ROM Spaceknight

http://cosmichombre.deviantart.com/art/ROM-Spaceknight-187255534?q=&qo=

In the Archie's Weird Mysteries cartoon at one point Jugghead utters paean to the hamburger- all that is good and right about the world, as he describes the food.

In many respects that's how I feel about the ROM comic. I was a precocious reader and read comics from roughly the age of three, but I gave them up as I grew up and it wasn't until a long time later I started reading them again. The comic that hooked me back in was ROM Spaceknight #6 of all things.

ROM was of course a licensed property, but at its core was a classic Marvel experience, ostensibly done in the classic Marvel way- up came the guest experiences by long forgotten characters, loose ends from old series were tied up, even the Hulk black and white magazine got explained in continuity and its characters added in.

Secret Invasion was of course nothing more than a verbose and lacuna-riddled "homage" shall I say to the Dire Wraith invasion of many years before. The Dire Wraith infiltration of Earth was a definitely horror-story type tale, with extreme cruelty and savagery shown by the wraiths and their subspecies, and the often shown no quarter given or taken Spaceknight vs Wraith battle was in its own way magnificent.

The later addition to the lore in the closing comics that the Wraiths were in fact a mutated form of Skrull - themselves the Deviant strain of an alien race, added the final binding Marvel touch.

Unfortunately since it was a licensed property ROM like the Shogun Warriors before it had to be shunted into the background and its core concepts tamed and elided. However, ROM is now a cult favourite. With sufficient imagination a new ROM comicbook could be created. It wou