Let's go back to the late Spring of 1984. Rom's entering the last phase of his war with the Dire Wraiths, who are infiltrating Earth, replacing humans, and planning a sorcerous coup. Spider-Man's only recently come back to Earth with a symbiotic costume that responds to his commands. ] Synopsis Roderick Kingsley’s office is intruded by the Hobgoblin. But it reveals itself to be a Wraith, and offers him a body double he can use for his secret identity! He runs for it, hidden passage out, and makes it to his gear. He fights back as the Hobgoblin, not trusting anyone to have his secret. He seems to kill all the agents present from the Dire Wraiths. The Dire Wraiths report this attempt to replace Hobgoblin and assume his place in the underworld, failed, but they have two other plans, converging. One, they have a poltician adviser in place, who will get the humans to build detention centers, for the use of the Wraiths once they take power. The second plan invol...

The Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-man Board Game from Milton Bradley greatly expanded my love of Ditko (a name I didn’t know), and the Fantastic Four, and the Spider-man rogues in general. Along with Cap, Iron Man, Thor, and of course Hulk, as mentioned in my previous post, they were my first Marvel Super Heroes. Her cartoon assures Spider-Woman the tenth spot in my quest to discover Marvel Heroes. I saw Matt Murdock and a color-separated image of him thinking about, but not Being, Daredevil. It had to be within a few weeks of that when I saw the macabre cover of Amazing Spider-Man #220, with Moon Knight. I didn't get to read much of it, but I did read the Aunt May back-up story! That cover creeped me out good. I saw it a couple of times and felt like someone had walked across my grave, seeing Spider-Man in a coffin like that. And then, the number of super-heroes I could identify would double in one month. The two issues I schemed to buy for myself each featured a sup...

Bill Mantlo's prolific Marvel Comics Group comic book work holds many personal kid memories for me. ROM #24 is one of the first two comic books I ever bought with my own money It’s a nice way to tie up the Nova series, though I’m glad Erik Larsen and subsequent creators like Abnett/ Lanning continued his story. (Wolfman left for DC just before ROM #24 was created so it was a way of tying up the character’s legacy for the time being.) Now when I came on to assist Joe Phillips for a brief while, one of our first conversations was how interesting it was to bring Rich Ryder back to Earth sans powers. That one idea sparks a corner of my own creative universe: it’s like Howard the Duck’s “What to do the Night After You Save the Universe?” story, that kind of quiet interface that makes the comic book world merge so readily with our own, especially when we are the young “secret identity” ! (You're welcome to check out my 'Sunstrike' posts in Be Chill, Cease ill, our siste...

The next day, they returned to Aurora, to get directions to the hangout Sarah told them about. She said she hoped to see them there Thursday night. They also helped themselves to a deep purple cloak, a scarlet hair bow, and a stack of Zon, Cosmic Knight From Beyond comic books for a dime apiece. (Art, Lue Lyron -after Sal Buscema) That night, and for several afterwards, they lie reading them, butt-to-butt, on the palette they had made from blankets, on the living room floor. Save for the lawn chair Troy had brought them, there were never any furnishings, except for the shower curtain they bought in the drug store on the first floor. Sometimes they snuggled up to read just one, together, narrating aloud. Gina enjoyed the Shakespearean flavored dialogue of the cyborg Zon, as well as his tormented, unrequited love for Sandy Davis, as he defended her small West Virginia town from disguised aliens that fit into the unsuspecting lives of Clairionville. His mission to clear Earth o...

2. Expansion: (242-254) 1984 * Spotlight on: Third great Stern Avenger. Captain America (always knows the right thing to say, studies dynamics of team) Vision and Scarlet Witch (Expansion Period) West Coast Avenger cameos Enter: Hercules (Epic battles during Vision’s chairperson period; gradually explores character) Also features: Captain Marvel, Starfox Major spoilers in next blog!!!! The Vision is the central character of this year’s stories; his paralysis is resolved with the help of Starfox. He links the android to ISAAC, the self-aware computer that runs the day-to-day maintenance of his homeworld, the Saturnian moon Titan. Their conversations, however, convince the Vision to use a forbidden strategy—and it’s still not too late to read about it yourself and enjoy the surprise, saved for the end of the column in due course. First, he surprises everyone by using Avengers Mansion computers to create projections of himself in the m...

Rom's blow sends Firefall painfully hurtling towards the road ahead of the FBI agent/ Wraiths. Brandy acts: she opens the door on the laser-wielding agent, hit head on by Steve’s car. She wrestles the driver, leadin to a crack-up. Steve rushes to her, and watches as the driver changes: its true form, barely glimpsed, leaves smoldering, foul-smelling dust in its wake. They emerge beside the final confrontation between Rom and Firefall. Now he tells of his friend, Karas, who we see swim and save impetuous, human Rom in the earliest flashback of the series. [IMG]http://i54.tinypic.com/nla1cz.jpg[/IMG] To owe one’s life on Galador sacredly links “two individuals as surely as marriage links lovers!” (Well, sometimes! Nowadays marriage has fallen a bit out of style...but you know how old-fashioned Rom is!) Rom and Karas, when the war came, both learned of the forms and powers they would possess before the conversion that grafted their forms to spaceknight steel. “ Manning t...

ROM SPACEKNIGHT #4 [IMG]http://i52.tinypic.com/30t199l.jpg[/IMG] Fear is...Firefall! Writer Bill Mantlo Art Sal Buscema Letters Jim Novak Color BobSharon Editor Jo Duffy “The Fire, the Friend, and the Foe!” The West Virginia night steams with the presence of living fire, as two inhuman cyborg warriors clash above. One is Rom of Galador, here to find, reveal, and battle the Dire Wraiths; his opponent is their pawn, the human criminal Archie Stryker. If you’ve been reading along, you know how he’s been set up to battle Rom, seen as a murderer from the stars. What he’s yet to realize is the cost of wielding this spaceknight armor. Its power, Galadorian Living Flame, makes him a potent match for the starborn savior. Airborne opponents clash with strength and powers; the Neutralizer’s effective against the fireball attack, but as Firefall divebombs him again, Rom wonders will he have to break his oath and take a life? The F.B.I. agents from last issue drive without a sound...

While I wait for ROM #4 to come through the mail, let me note that Nov. 9th is Wraith Birthday! When the Wraiths came to Earth and began their undercover disguises, a large number of them, at least, created birth certificates. At some point---I believe it's #9, on loan at present---a reporter uncovers this common date among every one apparently "slain" by Rom (who's banishing them, natch). In fact, it's Nov. 9, 1951 if I recall correctly---and why wouldn't that also be the birthday for writer Bill Mantlo? So---Happy Birthday, Bill Mantlo!!

Myebook - D'n'A Comics #1 As promised: the online version of DNA #1!!! “Firefall” Archie Stryker watches film footage of Rom’s battle with the National Guard. All the language used around him reinforces his belief: Rom’s an inhuman killer from the stars, and not tanks, not fire, nor nothing man could do would stop him from turning his death ray onto those he chooses. A Silver Star (for Valor) winner “in Korea, 1952”, the arrested burglar says: I may be a criminal--but I ain’t never killed anyone who didn’t have just as much chance of killing me!” The charges can be dismissed; a Senator, General, and an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. assure the disbelieving Stryker there will indeed be a price, and “the beauty of it is we aren’t asking Stryker for anything he doesn’t already want himself! So let us help you help us, Archie---by giving you the power to destroy that alien murderer---Rom!” Rom stands dull grey in the pale moonlight, upon a hilltop before the crater of his rebirth ...

Rom, Spaceknight #3 Writer Bill Mantlo Artist Sal Buscema Editor Jo Duffy E-i-C Shooter At first flip, this issue has all the 70s problems with flashbacks in place of developments, stretching the gruel thin, plotwise, to set up Rom’s confrontation with Stryker/ Firefall, whose training and indoctrination gets as much space as the hero. On the plus side, no early Rom cover gets further from the toy or better illustrates the Rom/ Wraith struggle than this Frank Miller/ Terry Austin piece! It’s very similar to modern middle chapters; the one complete story is the transformation of Stryer to Firefall. The emphasis on developing the villain also helps spotlight the Wraiths in a capacity other than simply talking amongst themselves and catching the Limbo train. The recaps and simplistic evil of the villains, along with the toy origins of Rom, must’ve worked together to give the impression of “kid’s book” mentioned in later letter columns regarding these early chapters. On the ...

The disguised Wraith who is director of the Laserium Corp. took a moment, when Archie Stryker attempted an attack on Rom with a laser that actually caused the cyborg pain. Quickly he contacted a police chief there in Lansing, VA, who passes notification to the others, some of whom arrive on the scene to overhear Stryker cry out that he will do anything to stop Rom from killing others. He’s seen Rom’s enormous strength, ripping off the vault door to the entrapped director. Why Stryker, who may have had to kill the director anyway in the complications of an armed robbery, would be so motivated to help when he was not attacked himself and his men were not killed, I am not sure, even though as a Wraith pawn he will become fairly interesting, soon! It is hard to set up complex characterization for a supporting cast in these 17 page stories, anyway, nor is Mantlo inclined to subtleness here. With Rom streaking skyward into the flamelit night now accused of arson, we join Steve Jackson i...

Rom #2 “Second Coming” The second city of Earth now feels the impact of Rom’s arrival, his ability to land in an area and render it so utterly surreal one’s mind struggles to calculate what to do at all. Here is the mysterious toy-being an enigma yet, not proven a force for good or ill save by the context of his own word, that aliens have secreted themselves in entire human life spans to live like us, among us, waiting for a sinister day when they can use our budding technology to relaunch their schemes on Galador and the universe at large. How could any race be so thoroughly-going evil? What is Rom’s story is a lie, a cover to some other horrible reality? Only one person, Brandy Clark, age twentysomething in quiet Nowhereville, is even privy to the question: to all outsiders, there is no personal encounter, only a meeting with a war machine at war. Was there any better analogy for what a military must bear: to be assumed an enemy for one’s ways and mission, yet to be a human ...

Haven't forgotten the origins of this blog: truth to tell, I've been either writing about the collector's item classics or working on my own original stuff, but haven't written any pastiches of both lately (just a few essays instead). Today I'm going to share some notes from over a week ago, as I began working on a Portal Immortal story with my own spaceknight who is not Rom, but possibly a creature from the land where babies communicate their pre-birth contact to their mothers on Earth. The next night, I revisited the Voidon invasion I'd planned to be part of P.I. and realized a meteor in the night is an awesome, grab-you-and pull-you close opening, and the reasons invented themselves, really. Having fun...will need a bit of sleep...if can’t sleep, write some more...love the space night world twist and the original Voidons thriller that takes up the main plot of Portal Immortal #4,5. By THIS point, I start considering making this the kick-off story for the st...

http://i51.tinypic.com/2gv3qfc.jpg Bill Mantlo C/O The Mantlo Family 1995 Miller Place Merrick, NY 11566 Listen, if you have a soft spot for ROM---whatever your Mantlo connection--- I hear he appreciates fan mail to this day. Everyone seems familiar with his car accident in '92, but as far as I know, letters are still welcome, okay? We'll see if Jo Duffy replies with a story of how ROM went from 50's style alien invader story complete with "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" enemies to the song it became...which was not bad for a former state-of-the-art toy that managed to move between 200,000 and 300,000 units before cancellation. So why am I thinking of "I Will Fly No More" off Toy Story, huh? Her editorial interest is thanked personally by Bill in a later issue; I'll finish commenting on #1, with less expectation of cracking many of his thoughts via his electronically preserved memories. Publius Enigma keeps finding memories of the memory ensconced ...