Review: ROM: The Original Marvel Years Vol. 3 hardcover (Marvel Comics)

[Guest review by Chris Schillig, who blogs at Monkey on My Back]

If ROM: The Original Marvel Years Vol. 3 were an episode of Friends, it would be titled “The One That Nobody Likes.”

Well, that’s not completely fair. Readers of the first two volumes — covering the first fifty issues of one of the most successful toy tie-ins in Marvel Comics history — if they come to this concluding edition with an open mind, will still find quite a bit to enjoy. They just have to swallow a huge, unsavory change to get there. 

This bitter pill is the departure of original artist Sal Buscema, whose rendition of ROM, his enemies, and allies is such a large part of the book’s success. But after issue 58, Buscema is gone, and in the middle of a storyline, to boot. More about his replacement(s) in a bit. 

Bill Mantlo, whose writing here and on Micronauts demonstrates that he never treated Marvel’s licensed titles as a lesser assignment, accelerates the storyline of ROM’s battle with the Dire Wraiths, his centuries-old enemies. Gone are the one- and two-issue tales of isolated Wraith sects skulking about the hills of West Virginia, replaced now by a grander, unified scheme: the merging of Earth and the aliens' home planet through sorcerous means. 

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

With a plot too substantial for even the stalwart ROM to foil alone, he must call upon the mutant Forge, capable of creating an industrial-sized version of our hero’s neutralizer weapon. It “holds the promise of eradicating every wraith upon the face of the planet at one and the same moment,” as ROM earnestly explains. Unfortunately, a rogue SHIELD agent has already used Forge’s prototype neutralizer to attempt to strip the X-Men’s Storm of her powers, so he no longer trusts the government. Cue the obligatory battle between ROM and Forge before the former can convince the latter to work together. 

Mantlo juggles a variety of subplots in this last tranche of issues, including ROM’s human love interest, Brandy Clark, who sacrificed her own humanity to become the spaceknight Starshine, the better to romance ROM. Unfortunately, the transition made her almost as bloodthirsty as the Dire Wraiths. Her continued penchant for violence elicits an endless torrent of angsty dialogue from ROM; he interrupts his quest to eradicate Wraiths at least once every issue or so to pontificate on his own nobility and bemoan all that he has lost, shades of the Silver Surfer. 

New to the ROM scene are Rick Jones, former teen sidekick to the Hulk, the Avengers, and Captain Marvel; and Cindy Adams, an 11-year-old orphan whose brain shares space with the spirit of a Dire Wraith. 

Everything comes to a head with issue #65, where ROM is joined by the best that mid-'80s Marvel has to offer — the Avengers, X-Men, Beta-Ray Thor — to address the Wraith threat on Earth. This epic battle lacks the one thing that the series itself has needed from the start: an arch-enemy Wraith to serve as ROM’s foil. A Sauron to his Frodo, if you will. Sure, the Wraiths are villainous and vile, as endless captions and dialogue exchanges have made abundantly clear, but without the advantage of one primary antagonist, eradicating them has all the high drama of spraying a nest of termites with Raid. 

Once the Wraiths are in the rearview, Mantlo shifts gears and sends ROM into space, where the comparisons to Silver Surfer become even more pronounced. Like many books once their primary villains have been defeated, ROM flounders quickly, and it isn’t long before the spaceknight is rooting out enclaves of Dire Wraiths in interstellar space, adding to the sense that the title should have ended ten issues earlier. 

The most challenging part of the series is the visual side, where Sal Buscema’s absence is felt in every installment. The legendary Steve Ditko steps in as penciler, and even for aficionados of the artist’s work during the 1980s (of which I am one), it’s clear that he is ill-suited for the job. Ditko has always struggled with other people’s characters, and while his version of ROM himself is recognizable, the dozens of characters he is required to draw for the Wraith finale often appear stiff and off model. Ditko is on surer ground when ROM leaves Earth, and the artist can create alien landscapes and ships untethered from the main Marvel Universe. 

Marvel does neither Ditko nor the book any favors by pairing him with many different inkers and co-artists during his tenure. In his introduction to the volume, Chris Ryall gives the best-collaborator nod to P. Craig Russell, a legend in his own right. While I like the look of Russell’s work paired with Ditko’s, I prefer Al Milgrom’s finishes, which provide more of that classic Ditko look. The artist whose pairing with Ditko is the worst is John Byrne; the pages are dark and the lines too heavy, and Byrne can’t resist shading ROM’s armor to the point of distraction. 

The ultimate arbiter of this book’s success or failure, however, is Mantlo. He makes good use of the (editorially mandated?) Secret Wars II crossover to have the Beyonder resolve subplots involving Rick Jones and little Cindy Adams, and transport Brandy Clark to ROM’s home world for a conclusion that fulfills the premise of the first issue. And if it all feels a little too tidy, well, at least ROM reaches a definitive ending. 

As I’ve noted in reviews of the first two volumes, collecting this material in one place — or, at the very least, reading it all at one time — does it no favors. It’s best enjoyed in smaller installments, the way it was originally published. Still, fans who have waited decades to see ROM reprinted are likely to overlook the faults and revel in the nostalgia of a time when the publisher integrated its licensed properties fully into the Marvel Universe proper. ROM continues to exert a hold on the imagination, a testament to the vision of Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema, and their various collaborators.