseen, I see their true nature and my own. I am not the king the elders feared they would create.

I am Unam.

I am the Unseen.

I was a Spaceknight of Galador.

To the Dire Wraiths on this world I am the God of Death.

What kind of god will I be when I return home?

That remains Unseen.

[sandmandaddy69]

Dann Phillips

[cosmosrebellion]

Don't know if it's because I have Ninja Turtles in the brain, but I've been interested in checking out these toy tie-in comics Marvel did back in the day, despite the fact that I haven't watched Transformers or G.I. Joe growing up.

[downthetubes]

2000AD and Valiant art features in massive Heritage Auctions International Comic Art event

A massive Heritage Auctions International Comic Art event takes place this weekend, 9th - 10th March 2024, offering iconic works from Tintin, Metabarons, Rom, plus art by Brian Bolland, Carlos Ezquerra, Moebius, Jack Kirby and more