ROM Spaceknight #2 - Review

Originally Published: January 1980

Writer: Bill Mantlo

Art: Sal Buscema

Letters: Jerry Costanza

Colors: Glynis Wein

Editor: Jo Duffy

Key Events:

• We meet "mobster" Archie Stryker who is in the middle of robbing the Laserium Corp when ROM disrupts the robbery as he crashes in to deal with the Laserium manager (who is a Dire Wraith in disguise).
• After a big firefight, during which the Wraith reveals that he is using the Laserium Corp to build a "massive Wraith transmission base" to attract more Wraiths to Earth, ROM banishes the manager-Wraith to Limbo.
• Archie Stryker is horrified by ROM's apparent killing of the manager.
• Back in Clairton, WV we visit Brandy Clark and learn that no one, not even her boyfriend Steve, believes her when she says that ROM is really a good guy.
• ROM returns to Clairton to obtain more information from Brandy, leading to everyone calling him a "monster" and calling the police.
• Cutting to Washington, DC, we see the Wraith braintrust consisting of a US Senator, a US Army General, an agent of SHIELD and a hot chick. They get a report from the switchboard-operator-Wraith from issue #1 about ROM's activities in Clairton. They resolve to kill ROM.
• Cutting back to Clairton, the cops start shooting at ROM to little effect before unleashing some Wraith weaponry on him that was provided by the Police Captain-Wraith who shows up with Archie Stryker in tow.
• ROM banishes the Captain-Wraith to Limbo and flies away, leaving Archie Stryker swearing vengeance.

What's good

• This issue does a good job of continuing the theme of these early ROM issue: that the humans think that ROM is killing human beings when ROM banishes a Wraith to Limbo.
• The whole issue and adventure is just such good Bronze Age fun. Everything is a million times more melodramatic than it really needs to be.
• Except for a stray panel or two, Buscema's art is really tight in this issue.

What's kinda funny:

• The Archie Stryker character is just a bundle of laughs. For one thing, who knew that West Virginia had "mobsters"? For another, his overwrought dialog (seen in these scanned panels) is just a stich as he moves from being a petty burglar to swearing vengeance on ROM.
• When ROM goes back to Clairton to talk to Brandy, he doesn't just barge into her house, he lurks in the gazebo in her parent's backyard and waits for her to come outside like some creepy stalker.
• We get our first bits of the forbidden love between ROM and Brandy as he recalls that he "has not forgotten how it feels to hold a woman in his arms" and after he tells Brandy that he just wants information, "she is hurt. Did she think he'd returned for something....more?" Poor boyfriend Steve.....
• LOVE when they show the Wraith Braintrust (all 4 of them) and they are sitting around a conference room table that is roughly 40 feet long. Did they have to yell to make themselves heard? And why are they in human form during this meeting?
• The big Wraith-tech gun that the cops turn on ROM is called....no kidding...the Bazooka Blaster.

Wraiths banished to Limbo: 2

Score: 7.0/10

- Dean Stell