#ROM the Spaceknight

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Rom the Spaceknight - art by Jean Frisano (1981)

[sandmandaddy69]

[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.

[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)

[tomfowlerstuff]

Rom

[rzc11]

Rom the space knight

[webshootersandwingdings]

Captain Marvel (2023) #4

ROM Variant Cover by David Marquez

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

A FORTY-YEAR-OLD ISSUE THIS MONTH -- THE BLOOD RUNS RED ON EARTH.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on cover art & opening splash/title page to "ROM" Spaceknight Vol. 1 #49. December, 1983. Marvel Comics. Cover Art by Al Milgrom.

""Massacre!" Death comes to Rom's closest friends when he returns to Clairton, West Virginia! And his energy analyzer is useless against the new breed of Dire Wraiths! You must not miss the dramatic developments whihc lead up to next month's double-sized, fiftieth anniversary issue!"

-- MARVEL COMICS, c. winter 1983

Story/script by Bill Mantlo

Pencils by Sal Buscema

Inks by Ian Akin & Brian Garvey

Colors by Ben Sean

Letters by Janice

Source: https://viewcomiconline.com/rom-49.

[mrrubbersuitman]

https://www.etsy.com/.../rom-vol-1-1-bronze-age-comic... VF/NM ROM 1, first appearance of ROM. Regularly $55.00, on sale through the link until 5/13 for $49.50

[therealmanos]

ROM IS BACK | First Thoughts

[texasthrillbilly]

[sandmandaddy69]

Dann Phillips

[therobotmonster]

Rom: Spaceknight of Galidor, Member of the Solstar Order

Art reference for the one version of him no one can do anymore, the original Marvel Comics version that ran for 80 issues on the back of a toy that was on shelves for maybe a year.

A beautifully clumsy mix of retro-robot clunkiness and sleek superheroic design, Rom was the glue that held the Marvel Universe together for basically a decade, a the king of the crossover whose lore touched everything from Storm losing her powers to Rick Jones getting cured of cancer, and because Hasbro owns him, there's a toasterhead shaped hole in Marvel history that only a toy tie-in character can fill.

Wait till you see who he fought.

[ultradude13]

Rom #34

[gootie]

The flat color looks good to me so I’m stopping here. Comic Jam Hawaii will be distributing bookmarks to comic shops and libraries all over Oahu for Fee Comic Book Day 2023