I loved that comic as a kid even though it was a toy tie-in. I thought that Sal Buscema really did some outstanding stuff on that title and the stories Mantlo wrote were really good.

Rom was one of my favorites as a kid and the whole scourge of the Dire Wraiths was really cool and creepy to me.... Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Also Rom's sacrifice was pretty intense.... I had alot of fun with that title. Rom was a bad-ass mofo!

I loved it when he fought the Metal Master!

Easy on that button, there, sport!


DADDIO

ROM!

I thought it wasn't getting posted and tried it four times....


Ugggghhh! Gonna go eat a bug now............

Eric, I feel ya, man!

For some reason, Network 54 doesn't always want to take my posts on the first try.

That issue with the Metal Master was my first comic!

I was so young - I probably didn't understand any of it but I was hooked...

loved Rom

Rom was awesome--I remember getting the first issue, but unfortunately losing it.

I didn't pick up nearly enough issues of that series. I really oughta fill in the gaps one of these days.

a bunch of skrulls that have come to take on his home planet.

Cool issue! Rom wades through them like blades of grass...

I collected the run begining with the first issue, only missing a few near the end. It was tragic and epic, with a (probably intentional) silver surfer vibe.

>>Re: Raise your hand if you are like me and REALLY
>>liked Rom Spaceknight by Mantlo and Buscema

The thread title reminds me of something that happened to me years ago. I used to supervise a fairly large call center for a company (several thousand employees).

We were using old dumb terminals, all connected to a central mainframe.

One employee had figured out how to send a pop-up message to another employee's terminal, and was testing it out. They send a message to their friend that read "If you can read this, raise your hand."

Unfortunately, they screwed up, and sent the message to everyone in the company.

So a wave of hands went up, all throughout the gymnasium-sized call center. I was told later that in the other buildings in the company, and even in the offices in another city, that hands unquestioningly shot up in the air.

No doubt accompanyed by many confused looks around.

I amuse myself everytime I remember that.

-Keith

ROM and the Micronauts were two of my favorites.

I even had the big action figure.  Not a very fun toy, but I found it neat because I loved the comic so much.

I have more than 5000 silver age comics but not a single ROM. Can someone give me a good starting point run of five or six issues of ROM showing him at his best to serve as an introduction to see if I like him? I enjoyed some of Mantlo's other efforts, including his FF and Moon Knight work of the late 70s / early 80s and I'm definitely a fan of Sal.



Rick Senger
Byrne-ing Up In LA

Rom is one series that has a definite beginning (#1) and ending (#75).  I'd recommend starting with #1.  The first page of his arrival on earth has been permanently etched into my brain.

Check out Ebay and you can probably purchase the entire series CHEAP! 

 

#47-50 is a pretty good arc...but yeah, I'd probably buy the whole thing at once if I had the choice. It's a pretty good series.

When ROM first came out, i was pretty much a Marvel Zombie and tried every new series that came out. I stayed on ROM for at least 1/3 or 1/2 of the run... I never was a big fan of Sal Buscema's art, but at one point a young team of inkers named Akin and Garvey started embellishing Mr. Buscema's pencils and the art started to look a bit like Mike Golden's style. Pretty neat stuff...

I don't remember when or why I dropped ROM, but I gave all my issues to my young brother who got rid of them some years later...

I regret it now, I should have stuck with the Big ol' Spaceknight a few more months, 'cause by the end of the run, Steve Ditko came on the title with Craig Russell as an inker for some of the issues!

(Bill Mantlo wrote a HUGE amount of comic books in those days, but i don't think he ever wrote MOON KNIGHT... Except maybe on the MARVEL SPOTLIGHT issues??? The regular series was mainly Doug Moench who did an incredible job on it. MK was my favorite title from Marvel all the time Moench stayed on the title, even better when Sienkiewicz was doing arts! MK was basically Marvel's Batman, but during Mister Moench's tenure, Moon Knight was outdoing DC's Dark Knight!)

Strange you should mention Rom now. A few days ago I received a batch of comics off eBay, mainly some JB Wonder Woman issues but as the seller was offering it dirt cheap I also picked up Rom #1 too.

Haven't read it yet though!

Mantlo didn't write any substantive amount of the FF, either -- I remember a fill-in issue or two, and at least one scripted over a Thomas plot.

Perhaps he's thinking of Moench, who had short run on FF and created/wrote reams of Moon Knight?

_______________________
Watch for THE INCONSTANT MOON, my SF trilogy
beginning in 2004 from Ace Books.

Did I like the Mantlo/Buscema ROM? No - never read it as a kid - and peer presure is to blame!

I recall seeing the ads for ROM in the Spider-Man comics that I was readign at the time (I was, oh, 5, maybe 6) and it seemed pretty cool - I recall liking the toy tie-in angle - and then I recall walking to the Kate Kennedy Day Care that I used to go to, with some older boys, and on the way we passed an empty ROM toy package, and one of the boys dismissed ROM as "Lame" and that burned into my brain, and I never even looked at the toy or comic after that -

At least for my childhood years.

Years past, and I later picked up the two issues with JB covers (Alpha Flight tie-ins) and I bought a number of the Steve Ditko illustrated final issues - mainly because of Steve Ditko - and I tell you what - they are a beauty to behold!! One issue (#74!) even has JB inking Ditko - and it's AWESOME! But at that point, the 75 issue story was like, at #60, or so, so I think the story was a bit lost on me.

But, anyroad - I very much recomend the Ditko stuff, if for nothing else, the AWESOME art.

Best,

Mike O'Brien

ROM was one of the better things to come out of making a comic out of a toy line. The series was rife with heroic ideals, knightly sacrifice and alien menace (heck, anybody could be a Wraith... even your closest friend!)

So yes, not only will I raise my hand past the point of hyperextension, I will do so proudly because of two things; I really enjoyed the ROM series, and I finally got to use the word "rife" in a sentence.

...refusing to take his medication,
Monte

Loved it. Still do.

The 75-issue run was drawing to a close when I first started to take a real interest in Marvel Comics, but I was able to pick up a few back issues from a shop which sold second hand comics. I remember one of them was #3, but the best was a small run of four consecutive issues (#19-22). Read those and I was hooked.

Picked up whatever Rom I could lay my hands on after that, but I still don't have a full set. Recently ordered a few from a back issue dealer. They're yet to arrive, but will fill a few gaps. Someday I'll complete the set, and re-read them all, right from the start...

Perhaps he's thinking of Moench, who had short run on FF and created/wrote reams of Moon Knight?
-----
Blimey- I sure am. Apologies to Doug Moench, whose first and last names have the same number of letters as Bill Mantlo. The similar "M (vowel) N ---" last names also probably threw me. Sad, considering I have the entire Moench / BS MK run and beyond (1-35) plus Moench / BS's abortive FF run between JB's two glorious FF runs (something like 222-231).

I looked up Mantlo and see he did a fair amount of Spiderman, including a run on Spectacular Spider-Man that I enjoyed quite a bit in the early-mid 80s.

http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/credits/bill_mantlo.html

Rick Senger
Byrne-ing Up In LA

ROM wasn't my favorite, but I always liked the comic when I got to read it, and I really wanted a ROM figure/doll.

Heck, I still do.

Here's some cool ROM covers (One by a certain someone here):

Yep, ROM is a book I grew up reading. I had every issue of the run and was sad to see it go even though it did seem to run it's course. Some of my favorite ROM issues were the ones with guest stars like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (#18 & 19?), Power Man and Iron Fist, Galactus and Alpha Flight. I loved the idea of banishing the wraiths to limbo as the way to defeat them and not just killing them and always hoped to read more about the "Golden Age" on Galador. I have to admit I did own the toy and I did trade my copy of ROM #2 to my friend Jeffrey for X-Men #121 (ha ha...sucker!).