Hi everyone,
Today I'll be writing about the sixty-fourth issue of Marvel's monthly ROM: Spaceknight title. The cover is the first one that doesn't show the titular character anywhere except the traditional front left corner picture. Instead, a group of concerned citizens is preparing for what could be the worst. The tale was titled "This, Then is the Moment of...Worldmerge!" The issue had a cover date of March 1985.
The story began as a crowd of people gathered in the streets watching the skies overhead. There, we can see a black object almost eclipsing our sun, and the emergence of another planet. This could only be Wraithworld, home to the dreaded Dire Wraiths. It appeared that their plans for merging their homeworld and ours would finally be completed.
Weather disruptions and natural disasters soon began occurring around the globe, as the leaders of its assorted nations scrambled to react and protect their people. In space, Forge and ROM were still preparing the giant neutralizer to combat the wraith threat. Forge was still worried that this creation might remove or nullify the abilities that Earth's super-powered beings possessed. He'd already seen that happen to one of his colleagues when his neutralizer prototype was used against her (the mutant known as Storm in the Uncanny X-Men comic).
While Forge continued his work, the silver Spacenkight returned to Earth's atmosphere just in time to save a passenger jet from crashing. He then flew toward General Locklin's Wraith Hunter-Ranger base, where some of the worldmerge's damage had already been felt. Unfortunately, the new neutralizer could not undo wraith destruction, but ROM was confident that it could end further wraith attacks. If it didn't, Earth could perish.
On a nearby hilltop, Brandy Clark and Rick Jones were searching for young Cindy Adams, who had been tormented by the thoughts left inside her head by a Dire Wraith who attacked her and died, but left its mind inside of hers. Jones lunged out to save Adams just before the rocks she was sitting on collapsed, and it seemed like the supposedly nonexistent powers that Clark had as Starshine enabled her to save them both. The trio rejoiced once they were out of harm's way. Clark saw her love fly by and wished she could do more to help. Jones reminded her that they had their own ways of helping those in need.
The Galadorian soared on by, not seeing his friends as he ventured off to save more humans. He soon came upon a church. The tones of its bells seemed to calm the Spaceknight, and he was reminded of his days before donning his cyborg armor to confront the initial invasion aimed at his home planet of Galador. The congregation soon gathered around him. ROM assured them that his neutralizer could save them, not knowing that the crowd was really his mortal enemies, the Dire Wraiths in disguise. They caught the silver Spaceknight by surprise and quickly overpowered him.
Back in Earth's orbit, Forge continued to fret. He realized that ROM should have returned because he would need to use his Galadorian neutralizer to power their weapon. In the Wraith Hunter-Ranger camp, Rick Jones sent out a radio call to other heroes, just in case his buddy needed some extra assistance.
This was the last issue before the climactic wraith war battle. It set up that confrontation nicely, and writer Bill Mantlo did a good job of ending it on a cliffhanger, not unlike many of the radio and television serials of old. P. Craig Russell's inking of Steve Ditko's pencil work was very sharp and clear, and made the drawings more defined than I expected.
Well, that's all for now. Next time, I'll cover the sixty-fifth issue of Marvel's ROM title. That's the big battle issue that longtime readers waited impatiently for. It's the final major confrontation with the Dire Wraiths on Earth. We'll see how ROM manages, with a little help from some friends, of course. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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