2.26 (391) Rom #31 ... Marvel ...

As is typical of Marvel comics during that era, subplots are a plenty and this issue sees 2 plots reaching its apex and thus becoming the main story

First up is the Brotherhood after finishing their fight with the Avengers and being incarcerated ... well they are being transported to the middle of nowhere but still in a human prison ... so weird, right? Even the attempt at explanation by the writer sounds wrong ...

And as the cover indicates, Rom comes upon them and a battle ensues but ... for some reason, to ensure that there is a layer more of "story" to it, and a bit of a moral ground, we see Rom initially making the mistake of trusting convicts ... only to be conned ... when he believed the convicts that they were slaves and that the warden is the slavemaster while the prison ... a den for slavery!

Man ... Rom is supposed to be from a pacifist world who comes to save us from Dire Wraiths but the sheer amount of naivette is unbelievable ... and he believes that just because he has the power, he can do whatever he wants to whoever he wants ... how is that heroic? How is that different from the villains? It just so happens that what he feels is deemed to be "heroic" in the real world ... so he is a hero? Well what about attacking guards and freeing prisoners?

Sorry man you fail again!

And then he actually failed to subdue the brotherhood? Sigh!

Next is the other subplot where the fleeing brotherhood encounters SPOILER ALERT Hybrid ... only to have the usual cliffhanger to get us to come back next issue for the continuation ...

Ratings: 3/10

2.25 (390) Rom #29 ... Marvel ...

Let's move back to an oldie but goldie ... in this issue, we see for once, that Rom has shrugged off the guest stars galore format that the series has been using although not entirely ...

The issue opens with the epilogue from previous storylines where we see both Rom and the town Clairton mourn the loss of Spaceknight, Stashine - the original not the SPOILER ALERT subsequent human who uses this armour to fight against the dire wraith ... and sprinkled in amongst the mourners are moments of self-reflection and self-doubts ... from Rom and his human friends especially the mainly useless Torpedo ... so far all his appearances have him losing fights only to be saved by Rom

And while that is going on ... Rom spies a new danger that pique his curiosity ... and so he journeys to the next town only to find that the final family still there is dying of radiation poisoning ... and noble Rom rescues them ...

Being the gallant hero that he is, Rom goes into the mines to find the source of the problem ... and here is where we have objections. Rom actually blames another entity for the problem in the town even though he knows the truth ... and just wants to spare the family from further pain ... but dude you have just spoiled another's reputation by making them seemed dangerous ... so not cool Mr Robot!

Ratings: 3/10

313. Rom #1 ... Marvel ...

Now this is one odd series and hero. In the age of relaunches and limited series and specials, this is one series that has had no revivals even though during its 6 year publishing history, Rom has had many fans including crossovers and toys etc and in fact, started life as a toy

What is Rom?

A man from Galador, a world far away from ours that treasured peace above war until one day creatures from another galaxy called the Dark Nebula invaded them. Seeing no choice, their ruler decided to merge each of their best with non-organics thus creating a race of Spaceknights, metallic looking beings with half of their humanity within and awesome powers to combat the invaders named Dire Wraiths

And once their world was cleansed, the Knights ranged far and wide individually to track down the Wraiths in order to ensure they do not visit the same evil on other worlds. Rom is supposedly the greatest of such warriors and armed with neutralizer and analyzer

This issue ably tells his arrival, scaring the locals while tracking the Wraiths and because of the way he disposes them by banishing them to limbo, another dimension while still in their human guise, terrifies human's even more

However, instead of spending the full 22 pages, the other half is a tale about the history of the spaceknights. Sigh! It would have been better if this had happened a few issues in

Ratings: 5/10