ROM #23

Continuing from Power Man and Iron Fist #73, ROM the Spaceknight has followed a Dire Wraith into the Baxter Building. Now, ROM is convinced that one of the first family of Marvel is secretly one of his most deadly foes in disguised. Knowing that the fortress of the Fantastic Four is heavily guarded by the top security systems in existence, the Heroes For Hire decide to assist ROM in his quest. It helps that Luke Cage still has a security access card from his days as a security consultant and back-up to The Thing when he was stuck as Ben Grimm. 

Bill Mantlo takes over for Jo Duffy on this issue as the writer with Sal Buscema on art. Al Milgrom did the cover and I was a bit nonplussed with his offering compared to what Frank Miller did on the Power Man/Iron Fist opener. 

This issue was quite funny. Very exciting. And proof that despite the fact that I probably don't have very many companion issues to the ROM series from Marvel, it's worth finally reading!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Power Man and Iron Fist #73

In the opening half of a two-part crossover, the Heroes for Hire are tasked to investigate the murder of a woman whom ROM the Spaceknight identifies as a Dire Wraith hiding as a human. 

Akira's Jo Duffy pens an exciting first act that features cameos from a bunch of Marvel characters including the Fantastic Four. I don't own this issue. I was fortunate to have a buddy who had a PDF of this issue. I do have the companion issue, ROM #23. 

I have the entire run of ROM. I am looking forward getting to read it one day. But I have a feeling that with the number of crossovers in this series, a lot of the story is going to be missing in the regular series of the characters ROM encounters. Plus, since Marvel doesn't own the rights to ROM anymore, I have a feeling that some sort of complete omnibus of ROM stories from the House of Ideas will never happen.

Featuring an amazing cover by Frank Miller. Greg LaRocque (Moon Knight) does the interiors. He does a great job, but it would have been epic to have the Daredevil artist doing the artwork of the entire story and not just that psychedelic cover!

Lots of fun done in the mighty Marvel way of the 80s. Some of EIC Jim Shooter's best!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Two-In-One #99

It's a dark and stormy night at the Baxter Building. The Blue-Eyed Thing is reading horror stories alone when the power goes out. As Ben Grimm goes exploring the cause of the outage, he stumbles across the smoking body of Rom: Spaceknight!

As part of Rom's continuing battle with his enemy the Wraiths, the Spaceknight has meet his match. In order to defeat his enemy's new weapon in the battle for humanity, Rom will need assistance! It's a good thing that there's a member of the Fantastic Four with nothing to do on a rainy Saturday night. 

I've been reading the complete run of Marvel Two-In-One as part of the Marvel Essentials line. However, due to licensing rights with Hasbro, this issue is not one of those issues reprinted.

It's like night and day going from reading a black and white collection to a single issue is stark (and yet beautiful) living 4-color! Avengers' Bob Hall did a fantastic job on pencils.

I'm hoping that the regular series of Rom wasn't as stunted as the dialogue was in this issue. Bill Mantlo wrote this story and he was the regular writer on Rom during it's original 1979-1986 run. The plot was good. The Thing's dialogue was good. But Rom sounded too cheesy. Like really, really bad Shakespeare!

I've got the entire Marvel run of Rom that I hope to one day get around to reading. So we'll find out how bad the dialogue really is. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Aw Yeah! A Hasbro Action Figure Jam

Who says that the adults get to have all the fun?

 In honor of the epic IDW Hasbro crossover Revolution, the publishing company decided to make an all-ages version! Bringing together Rom: Spaceknight, GI Joe, Transformers and the Micronauts, Aw Yeah! A Hasbro Action Figure Jam crafts a story that will delight fans of all-ages of any or all of these franchises. 

However, I felt that a little something was missing to this book by Art Baltazar (Tiny Titans). I think it's that his long-time art and story partner, Franco isn't involved in this miniseries. Normally in an Art Baltazar and Franco adventure has tons of inside jokes, Easter eggs and is fun, fun, fun. This  yarn was missing at least one of the funs and a bunch of the hidden treasures. 

I enjoyed a large majority of this story. Having a very popular good guy changed into a member of COBRA was awesome! Seeing the Micronauts and Snake Eyes fighting together was epic! And anything with ROM is just pure old school fun!

But I hated the ending. It was ambiguous and stories without definitive endings are a huge pet peeve of mine. However, if you are a grown-up or parent who is looking to share over 35 years of Hasbro toy history, this is a very good place to start.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Rom Vs Transformers: Shining Knight #1

An Outcast Amongst Peers

Set 200 years in the past, Rom Vs.Transformers: Shining Armor is IDW’s latest entry in the Hasbro Universe. It tells the story of Stardrive, the first Cybertronian to become a knight in the Solstar Order. Encouraged by the Rom, the greatest Space Knight of them all, Stardrive rises to the ranks of cadet. But her journey isn’t easy. Even though she’s been raised with other Galadorians, Stardrive is subject to the same prejudices and fears as her fellow Cybertronians are.

The blood-thirsty Dire Wraiths are the mortal foes of the Space Knights. Yet it turns out that the Transformers, due to their reputations are genocidal killing machines, are hated by all intergalactic species. What will happen when Stardrive finally meets a Transformer face-to-face? Will she serve the order of the Space Knights as she’s been trained? Or will she succumb to the spark of bloodlust that resides in every Decepticon?

A Superior Crossover

John Barber and Cristos Gage do a fantastic job with this opening salvo in the war between Space Knight and Transformer. Unlike most crossovers, the duo actually focused on story. Stardrive’s journey from being rescued by Rom from a destroyed shuttle craft to joining his side as a fellow Space Knight is one of the best issues I’ve read all year!

The artwork by Alex Milne was equally amazing. It’s been a very long time since I have seen Transformers looking so sleek and polished in comics. The Dire Wraiths has never been illustrated so hideously. Or at least since the Bill Mantlo era at Marvel. And Rom- what can I say?! I’ve haven’t seen him look so spiffy since the day I unwrapped an action figure of him for my third birthday!

The past year has been chopped full of Hasbro Universe crossovers such as Revolution and sister title Revolutionaries. I’ve read them both. The pair of titles are good but they were missing passion in the storytelling. I wasn’t 100% caught up in what’s going on in the regular Rom and Transformers books to understand everything going on here. But I loved everything I read in this 32-pager opening chapter. If you are looking for an epic title to really dive into the mythos of what IDW and Hasbro is trying to accomplish in a shared universe of your favorite childhood memories- this is the title to start with!

A 2017 must read!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Revolution #1

      Transformers... G.I. Joe... Action Man... The Adventure Team... Rom: Space Knight, The Micronauts... M.A.S.K.- fighting either altogether or against one another. This is the type of team-up that any boy (and occasion girl) that grew-up in the 1980s wished would happen and if you happened to have all of these toys- it actually did. This is Revolution and it's the newest team-up from IDW.
  
     British operative Action Man has uncovered a plot in Greece that suggests someone on the G.I. Joe's has gone rouge. However, this plot, in the bowels of Mount Olympus, involves a rare mineral called Ore-13; the main power source of the Autobots and Decepticons. This suggests that the Transformers may have something to with the death of several Joes. It doesn't help that Optimus Prime recently made intergalactic strides at peace with the earth that sound an awful lot like a dictator settling claim to his newest territory. Thus, tensions between the governments of earth and the Cybertronians is at an all-time high. 
     The POTUS orders the Joe team to confront the Transformers in Portland as they attempt to save the city from a massive flood. But when Rom, the Space Knight appears on the scene, is he on the side of the Transformers or does he have an agenda of his own? One thing is for certain, by the end of this issue, a legend will die. 

Subscription Cover B by John Byrne, style
similar to the Marvel Handbook Covers.

     It was announced a few months ago that many of the HASBRO licensed toys were going to be contained within their own universe. Eventually, properties like G.I. Joe and Transformers are going to be appearing in live-action films together but those projects are a few years down the road. Revolution is the first step in achieving that goal and since IDW Publishing owns the rights to most of those properties, it makes sense that they are in a sense leading the HASBRO revolution.
     This first issue was a bit confusing to me. There's quite a bit of storyline that's taken place in previous issues of Joe, Transformers, Rom, and others that I haven't read. Thankfully, this book includes a refresher but it was put at the end of the book instead of the beginning. But once I read it, a lot of things fell into place. 
      This book wasn't on my radar. In fact, it wasn't until yesterday that I even knew that this series existed. The first issue, which I reviewed here, dropped today and I am so thankful that my favorite LCS was willing to hold a copy until I was able to get off work. I definitely want to read more and I think I will at least go one or two more issues before deciding whether to wait until later to complete the series from raiding the bargain bin or not. However, it's going to be tricky as IDW has it set up where you have to buy a series of one-shots along with the 5 issues of Revolution to get the whole story. But for now, I'm waiting on the edge of my seat to see what happens next.

    Worth Consuming
     
    Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.