ROM, Spaceknight Time Travel 1 and 2

ROM lives!!  I did this piece for the ROM fans and to mark the Spaceknight’s return to Marvel Comics, for now, in a reprint format.  Of course, I have no faith that the currently Disney owned Marvel Comics will repeat the magic of the original 1980s comic run.  That was lightning in a bottle and The Mouse won’t be able to capture it.  In my opinion, the original success of ROM was due largely to the writing of (co)creator Bill Mantlo.  Like many Marvel properties of the ‘80s, Marvel got the comic book rights to create a comic series for the toy ROM, Spaceknight.  ROM was Parker Brothers’ attempt to enter the action figure toy market that exploded during that era.  ROM, Spaceknight, produced 79 issues including annuals.  He also made several guest appearances throughout the MCU.  Mantlo brought the character to “life” by creating most of his origin, backstory, settings, supporting cast, villains, alien races, and other spaceknights.  To this day, the ROM comic has a loyal and dedicated fanbase and ROM fans are some of the nicest people I have encountered on the internet.  With that, I thought of the fans and then I thought of who I would like to see ROM “team-up” with.  Since these pieces take such a LONG time, (this is two 11”x17” illustrations boards done with pencil, pen and ink,) I had a LOT of time to think!  My earliest artistic influences were (and still are) George Perez and Jim Starlin.  I remember reading Crisis on Infinite Earths #2 on the bus ride to school one morning.  Perez did a sequence in that comic featuring Batman and the Joker.  Before the Joker could strike, the Flash from the future burst in and foils his plans.  I was hooked!  Throughout the years, I have collected everything Perez did from covers to entire stories, to posters and prints.  On the cover to Crisis #5, he used a technique that I absolutely loved featuring very detailed heads of popular DC characters.  This ROM piece, and many of my others, are influenced by that cover.  Another strong influence for me was Jim Starlin and the Death of Captain Marvel from 1982.  That issue featured Thanos, who I was a big fan of, having read all his earlier adventures.  Technically, Thanos was dead in the Death of Captain Marvel, but he still had an incredible impact on the story.  In those days, comic characters stayed dead, so I thought I’d seen the last of him.  In 1990, Jim Starlin revived him and later all my other favorites including Adam Warlock, Pip the Troll, Drax the Destroyer, and Gamora.  I started thinking that ROM encountering this cast of characters would make a fun story.  Then things spiraled out of hand from there…!  My fictional writing has always been influenced by what Rod Serling did with The Twilight Zone.  What if ROM encountered some of the alien races of the The Twilight Zone?  To accomplish this, he wouldn’t only be traveling through space, but also different time periods and dimensions as well.  If that is the case, what if ROM was sent back to World War II and encountered Marvel’s Invaders.  This got me thinking of Frank Robbins, the artist on the Invaders.  Which led me to think about the work he did on the first appearance of the Legion of Monsters (1976).  What would happen if ROM encountered Morbius, Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night, and Ghost Rider?  On and on, I began to think of his interaction with other franchises, both comic and toy lines.  So how could all of this get pulled together?  Well, a device like the Cosmic Cube (or Infinity Gauntlet) would be needed.  I also chose Marvel’s most popular villain, and someone who is no stranger to time travel, Doctor Doom!  A second villain, infamous for his time traveling adventures was Kang the Conqueror, who I felt would be the perfect compliment.  This would be an ultimate crossover event, if it ever saw print, crossing worlds, dimensions, time, space, and franchises!  As all this was swirling around in my head and I was adding characters right up until the last minute, I thought back to high school.  My dream at the time was to graduate and work for one of the big two comic companies as an artist.  My school rival was a kid named Ronald.  You see, in the way high school “jocks” compete over who’s the best athlete, I was always in competition (like it or not) to be the “best artist at school.”  It was a title like “best chess player” which did nothing for one’s popularity.  Anyway, Ronald thought my style was awful.  That’s fine.  Art is subjective and everyone has an opinion. Still, it bugged me for a while.  Since high school, I think my work as GREATLY improved.  This piece is not perfect.  I see all the flaws.  But it is my best for now.  I left everything on the drawing table with this one.  It reminded me of my friend Phil, who use to play in a band at various local bars.  After a great set, where he poured his heart out and gave it everything he had, when the song sounded perfect like a studio recording, he would step up to the mic at the end and say, “…And that was live.”  That was the feeling I got when I finished this piece after over two weeks of working on it.  No computers or fancy software.  Just pencil and pen and paper and sweat and every trick in my book “…and that was live.”  So, I thought of ROM’s fans…Bill Mantlo….The Mouse…George Perez and Jim Starlin…Rod Serling…The Legion of Monsters…and Phil.  But mostly I thought of Ronald. His dislike of my work pushed me to be a better artist.  I see that now.  And I see that we all need a Ronald in our life to make things a little bit uncomfortable for us.  Someone who inadvertently pushes us to be better.  Enjoy!

For anyone interested, this is a list of characters or franchises I included:

ROM, Spaceknight

Doctor Doom

Kang the Conqueror

Star Trek

Star Wars

Battlestar Galactica

Black Hole

Tron

Flash Gordon

Buck Rogers

Micronauts

Transformers

G.I. Joe

Go Bots

The Twilight Zone

Legion of Monsters

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Thundarr the Barbarian

Crystar, Crystal Warrior

Zeroids/ Star Team

The Outer Space Men

Starjammers

Warlock and the Infinity Watch

Thanos

Silver Surfer

Captain Mar-vell

Dire Wraiths

Skrulls

Brood

Machine Man

Invaders

Guardians of the Galaxy (original)

Guardians of the Galaxy (new)

Spider-Man

Thing

Iron Man

Killraven

Skull the Slayer

Annihilus

Gullivar Jones

John Carter

Planet of the Apes

Shogun Warriors

Deathlok the Demolisher

Futurians

Mars Attacks

John Carpenter’s The Thing

Aliens

Predator

Terminator

Bladerunner

Robocop

Road Warrior/Mad Max

ROM, Spaceknight (original Parker Brothers’ toy)

and Bill Mantlo