Hi everyone,
Today, I'll be writing about one of my favorite comics of all time: Marvel's nineteenth issue of ROM: Spaceknight. The Michael Golden-drawn cover features our hero facing his friend Karas in Limbo, right in front of the Space Phantom. You can also see a couple of pasty white Dire Wraiths just above the phantom's left hand. The first story was titled "Limbo!" and the issue had a cover date of June 1981.
The story begins with ROM's friends Steve Jackson and Brandy Clark riding in a snowmobile back to the Marks farm, where the Spaceknight and the uncanny X-Men battled the half-human, half-wraith being named Hybrid over the last couple of issues. The humans arrive to see that the house has been destroyed. Clark spots ROM's neutralizer, half-buried in the snow. His comrades didn't know what happened, including ROM's banishment by his weapon into the limbo dimension. As we see on the second page, the Galadorian is just slightly out of sync in space and time with the Earthlings. He can see and hear them, but they cannot see or hear him.
Clark and Jackson load the weapon onto the snowmobile, hopeful that their armored friend will return for it. As they depart, ROM thinks back to the conflict that led him to be where he is. He recounts his first encounter with Earth's mutants, who initially thought that he was there to attack an innocent child. The X-Men didn't know that the child was a powerful mutant of his own, one whom the young X-Man Sprite banished along with ROM to limbo.
The Spaceknight starts to grow despondent as he sees his comrades walk past him, knowing they had no idea he was right by them. He then turns around, jolted back into reality by the sound of three Dire Wraiths right behind him. He made short work of the wraiths, not knowing that his actions were being watched by a humanoid known as the Space Phantom.
The phantom knew of wraiths, having been trapped in the dimension since his recent skirmish with the Norse god of thunder known as Thor, in his own magazine. The villain also knew that ROM was a Galadorian, but not the first one that he had ever seen in person. That distinction went to ROM's friend, Karas, the Spaceknight, who first occupied the Firefall armor that Earthling Archie Stryker later inhabited after being tricked by wraiths into believing that ROM was an alien invader. As the phantom walked along a path, he came across Karas, sitting alone, brooding. The villain taunted ROM's ally, knowing of his longing to return to his home planet, but his inability to do so.
Karas was stunned by the Space Phantom's ability to resemble his own form, but before he could react, the phantom cast him aside, just before letting the Galadorian know that ROM was also now in limbo. At the same time, ROM found himself walking down another similar golden pathway. This one was filled with Dire Wraiths in their traditional forms. The wraiths (one of which we saw in her human guise of Dr. Rachel Sweet in earlier issues) soon took on monstrous forms and attacked the silver Spaceknight. During the attack, one wraith held ROM by the Window of Worlds, where he saw Earthlings captured as slaves on their own planet. He also saw his own planetary surface in ruins.
Those visions spurned ROM to intensify his defense and quickly threw off one wraith. His companion was struck by the living fire of fellow Galadorian Karas (who was really the Space Phantom in disguise). The flame threat was enough to frighten the remaining Dire Wraiths into a hasty retreat.
Still somewhat shocked to see his fellow Spaceknight, ROM asked Karas how he came to be in limbo. The phantom then began to retell the tale that the real Karas had told him before. He began with the day 200 years prior, when the first wraith attack fleet approached their home planet of Galador. Karas, in his Spaceknight armor, flew off to fend off the intruders and wound up winning an exhausting battle against a wraith Deathwing. His energy spent by the battle, he was unable to avoid being pulled into a wraith destroyer ship.
The wraiths began to examine their captive, and Karas finally decided the pain was too much for him to bear. The courageous Spaceknight used the living flame to send his human identity to the limbo dimension. That explained why wraiths owned his empty suit of armor way back in ROM #3. He explained to his colleague that his ID was destroyed during the wraiths' attempts to physically remove him from his armor, and that his energy form remained, but it could only exist in limbo.
ROM explained that he came to limbo after having been banished to the dimension by his neutralizer. The phantom in disguise replied that the weapon could help to restore Karas' humanity that was left behind on Galador. The conversation was then interrupted by the sudden attack of more Dire Wraiths. ROM used his strength to subdue his foes, while the faux Karas used the living fire to keep the attackers at bay, until a scream arose from him.
The silver Spaceknight had no sooner defeated his opponents when he saw a second Karas rise from the living flame, and another being alongside him. The true Karas explained the Space Phantom's deception and his plan to win his trust, take ROM's form, and send him back to Earth. There, the neutralizer could then be used to free the phantom's true identity from limbo. ROM then noted that his neutralizer can only banish beings to limbo, not bring them back from that dimension.
More wraiths returned to renew their assault on the trio. Karas fended them off with the living flame and opened the dimensional rift to Earth for his fellow Spaceknight. ROM found himself back at the Marks farm. The rift closed, but not before ROM heard Karas say that he had no humanity left to return to on Galador. Knowing that Spaceknight remains were preserved in their planet's Hall of Science after being grafted into their suits of armor, ROM asked what his friend meant, but received no answers, and instead only had more questions.
The second story was another installment of the Saga of the Spaceknights. This time, ROM and his companions, Terminator and Starshine, arrived on the planet of Thuvria. It was reported to be a peaceful world. They were there because of a distress call from the planet and a slight trail of wraith bioenergy from the Galadorian hospital ship (attacked by the wraiths in issue #16) that ROM found on that planet. While the Spaceknights were talking, a knight in red armor riding a scaly blue lizard came up from behind them and started to charge at the aliens.
Terminator's eyeblasts were warded off by the knight's shield, and a single sonic ray from his lance soon rendered the Galadorians unconscious. The Spaceknights awoke in the palace, tied to one another by a strong energy binder. There, they talked to the red knight, who removed his helmet and exclaimed that Galador had been overtaken by Dire Wraiths, according to his information. He pointed to a robed figure in the corner who had told him so. The wizened wise one also told the Thuvrians that armor-wearing warriors would come from the sky and attack them, and that the invaders were actually wraiths.
Seeing through the falsehoods, Starshine focused her light eyes on the wizard, burning through his cloak to reveal the Dire Wraith underneath. The townspeople were stunned by the revelation. Terminator used his eyebeams to break the binders and destroy the wraith. His beams wound up destroying part of the castle, and the cobalt Spaceknight went on a rampage. During his attack, the red knight went to stop him. Unfortunately, his attempt was cut short, as Terminator's beams lashed out and slew the young Thuvrian. He finally came to his senses when Starshine acknowledged his heinous act, apologized for the brief burst of madness that consumed him, and agreed to return with his companions to Galador to stand trial and face the consequences of his actions.
This issue holds a special place in my heart because it was the first issue of ROM that I ever read. Along with Marvel Two-In-One #76, it was also one of my very first non-Star Wars Marvel comics. I remember reading this issue at the doctor's office for the first time, while waiting for my mom's checkup a few months before my brother was born. It was my first taste of the Bill Mantlo-Sal Buscema experience, and I enjoyed the storytelling so much that I eventually ended up acquiring the entire run, along with most of their issues of the Incredible Hulk and other collaborations like Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, Skull the Slayer, and Marvel's Tarzan monthly book, to name a few.
Both tales kept their respective storylines moving along and were important plot points by the time the comic approached its second year of publication. The only concerns I had were the fact that the cover showed ROM wielding his neutralizer (although it was still on Earth) and the fact that we never see Karas appear again. He was a great character that I felt was very underutilized. Overall, it was a great issue that kept me entertained from the first page to the final panel of the last page.
Well, that's all for now. Next time, I'll write about the twentieth issue of Marvel's ROM: Spaceknight. In that issue, we'll see more of Starshine and Terminator, find out if ROM recovered his neutralizer, learn Terminator's fate, and be introduced to another key nemesis. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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