Happy Thursday, folks!
Today's article is one that I've been looking forward to writing for a while. The cover showed the Thing alongside ROM: Spaceknight. The tale did not have a title. The issue had a cover date of May 1983.
Ben Grimm was alone in the Baxter Building in New York on a rainy night, reading a book of ghost stories, when he heard a loud hissing sound from above. He went upstairs to investigate and opened the roof access. Shortly thereafter, a tall metallic body fell down the steps at him. Grimm recognized it as belonging to the Spaceknight called ROM.
The Thing placed the Galadorian on a table and turned on the sensor slab. The Spaceknight's armor slowly started functioning normally. ROM rose from the table to thank his friend. He explained that when they last met, the Spaceknight had borrowed a ship from the Fantastic Four to search for his homeworld of Galador. He later returned to Earth and flew above a castle not far away from where he was now.
He ventured inside and saw several of his mortal enemies, the Dire Wraiths, standing around the armor of his Spaceknight comrade, Firefall. The wraiths had once used that armor to house a human, but now the armor was vacant once more. They continued their incantations until the Firefall armor broke free of its bonds and started after ROM moments after the Galadorian made his presence known.
The possessed Firefall armor flew at ROM, and the two continued their battle outside in the rain. Even though ROM knew that the armor no longer contained his friend Karas, he held himself back during the confrontation. The wraith-controlled armor had no such compunctions, and eventually unleashed a major blast at ROM, one which left him drifting helplessly down toward the roof of the Baxter Building.
The sizzling that Ben had heard earlier was ROM's armor steaming in the rain. Grimm agreed to join his armored friend in stopping the Dire Wraiths' plans. They went to the same castle where ROM had been earlier and were soon attacked by Firefall. Ben ripped up a stretch of ground to shield them while his alien counterpart flew to face the threat once more.
The flame hurled from the Firefall suit was living, although its most recent wearer was not. ROM and Firefall continued their aerial combat as Ben climbed the castle steps. Inside, he came face to face with wraiths for the first time. The Thing tried not to let his fear get the best of him, but pressed on as the unearthly spells were cast.
At one point, the Firefall armor lost direction and headed toward the storm's epicenter. ROM summoned his neutralizer and blasted the empty armor, sending it falling to the ground. He then flew to the castle to find Ben now under the influence of the Dire Wraiths.
ROM then entered a struggle he didn't want to partake in, much like his first encounter with the Firefall armor earlier that evening. He defended himself against his hypnotized ally and tried to strike at his alien masters when he could. ROM finally fired his neutralizer at the Fantastic Four's strongman, who slowly turned back to his human form.
Ben was astonished by the unexpected change and was no longer hypnotized. He continued to fight back against the wraiths as the Galadorian neutralizer in ROM's hand sang its familiar song of banishment to the dimension known as limbo. Before long, the battle was over.
ROM tried to console Ben afterward, confessing that he was unaware that a man existed under the Thing's rocky exterior. However, the neutralizer's effect on Ben was only temporary, because as they talked, his cosmic ray-generated alter ego took hold. He was relieved and extended a hand to his friend from a galaxy far, far away.
This was only the second time that the Spaceknight was primarily featured in a Marvel title other than his own. The first was a story that started in Power Man and Iron Fist and ended in ROM's mag. Longtime readers of this blog know that ROM and Marvel Two-In-One were my first non-Star Wars Marvel titles that I ever read, so this pairing was right up my alley, and of course it was scripted by ROM plotter Bill Mantlo. My only regret was that it would have been nice to have seen Karras, the Galadorian who was the first to don the Firefall armor, step inside the suit one more time. Oh well. By the way, Image Comics just released a new issue of ROM in the last few weeks, but that version is more similar to the one that had a short-lived IDW run a few years back than the Marvel title that spun off from the Parker Brothers robot toy.
That's it for today. Tomorrow, I'll close out the week with a discussion of the one hundredth and final issue of Marvel Two-In-One's initial run. John Byrne returns to craft a tale involving Ben and someone from another landmark issue that he was involved with in this series. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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