Originally Published: July 1980
Writer: Bill Mantlo
Art: Sal Buscema
Colors: Ben Sean
Letters: Diana Albers
Editor: Jo Duffy
Sequence of events:
- We join the action immediately after the Thorn-oid attack in the lab at the pharmaceutical company where Brandy Clark works from issue #7.
- Steve Jackson proceeds to flip out on ROM. Steve is grief stricken about the death of his good friend, Artie Packer, and declares that Artie is only dead because ROM is causing trouble. He notes that the Dire Wraiths didn't start hurting people until ROM showed up.
- ROM quickly corrects Steve by telling him the story of Angelica - a peaceful world that was totally destroyed by the Wraiths.
- Just then, managers at the pharmaceutical company start banging on the door of the lab where ROM, Steve and Brandy are, demanding to be let inside. The lab is trashed: dead Artie, dead Thorn-oids, smashed windows, etc. ROM uses his Analyzer to detect that Artie isnot quite dead and decides to leave so that his presence isn't a distraction.
- When the door is opened, the dying policeman receives most of the attention rather than the focus being on ROM (now departed) or the Thorn-oids. But, Brandy and Steve know that sooner or later, people will question what happened in the lab.
- ROM knows that he must retrieve his Neutralizer (stole by the Wraiths in issue #7). He observes a funeral for several "humans" thought to have been killed by ROM in earlier issues. ROM shines his Analyzer on the crowd revealing that all of the pall bearers are, in fact, Dire Wraiths. Perhaps one of them knows where the Neutralizer is? ROM determines to question them.
- Cut to the coroner's office, where the coroner mentions how sad the funeral is, but how odd it is that all six of the dead have the same birthday to a co-worker. The worker offers to take the records to Washington, D.C. before a revealing thought-bubble shows him to be another Dire Wraith in disguise. This Wraith is determined to cover up this same-birthday problem that the coroner has discovered.
- As this Wraith walks down a rainy street, he is grabbed from behind by something with reptilian claws and killed in the shadows. All the reader sees is s humanoid/dinosaur profile in the shadows.
- Back at the funeral, a Wraith Elder leads the funeral services and implores the gathered Wraiths to remain resolute in the face of this hardship.
Wraiths disguise as old women howl that the rewards of Earth are not enough to warrant facing ROM! The Elder silences them with threats of summoning a Deathwing to punish them. - Just then - ROM jumps into the middle of the funeral. ROM yells at the Wraiths that so far he has not killed any Wraiths because he used his Neutralizer. But that if they do not tell him where the Neutralizer is -- he WILL start to kill them.
- A battle ensues and the Elder summons a Deathwing. In the chaos of the battle, ROM gets ahold of the Elder and tells him he'll feed him to the Deathwing if he doesn't reveal the location of the Neutralizer.
- The Elder tells ROM of Project Safeguard, but as the Deathwing takes the Elder, it also brushes against ROM's arm, causing ROM to collapse into an open grave. ROM breaks through the bottom of the grave into a system of caves below.
- In the final cliff-hanger, we see the reptilian Serpentyne standing over the open grave. He was the one who killed the coroner's co-worker. He hates Wraiths and vows to get the Neutralizer for his own personal battle against the Wraiths.
- Lots of good continuity in this issue by showing the funeral of the Wraiths that ROM banished earlier. One of the things that I loved about this series as a kid was how it was telling a singular, ongoing story. Each issue picks up right where the last issue ended rather than being broken up into 6-issue stories that were convenient for collecting into trade paperbacks (like is done in comics today).
- We also get the first hints of story that will take ROM away from Clairton, West Virginia. The story had started to feel a little bottled up in this small locale.
- The Wraiths' plot is also starting to become apparent to more humans as the coroner realizes that something fishy was going on.
- Typically good art from Buscema and a really nice cover too! I really liked Buscema's design and linework on the Elder who looks very hellfire-n-brimstone minister.
- The whole opening scene where the pharmaceutical managers want to get into the trashed lab is just comical, especially ROM's decision to slip away so that no one will pay any attention to him. On one hand, it probably would have been worse if he had stayed, but the idea that everyone would be so distracted by the dying policeman on the ground that they don't notice the trashed lab and dead aliens all over the place is kinda silly.
- What color is Serpentyne? His hands show green, but on the final page he is orange. For a reveal that was clearly to say, "See kids! This is the guy who killed that Dire Wraith earlier. This is what he looks like and ROM will have to fight him next issue!" Why would you change his color?
- I loved how the Wraiths who complained most loudly to the Wraith Elder about their working conditions were all disguised as old women. Were they dumb Wraiths that stole the identities of old women and were then stuck with a bad secret identity where they hand to learn the rules of bridge and go to lots of tea parties where they gossiped about "the young whipper-snappers" and made quilts?
- After ROM crashes the funeral, this line is spoken, "Defend yourselves, Wraiths. There are weapons hidden in the unopened coffins!" [Emphasis added]. Doesn't everyone carry weapons to a funeral and hide them in empty coffins?
Conclusion: A pretty strong issue of ROM that is fast-paced and does a lot to advance the story.
Score: 8.0/10
- Dean Stell
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