Celebrating “ROM Spaceknight: The Original MARVEL Years” Omnibus!

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Back in 2010, I talked about my favorite comic book back when I was a kid, ROM: Spaceknight. MARVEL’s Love Letter to ‘50s Science Fiction movies was solidly in my wheelhouse with nods to Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), and even I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958). If you’re unfamiliar with ROM you can go back and read my aforementioned blog or the article I wrote for the September 2016 issue of Scary Monsters Magazine. The seventy-five issue (plus four Annuals) series ran from 1979 to 1986 before falling into obscurity a.k.a. Licensing issues. Although IDW had their own ROM series for a while, it bore little resemblance to the one I’d grown up with and didn’t resonate with me as MARVEL’s had. At the same time, MARVEL couldn’t legally mention his name and while most of their titles got collected in trade paperback or hardcover Omnibus editions, ROM was never given the honor. That is, until now. 

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C2E2 and the Thrill of the Comic Book Hunt!

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Back in my junior high and high school years, I admit to being a pretty serious collector of comic books. This was back in the early ’80s and well before The X-Men, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Batman, and The Avengers would all become modern day pop culture & box office phenomena (as I write this post, Iron Man 3 just pulled in $175M on it’s opening weekend here in the US). Unfortunately, back in my day a guy needed to downplay his love of super heroes lest he receive daily wedgies from the school bully while consistently repelling members of the opposite sex.

I discussed my comic book history back when I reviewed The Avengers movie last year (seen HERE). This year I decided to use the C2E2 (Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo) occasion to not only cover the Return of Svengoolie (see last post) but also as an opportunity to reconnect with my comic book past.

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