ROM Spaceknight #3 - Review

Originally Published: February 1980

Writer: Bill Mantlo

Art: Sal Buscema

Colors: Ben Sean

Letters: Tom Orzechowski

Editor: Jo Duffy

Key Events:

• We open with a scene of the Dire Wraith braintrust (consisting of Wraiths masquerading as a General, a Senator, an agent of SHIELD among others) giving "hardened criminal" Archie Stryker a briefing on ROM. Archie is determined to put a stop to ROM and the Wraiths sense an opportunity.
• Cut to ROM musing about the loss of his humanity and locating a massive concentrationof Wraith activity.
• Meanwhile, Brandy Clark - distracted by thoughts of ROM - comes home to find her apartment ransacked by two men claiming to be some sort of police/federal agents. They want to talk about ROM.
• Next we see Archie Stryker (wearing maroon catsuit and utility belt) proving his bona fides on an obstacle course for the Wraith braintrust. After seeing how formidable the 50 year old criminal is, the Wraiths offer him a suit of battle armor to use in battle against ROM.
• ROM has located the Wraith activity. It is a huge subterranean complex where the Wraiths are building machinery that could free Wraiths banished to Limbo!!! ROM attacks and makes quick work of the Wraiths.
• Brandy's boyfriend, Steve, sets out to find Brandy having discovered her trashed apartment.
• After smashing the Wraiths, ROM is attacked and hurt by Archie Stryker in his battle armor which we learn is actually Galadorian Spaceknight armor! Styker has taken the name: FIREFALL!

What's Good:

• Having established the central story of ROM in the first two issues, ROM needed a bigger foe since we have seen that individual Dire Wraiths are no match for ROM!
• Thus, Mantlo used the Archie Stryker character from last issue to create Firefall who would be ROM's first formidable enemy.
• The Wraith conspiracy also starts to feel much bigger in this issue. They may not be dangerous to ROM, but they are everywhere and occupy key positions in the US government and military.
• Buscema's art is very strong in this issue. It is always amazing how effectively he was able to convey that ROM is smooth and silver on a newsprint page!
• Colorist Ben Sean does some very nice work with blended colors in this issue. While this kind of coloring is the norm in 2011, it was much less common ~30 years ago.

What's kinda funny:

• Ohhhh......Archie! Poor guy is seriously upset by ROM to the point that when the Wraith braintrust is showing him a movie of ROM smashing up the WV National Guard, he is yelling at the screen, "Ahh, Stop him! Why don't they stop him?!?" The Wraiths look mildly annoyed that he won't stop talking during the movie.
• Not only is the cigar/cigarette smoking by the Wraiths kinda funny in hindsight since no one smokes indoors in the US anymore, but why were the Wraiths smoking at all? Did they pick up the habit to maintain their cover ("No one will believe I'm a real agent of SHIELD unless I smoke these things!") and then got addicted?
• What a gullible sap poor Archie is! To recap: He's apprehended outside of a of the exploding Laserium facility last issue. The cops know he is a criminal. They hand him over to the Wraith braintrust who shows Archie a few movies and then gives him sci-fi battle armor and turns him loose? Doesn't Archie wonder why they don't find someone more suitable? Like a soldier? A cop? A fireman? Really, anyone but a "hardened criminal".
• And, what kind of half-assed plan is this by the Wraiths? This suit of Spaceknight armor is a pretty big get for the Wraiths, so they give it to a 2-bit criminal with no training on how to use it and send him off to fight ROM ("the greatest of the Spaceknights")?
• When ROM screws up the Wraiths underground machinery and it starts to shoot off lightning bolts, it not only screws up TV and telephone reception, but it also messes up a lady's "new microwave oven." Anyone old enough to remember when microwaves were new will smile at this because back in 1980, it probably seemed entirely plausible that lightning would mess up a microwave. Microwaves were magic and a little scary back then.
• Great sexist talk from boyfriend Steve who bemoans that Brandy is a "headstrong little idiot" who always has to "play the independent woman". What's funny is that he really isn't portrayed as a sexist douche-bag. That's just how boyfriends talked back then.

Wraiths banished to Limbo: 3 (although it is implied that ROM banished quite a few in the underground complex)

Score: 7.5/10

- Dean Stell