Hi everyone,
Today I'll be writing about Marvel's fourth ROM: Spaceknight annual. The Bob Layton-drawn cover shows the silver Spaceknight facing off against Gladiator. The story was titled "Blows Against the Empire!"
The tale began in Shi'ar space as a fleet of Dreadnoughts spotted an immobile figure floating in space. The being contained in a force sphere caused concern for several crew members, especially when the being was identified as both organic and inorganic. The force sphere was eventually brought into one of the ships. While Shi'ar soldiers argued whether the stranger was man or machine, they soon found themselves under attack by the Spaceknight known as Pulsar, who was merely defending himself from what he thought was an assault by his enemies, the Dire Wraiths, using some of their many disguises.
It was a brief skirmish, one that the Spaceknight did not survive. Chakar Tyreseus, the ship's doctor, was called upon to perform an autopsy on the strange invader. The doctor hid the fact that the Galadorian was barely clinging to life from his superiors. He wanted to examine the Spaceknight firsthand. He learned that it was a cyborg and that its final battle was against its mortal enemies, the Dire Wraiths. A Dreadwing had placed Pulsar in the force sphere, where it lay as it drifted aimlessly through outer space before being detected by the Shi'ar vessel. Pulsar soon passed on. The doctor then decided to put the Spaceknight armor to his own use. Tyreseus grafted himself into Pulsar's armor and shortly thereafter launched his first strike on the Shi'ar army by tearing apart the Dreadnought he had just inhabited before flying off.
A while later, ROM and his companions, Seeker, Scanner, and Trapper, were soaring through space together when they came across the wreckage of the Shi'ar ship. No sooner had they appeared on the site than they were whisked away via transporter beam into one of the nearby Dreadnoughts. There (in a scene eerily familiar to one in a classic Claremont-Byrne X-Men tale), the Spaceknights found themselves under the scrutiny of Gladiator, praetor of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, who had charged the Galadorians with destroying the very same ship that they had just approached for the first time.
The prone body of Commander Dakari was then brought forth. The leader asserted that he had been attacked by a Spaceknight. ROM and his colleagues continued to assert that they had done nothing wrong, just before they were attacked by members of the Imperial Guard. ROM refused to fight until he was held in stasis by Manta. The first of the Spaceknights used his neutralizer to negate her light and was swiftly assaulted by Gladiator himself. ROM fought back against his attacker until Scanner announced that the Spaceknight who had destroyed the Shi'ar spacecraft was Pulsar.
Upon hearing this, ROM commanded his fellow Spaceknights to cease all hostilities immediately. They surrendered and were placed in a stasis field. ROM was determined to bring Pulsar to justice or face his punishment in his absence. Scanner got the sense in scanning the Shi'ar ship that its attacker was not a Spaceknight at all.
While many on the ship began to doubt the charges, Pulsar attacked another vessel. Before long, he was on course to attack the very ship that other Spaceknights were now imprisoned in. After the initial assault, ROM freed his neutralizer from its temporary cage and used its ray to free his comrades. He offered Gladiator the assistance of himself and his fellow Spaceknights. Gladiator agreed to take ROM's word, and the combined forces departed the ship to confront its attacker.
The doctor who took over Pulsar's armor had never met another Spaceknight before, and soon learned that he could be hurt even in the stolen cyborg armor that he now wore. Tyreseus stated that he was at one time a victim, but now he proclaimed himself to be a liberator, as he produced powerful force waves from his armored gauntlets, which drove the strike force back toward the Shi'ar craft. ROM's neutralizer negated Pulsar's rays, and his opponent retreated.
Although the Spaceknights were still Gladiator's prisoners, he authorized them to track down Pulsar, provided that he could execute imperial punishment once the villain had been apprehended. The group soon found the battered cyborg on a nearby asteroid. Gladiator was first to strike. He was ready to mete out final justice, when ROM asked to learn what happened to the real Pulsar.
Tyreseus explained that he was a native of the planet Calurnia, a once savage race that was eventually conquered by the Shi'ar. They were one of many worlds that served the Shi'ar Empire. His race's healing skills led to Tyreseus being pressed into service as a surgeon. He still yearned for revenge against the Shi'ar for conquering his planet. Pulsar's armor allowed him to do just that.
After destroying the Shi'ar spacecraft, Tyreseus returned to Calurnia to share his news and hopefully inspire his people to rebel. Surprisingly, his people rejected that offer. They liked things just the way they were. Pulsar then swore to get revenge on the Shi'ar by himself. Shortly after saying that, Tyreseus expired.
As promised, ROM turned the body of the rogue Spaceknight over to Gladiator so that final judgment could be made. ROM noted that Tyreseus died defying the Shi'ar Empire instead of serving it as a slave. He was soon buried. Afterward, Gladiator took some time to think about what had happened. He used his authority to open a stargate to send the wayward Spaceknights back to their home on Galador. Gladiator was then left alone on the asteroid to decide how he would explain the battle and the missing Galadorians to his empress.
This story was written while South Africa was in the middle of apartheid. Bill Mantlo would often use current events as part of the basis for his comic book scripts. I felt that this one was rather appropriate. I'm still not a big fan of Steve Ditko's artwork (which to me still felt a bit dated in the 1980s), but I can understand and appreciate the message that Mantlo was trying to convey. This was also the third time that a non-Galadorian inhabited Spaceknight armor (former criminal Archie Stryker was once bonded to the Firefall armor, and of course, Brandy Clark had just recently occupied Starshine's suit).
Well, that's all for now. Next time, I'll blog about the seventy-third issue of Marvel's ROM: Spaceknight series. We'll find out what happened to Brandy Clark after the Beyonder sent her to be with her love. We'll also learn what happened to ROM and his Spaceknight companions after they went through this issue's stargate. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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