ROM Spaceknight #34 - Video Review by ComicBook.beer

Welcome back to ComicBook.Beer, where today I’m bringing you a quick review of ROM Space Knight issue number 34 from September of 1982. A super fun issue that promises robots fighting sea monsters while Namor the Sub-Mariner watches. He’s punching that one in the mouth, this one’s grappling his arm. I mean, this looks fabulous. And it is. And I’ll show you why.

This is the creative team: Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema. Awesome. Younger brother of John Buscema from Conan the Barbarian fame, one of my all-time favorite series. But I’ve come to like ROM a lot as well. It’s no Shogun Warriors, but what are you gonna do?

So the previous issue, I guess this girl’s parents were abducted or murdered by Dire Wraiths, who are ROM’s mortal enemy. Dire Wraiths are space aliens that can take any living form, so you never know who they are until ROM shoots them with his energy analyzer and reveals them. They could be people, puppies, electric eagles, as you’re about to see.

Her Dire Wraiths have despoiled her home and slain her parents, so it’s been a pretty lousy week for this girl. And she can no longer see. She’s blind.

But ROM fixes that with his energy analyzer. He shoots her in the eyes or past her eyes, and now she can see. I guess the Dire Wraiths had infected her eyes. All right, he’s an optometrist as well as a robot superhuman superhero.

Then they burn down her house for the insurance money, and for some reason they fly over the ocean. Maybe they’re going overseas on vacation, and we get Namor, the Sub-Mariner, who lives in the ocean. He’s like Aquaman, but Marvel, not DC, and he wears his underwear and a crown and a cape underwater. So he’s rocking that Lando cape in the ocean, which is actually pretty cool. He wears it well. So Sub-Mariner is basically the emperor of his realm.

I don’t know a whole lot about Sub-Mariner. This whole issue is so ridiculous you can’t help but love it. Anyway, ROM is flying over the ocean and then he’s attacked by this giant sea monster. There are Dire Wraiths written all over this.

So ROM shoots it with a spectrum analyzer and reveals that this thing is suffering from Dire Wraith infestation. It hits him with an electro bolt or whatever and kind of zaps ROM out for a bit, so he falls into the ocean, and so does the girl. But don’t worry, Sub-Mariner saves her. He’s the good guy.

So they’re separated. ROM doesn’t know where the girl is, the girl doesn’t know where ROM is. One thing leads to another, and there’s obviously going to be a giant fight against sea monsters. And that’s what we get. If you want to see ROM battle sea monsters with the help of Namor, this is your issue. And it’s tons of fun. It’s just ludicrous.

There’s the one head Dire Wraith here, I forget what it’s called. It’s like the Dire Wraith in command or whatever. It grabs that one and throws it into this death pearl, and then the bad things start to happen. This is where you need to read it.

This one won’t cost you much. I’ve picked up about 50 ROM issues in the last couple weeks, and it’s probably set me back about 25 bucks. So you get a lot of bang for your buck with ROM. Not a series people are talking about these days, but it’s very cool.

I like Shogun Warriors better. If you’re going back to the late 70s, early 80s toy-inspired franchises, ROM was originally started because of a toy, and this one went on for a great many years and has a lot of fans out there.

It’s approved by the Comics Code, which is unfortunate because that reduces the violence and the drugs and the nudity, but we still get sea monsters and they make up for a lot.

All right, there you go. I was going to say Daily Comic Book Mission, but I’ve already recommended this, so hopefully most of you have listened to that. But today you’ve seen what it looks like, and it looks very good because it’s ROM issue number 34. Look at that, all one take.