Hi everyone,
Today I'm writing about the twenty-second issue of Marvel Comics' ROM: Spaceknight. The cover for this issue shows ROM and his new ally the Torpedo (who faced off against the Spaceknight last issue) fending off an attack from the Rocketeers (who Torpedo encountered in Marvel Premiere issues 39 and 40). Although I'm not a big fan or artist Al Milgrom's work, having the Rocketeers seemingly emerge from the moon in the background is a nice touch. The story was titled "Welcome, One And All To The Great Rocketeers Revival!" The issue had a cover date of September 1981.
The first tale begins on a night in Clairton, West Virginia, that was quiet and peaceful until the roar of the Rocketeers' jet packs fills the air. They zip past Main Street, startling the milkman driving his early morning route. The Rocketeers' flight leader orders the elimination of the elderly milkman who spotted their approach. Several ray guns fire, and the man leaps out just before his vehicle is destroyed. His attackers, satisfied with the results of their actions, then flew on to their primary target.
A few minutes later, Clairton, West Virginia's new high school football coach, Brock Jones, left his family's new house for a morning run. On his trek, he thought about his alter ego as the costumed superhero Torpedo before coming across the elderly Mister Flum and the remains of his milk truck. Jones soon returned home to call for medical assistance for the senior citizen. He had no sooner finished his phone conversation when the doorbell rang. Brock's wife, Lorrain, opened the front door, surprised to see ROM's friends Brandy Clark, Steve Jackson, and other citizens who came to offer aid.
Lorrain was unaware of the silver Spaceknight until he introduced himself as part of the concerned crowd. Brock knew that whoever attacked Mr. Flum's milk truck knew of his secret identity. He then exposed his secret identity to the others in the room, something that even his own wife was unaware of until just then. The pair of heroes talked about how Brock obtained his super suit and the fact that the Rocketeers who were after him were probably now Dire Wraiths in disguise.
In a nearby hallway, Jackson and Clark talked about the Torpedo, who would probably be Clairton's new protector, leaving ROM free to fight the wraith menace elsewhere. Conversations in the Jones household were quickly silenced once the inhabitants heard the sound of laser beams being fired at young children out in the street. The blasts were fired from Rocketeer weapons, and ROM and the Torpedo soon flew out to pursue their enemies.
The heroes tracked the Rocketeers down at Clairton's grammar school. The Rocketeers opened fire on the Galadorian and Earthling, who were quickly able to evade the attacks. ROM summoned his energy analyzer from subspace and learned that the Rocketeers were indeed Dire Wraiths underneath their flight costumes. The analyzer was then replaced by his neutralizer, which ROM used to banish the wraiths to the otherworldly dimension known as limbo.
Meanwhile, the Torpedo's rocket punch swiftly turned a pair of wraith Rocketeers into piles of gray ash. The remaining aliens led the Spaceknight and the superhero crashing into a grade school classroom, where the battle resumed. The heroes prevailed once more. Brock was wounded during the skirmish, but his children came running to him after the conflict, beaming with pride over their father's acts of bravery.
Back at the Jones' house, Brock's wounds were tended to, and ROM declared his intentions to temporarily leave Earth in search of more wraiths on other worlds. Meanwhile, at the Delmar Insurance company headquarters in New York, loyal employees were stunned by the sound of a gunshot emanating from their boss's office. When they opened the door, they found a gun on the table, and a long pile of ash that looked very similar to a human outline draped over the desk and in the chair where their leader once sat. The executive was another wraith who paid the ultimate price for the Rocketeers' failure.
In the second story, we see more of Galador's Angel Elite guards rushing to the Hall of Science some 200 years ago. In a tale titled "The Body Snatcher!" we discover that the guards were on their way to protect the building and its contents from the rogue Spaceknight Terminator, who had just entered the room where the human remains of his fellow Spaceknights were kept. He soon blasted his way out of that room, focusing his eyebeams on the guards while holding the container that housed the human half of ROM in his right arm.
After defeating a few guards, Terminator blasted a hole in the floor, and escaped into Galador's sewer system. The remaining Angel Elite troops went to follow the rogue Galadorian and find out what other damage he had caused in the building. They soon learned just what Terminator had stolen.
By that time, Terminator was just steps to entering a dark portal. When he stepped out on the other side, he found Mentus awaiting his arrival. Terminator's new master was pleased with his success, and announced his plans to destroy the heroic Spaceknights and help his servant regain the humanity that was lost after his physical body had been affected by a wraith plague back on his home world.
This was another fun issue, one that wrapped up the two-part Torpedo story that ran in a couple of issues of Marvel Premiere. The backup story would also play a prominent role in the titular character's future. Adding Joe Sinnott as inker really helped to freshen up Sal Buscema's pencil work. All in all, this comic is more than worth the purchase price.
Next time, I'll write about the first part of ROM's journey toward his homeworld...but it doesn't start in ROM's own comic. Stay tuned for that. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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