ROM 10-12 Take Two
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aaron_bourque posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
scans_dailyAll right, so I've blown my photobucket bandwidth for the month, my first attempt at this failed horribly! So let's see if some other free image hoster works, shall we?
Previously, on ROM SPACEKNIGHT!
Stuff happened. Seriously, read the tags. Oh right, bandwidth exceeded.
. . .
Okay! Explorers from Galador stumbled across the shapeshifting Dire Wraiths in the deeps of space, who started a war with them. In order to fight back effectively, the Galadorians proposed a radical cyborgization procedure, and a young man named Rom was the first to volunteer. He and about a thousand others got turned into Spaceknights, super soldier cyborgs with fantastic weaponry. ROM becomes known as the GREATEST OF THE SPACEKNIGHTS after he defeats the summoned beast called DEATHWING. Though the Dire Wraiths were driven off, ROM vows to hunt them down wherever they go. Two centuries later, the trail leads to Earth. Blah blah blah, the Dire Wraiths have infiltrated humanity on multiple levels, yadda yadda yadda, humanity mostly fears ROM because it looks like he vaporizes helpless people when in actuality he banishes them to Limbo, blather blather, only two humans right now know the truth and trust ROM, the massively crushing on him Brandy Clark and her boyfriend (ooh, awkward) Steve Jackson, who in the course of protecting ROM's secrets have been arrested by the local police. Also, ROM's Neutralizer, his main weapon--which he uses to banish Wraiths to Limbo--has been taken by the Wraiths!
. . .
And some other stuff happened, too!
. . .
Stupid bandwidth issues.
Okay, when last we left our hero, he had intended to retrieve his Neutralizer. However, he was detoured in issue 9, so he figures he should check on Brandy and Steve.
Not just killer carrots but EVIL killer carrots!
Anyway, there's some exposition about stuff that happened 2 or even 3 issues ago! About a cop friend of Steve's who learned the truth about ROM and was killed by creatures used by the Dire Wraith's called Thornoids (EVIL KILLER CARROTS), and that death is why the police are holding and questioning Steve and Brandy. Steve says he told the cops everything, but that neither he nor Brandy knows where ROM currently is. Which, of course, is his cue to break in and try to free them!
Oh, ROM. You so silly.
"Maybe it was a slow death ray." This comic isn't really known for its humor, but every so often . . .
ROM questions Brandy and Steve why they're the only ones who believe ROM is there to save humanity. They say that the others will come around when they witness the Dire Wraiths' evils for themselves, and then ROM carries them away. "Brandy, Steve. Grab my boobs.
"Aaaand awaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"
And the sheriff scratches his head with the barrel of his gun. WITH HIS FINGER ON THE TRIGGER, WHAT THE HELL.
So at dawn, the trio are on a hillside to gather their thoughts, and also so ROM can ask where Washington, D.C. is, as he's learned that's where his Neutralizer has been taken. Brandy scratches some arrows in the dirt, saying the city is about 200 miles to the northeast of Clairton, WV. Of course, she says, "It would be suicide for you to attempt to go there!"
"Yet go I must, Brandy," ROM replies, "For I must find my Neutralizer--and wrest it from my foes!"
Brandy tries to convince him not to go, that he'd be detected before he got 20 miles from D.C., that there are still Wraiths in Clairton, and that they need him. ROM flashes back for a panel to his homeworld love Ray-na, who looks a lot like Brandy only with black hair, making a similar plea, and then wipes a tear from Brandy's eye and swears he'll return. He tasks Steve to protect Brandy while he's gone.
"I will!" he replies. "She's my girl, isn't she?"
"She is," ROM says, and blasts off.
ROM flies close enough to the ground to be spotted by all sorts of people as he goes, scanning for his Neutralizer's energy signature with his Analyzer, and he passes a bullet train. On board that train is the Clairton town coroner, Silas Lane, who's discovered that everyone ROM has "killed," (actually banishing Dire Wraiths to Limbo) were born, no matter their observable age, on the same day that Charles de Gaulle was named president of the French Committee of National Liberation.
Anyway, he's talking with a blond reporter named A.C. "Ace" O'Connor on the train. Ace, as her friends and byline call her, is unimportant at this time except that she glances out the train window just in time to see ROM zipping by. I'm sure we'll never see her, again!
Anyway, ROM makes it to D.C., his Analyzer pinpoints his Neutralizer, and DUN DUN DUN, the air force picks ROM up on radar! They panic and scramble jets (identified in narration as "F-5" fighter jets, presumably a Northrop F-5, but nothing I pull up on google image search really resembles the art, so I dunno), and we get some nice Cold War era paranoia: "If it's not one of ours, it's an enemy! Wing Leader to Flight Group--"
Although ROM is laid out momentarily, he recovers before he crashes, only to see more missiles locking onto him. ROM, not a dummy, pours on the speed and flies back at the nearest "F-5" fighter jet, leading the missiles back, too. The pilot bails out rather than, you know, DIE.
The plane explodes and ROM congratulates himself for causing millions of dollars of destruction, not to mention whatever the flaming wreckage will crash onto, but then the other planes open fire on him with their machine guns. They just go "plink, plink" on ROM's armor, and he loses his patience.
ROM flies through this one straight on. Yay more property damage! As ROM surveys his handiwork, a strange craft that looks sort of like a more streamlined Fantasticar sneaks up from behind, zaps ROM and tractor beams him aboard.
TO BE CONTINUED . . . RIGHT NOW!
I like that they plaster a Toys 'R' Us giveaway on the cover of their toy tie-in comic. Too bad the toy will stop going on sale, soon!
So ROM has been captured by the Dire Wraiths, who are holding him suspended in some kind of energy field. We learn a little about Project Safeguard in the narration, that it was funded in 1976, that it's mandate supposedly make peaceful approaches to alien species, but in actuality it was to seek out evidence of aliens on Earth. Considering how there have been aliens coming and going in public on Earth 6-16 since at least the 60s, I don't understand how that really works, but whatever. ROM tries to break out and we find out that while Safeguard is actually a front for the Dire Wraiths, most of the people who work there are just regular humans doing their job when ROM pulls his Analyzer and the Safeguarders think it's a weapon and they blast at him with a shoulder mounted double barreled plasma cannon. Sheesh, overkill much?
It causes ROM enough pain to pass out (and since ROM is numb to all but the most agonizing of pain, DAYUM!) and as the rank and file ask their secret Dire Wraith overlord if she's okay, she internal monologues a brief recap: they stole ROM's Neutralizer, he's come to get it back, they sucker-punched with science (a better song title, I think, than blinded) and now here we are!
The mysterious "Most High One," the usually shadow-shrouded leader of the Wraiths on Earth, comes in and orders them to kill ROM, infodumping about Archie Stryker--a low level criminal who ROM had a run in with several issues ago, and was duped by the Wraiths into being grafted into some Spaceknight armor they had somehow picked up. Most High (I guess that's his DJ name, like Dante Terrell Smith and Mos Def?) also says to destroy the Neutralizer. Dr. Sweet, Wraith Scientist (it easily fits on her business cards) initially objects, but relents when Mos Hi almost crushes her brain. As Hip Hop High heads haway, she laments the loss to Wraith science.
Are they . . . are they trying to make us feel sympathy for a Dire Wraith? Huh.
So they get ready to . . . administer a lethal injection to ROM? How would the needle get through ROM's armor? Whatever. Before they can break the needle on his skin--
ROM reveals he was able to escape the magnetic field of the disk because all Spaceknight armor is different, and that he's stronger than Firefall was. Okay. He throws debris from the disk into some bit of Kirby-tech computer to strike fear in Dr. Sweet.
ROM explains that while Earth technology probably can't help Stryker out of the Firefall armor, once he retrieves his Neutralizer, he'll direct him to Galador, where they should be able to help. Sweet begs some more, directed to motivate the Safeguard staff to save her. Stryker susses out the strewth and I really should stop witht he alliteration. Anyway, ROM breaks the intercom with his fists, and tries the same thing to the energy field holding his Neutralizer, but that doesn't work (seriously, ROM, what the hell?)
Sweet taunts ROM that the only way to disrupt the energy field would require all of his armors power, and that the humans are coming. They set up this massive two barrel anti-infantry sci fi gun to blow down the door to the Ultralab, and they're running out of time.
Hey, "Ace" O'Connor! I guess I was wrong about never seeing her again! I'll bet we never see her again, again!
So they manage to break through to the Ultralab, and witness ROM towering over a cowering Dr. Sweet--
You know, ROM, you bring a lot of your problems down on yourself.
Okay, we begin with a three page sequence with Jack of Hearts (Jack Hart) "working out" on a SHIELD obstacle course at The Farm. The narration briefly explains his powers, that he can generate concussive energy, that's he's wearing containment armor, but all we really see is that he can fly and is super tough. That's all we need, right now. Then he hears about an alert at Project Safeguard and flies off.
Back at Safeguard, the staff is standing around dumbfounded after ROM seemingly vaporized Dr. Sweet. But the security forces aren't the only ones around--
So ROM sends a few Wraiths to Limbo, which naturally angers the human survivors, who open up on ROM with their giant shoulder mounted blasters, but ROM's not having any of that crap, and busts those things up with his bare hands. So Jack of Hearts flies into Safeguard, leaving a Jack of Hearts as his identifying card (do you get it, huh?), and heads for Ultralab, where some of the Safeguard troops are fleeing in terror.
In a fit of impatience and frustrated anger, ROM fires his Neutralizer at Jack, which causes him pain. ROM realizes in horror that Jack isn't a Wraith (it would have banished him to Limbo), but he's not a baseline human, either (it would have probably killed him). So he Analyzes him in a full page spread, and A.C. "Ace" O'Connor (her again!) snaps a couple pictures. ROM is confused by his Analysis, that Jack is neither Wraith nor like other humans, and Jack launches himself at ROM. ROM realizes he might be in trouble: Jack's powers can harm him, but the only weapon ROM has will end up killing Jack, and ROM's sworn to never take innocent life in his war against the Wraiths.
Jack is getting frustrated, himself, wondering aloud "What does it take to kill you, alien?" ROM thinks Jack's power could do the trick, but he can't really let him know that, now can he?
SO they fight some more, with "Ace" snapping some more pictures of the whole thing. ROM's energy absorbing power that he uses to feed himself but that can knock him out if he overloads (it was in a previous issue) starts sucking up some of Jack's power, and ROM realizes he has to leave to discharge the excessive power, or it might harm the innocent humans. He heads for space (FINALLY, I mean, he's a SPACEKNIGHT, and it's taken TWELVE DAMN ISSUES TO GET TO SPACE??), and Jack, being a creature of pure energy who doesn't have to breath, follows.
They exchange one punch and ROM goes flying, and he can't contain the energy anymore so he essentially explodes . . . and that causes Jack to get tossed back to Earth and the hell?!!? That's it? That's the big space fight we've waited 12 issues for? BUUUUUUULL CRAAAAAAAP.
Oh, whatever. Jack corrects his fall and flies back to Safeguard and takes credit for defeating ROM, and "Ace" goes off, thinking she's got photographic proof of the scoop of the decade! ROM, meanwhile, is floating in space.
So that's one year of ROM SPACEKNIGHT down. Tune in two weeks from now to see how the comic outlasted the toy! BY BEING GOOD.
Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; if this doesn't work, heads will roll.
Previously, on ROM SPACEKNIGHT!
Stuff happened. Seriously, read the tags. Oh right, bandwidth exceeded.
. . .
Okay! Explorers from Galador stumbled across the shapeshifting Dire Wraiths in the deeps of space, who started a war with them. In order to fight back effectively, the Galadorians proposed a radical cyborgization procedure, and a young man named Rom was the first to volunteer. He and about a thousand others got turned into Spaceknights, super soldier cyborgs with fantastic weaponry. ROM becomes known as the GREATEST OF THE SPACEKNIGHTS after he defeats the summoned beast called DEATHWING. Though the Dire Wraiths were driven off, ROM vows to hunt them down wherever they go. Two centuries later, the trail leads to Earth. Blah blah blah, the Dire Wraiths have infiltrated humanity on multiple levels, yadda yadda yadda, humanity mostly fears ROM because it looks like he vaporizes helpless people when in actuality he banishes them to Limbo, blather blather, only two humans right now know the truth and trust ROM, the massively crushing on him Brandy Clark and her boyfriend (ooh, awkward) Steve Jackson, who in the course of protecting ROM's secrets have been arrested by the local police. Also, ROM's Neutralizer, his main weapon--which he uses to banish Wraiths to Limbo--has been taken by the Wraiths!
. . .
And some other stuff happened, too!
. . .
Stupid bandwidth issues.
Okay, when last we left our hero, he had intended to retrieve his Neutralizer. However, he was detoured in issue 9, so he figures he should check on Brandy and Steve.
Not just killer carrots but EVIL killer carrots!
Anyway, there's some exposition about stuff that happened 2 or even 3 issues ago! About a cop friend of Steve's who learned the truth about ROM and was killed by creatures used by the Dire Wraith's called Thornoids (EVIL KILLER CARROTS), and that death is why the police are holding and questioning Steve and Brandy. Steve says he told the cops everything, but that neither he nor Brandy knows where ROM currently is. Which, of course, is his cue to break in and try to free them!
Oh, ROM. You so silly.
"Maybe it was a slow death ray." This comic isn't really known for its humor, but every so often . . .
ROM questions Brandy and Steve why they're the only ones who believe ROM is there to save humanity. They say that the others will come around when they witness the Dire Wraiths' evils for themselves, and then ROM carries them away. "Brandy, Steve. Grab my boobs.
"Aaaand awaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"
And the sheriff scratches his head with the barrel of his gun. WITH HIS FINGER ON THE TRIGGER, WHAT THE HELL.
So at dawn, the trio are on a hillside to gather their thoughts, and also so ROM can ask where Washington, D.C. is, as he's learned that's where his Neutralizer has been taken. Brandy scratches some arrows in the dirt, saying the city is about 200 miles to the northeast of Clairton, WV. Of course, she says, "It would be suicide for you to attempt to go there!"
"Yet go I must, Brandy," ROM replies, "For I must find my Neutralizer--and wrest it from my foes!"
Brandy tries to convince him not to go, that he'd be detected before he got 20 miles from D.C., that there are still Wraiths in Clairton, and that they need him. ROM flashes back for a panel to his homeworld love Ray-na, who looks a lot like Brandy only with black hair, making a similar plea, and then wipes a tear from Brandy's eye and swears he'll return. He tasks Steve to protect Brandy while he's gone.
"I will!" he replies. "She's my girl, isn't she?"
"She is," ROM says, and blasts off.
ROM flies close enough to the ground to be spotted by all sorts of people as he goes, scanning for his Neutralizer's energy signature with his Analyzer, and he passes a bullet train. On board that train is the Clairton town coroner, Silas Lane, who's discovered that everyone ROM has "killed," (actually banishing Dire Wraiths to Limbo) were born, no matter their observable age, on the same day that Charles de Gaulle was named president of the French Committee of National Liberation.
Anyway, he's talking with a blond reporter named A.C. "Ace" O'Connor on the train. Ace, as her friends and byline call her, is unimportant at this time except that she glances out the train window just in time to see ROM zipping by. I'm sure we'll never see her, again!
Anyway, ROM makes it to D.C., his Analyzer pinpoints his Neutralizer, and DUN DUN DUN, the air force picks ROM up on radar! They panic and scramble jets (identified in narration as "F-5" fighter jets, presumably a Northrop F-5, but nothing I pull up on google image search really resembles the art, so I dunno), and we get some nice Cold War era paranoia: "If it's not one of ours, it's an enemy! Wing Leader to Flight Group--"
Although ROM is laid out momentarily, he recovers before he crashes, only to see more missiles locking onto him. ROM, not a dummy, pours on the speed and flies back at the nearest "F-5" fighter jet, leading the missiles back, too. The pilot bails out rather than, you know, DIE.
The plane explodes and ROM congratulates himself for causing millions of dollars of destruction, not to mention whatever the flaming wreckage will crash onto, but then the other planes open fire on him with their machine guns. They just go "plink, plink" on ROM's armor, and he loses his patience.
ROM flies through this one straight on. Yay more property damage! As ROM surveys his handiwork, a strange craft that looks sort of like a more streamlined Fantasticar sneaks up from behind, zaps ROM and tractor beams him aboard.
TO BE CONTINUED . . . RIGHT NOW!
I like that they plaster a Toys 'R' Us giveaway on the cover of their toy tie-in comic. Too bad the toy will stop going on sale, soon!
So ROM has been captured by the Dire Wraiths, who are holding him suspended in some kind of energy field. We learn a little about Project Safeguard in the narration, that it was funded in 1976, that it's mandate supposedly make peaceful approaches to alien species, but in actuality it was to seek out evidence of aliens on Earth. Considering how there have been aliens coming and going in public on Earth 6-16 since at least the 60s, I don't understand how that really works, but whatever. ROM tries to break out and we find out that while Safeguard is actually a front for the Dire Wraiths, most of the people who work there are just regular humans doing their job when ROM pulls his Analyzer and the Safeguarders think it's a weapon and they blast at him with a shoulder mounted double barreled plasma cannon. Sheesh, overkill much?
It causes ROM enough pain to pass out (and since ROM is numb to all but the most agonizing of pain, DAYUM!) and as the rank and file ask their secret Dire Wraith overlord if she's okay, she internal monologues a brief recap: they stole ROM's Neutralizer, he's come to get it back, they sucker-punched with science (a better song title, I think, than blinded) and now here we are!
The mysterious "Most High One," the usually shadow-shrouded leader of the Wraiths on Earth, comes in and orders them to kill ROM, infodumping about Archie Stryker--a low level criminal who ROM had a run in with several issues ago, and was duped by the Wraiths into being grafted into some Spaceknight armor they had somehow picked up. Most High (I guess that's his DJ name, like Dante Terrell Smith and Mos Def?) also says to destroy the Neutralizer. Dr. Sweet, Wraith Scientist (it easily fits on her business cards) initially objects, but relents when Mos Hi almost crushes her brain. As Hip Hop High heads haway, she laments the loss to Wraith science.
Are they . . . are they trying to make us feel sympathy for a Dire Wraith? Huh.
So they get ready to . . . administer a lethal injection to ROM? How would the needle get through ROM's armor? Whatever. Before they can break the needle on his skin--
ROM reveals he was able to escape the magnetic field of the disk because all Spaceknight armor is different, and that he's stronger than Firefall was. Okay. He throws debris from the disk into some bit of Kirby-tech computer to strike fear in Dr. Sweet.
ROM explains that while Earth technology probably can't help Stryker out of the Firefall armor, once he retrieves his Neutralizer, he'll direct him to Galador, where they should be able to help. Sweet begs some more, directed to motivate the Safeguard staff to save her. Stryker susses out the strewth and I really should stop witht he alliteration. Anyway, ROM breaks the intercom with his fists, and tries the same thing to the energy field holding his Neutralizer, but that doesn't work (seriously, ROM, what the hell?)
Sweet taunts ROM that the only way to disrupt the energy field would require all of his armors power, and that the humans are coming. They set up this massive two barrel anti-infantry sci fi gun to blow down the door to the Ultralab, and they're running out of time.
Hey, "Ace" O'Connor! I guess I was wrong about never seeing her again! I'll bet we never see her again, again!
So they manage to break through to the Ultralab, and witness ROM towering over a cowering Dr. Sweet--
You know, ROM, you bring a lot of your problems down on yourself.
Okay, we begin with a three page sequence with Jack of Hearts (Jack Hart) "working out" on a SHIELD obstacle course at The Farm. The narration briefly explains his powers, that he can generate concussive energy, that's he's wearing containment armor, but all we really see is that he can fly and is super tough. That's all we need, right now. Then he hears about an alert at Project Safeguard and flies off.
Back at Safeguard, the staff is standing around dumbfounded after ROM seemingly vaporized Dr. Sweet. But the security forces aren't the only ones around--
So ROM sends a few Wraiths to Limbo, which naturally angers the human survivors, who open up on ROM with their giant shoulder mounted blasters, but ROM's not having any of that crap, and busts those things up with his bare hands. So Jack of Hearts flies into Safeguard, leaving a Jack of Hearts as his identifying card (do you get it, huh?), and heads for Ultralab, where some of the Safeguard troops are fleeing in terror.
In a fit of impatience and frustrated anger, ROM fires his Neutralizer at Jack, which causes him pain. ROM realizes in horror that Jack isn't a Wraith (it would have banished him to Limbo), but he's not a baseline human, either (it would have probably killed him). So he Analyzes him in a full page spread, and A.C. "Ace" O'Connor (her again!) snaps a couple pictures. ROM is confused by his Analysis, that Jack is neither Wraith nor like other humans, and Jack launches himself at ROM. ROM realizes he might be in trouble: Jack's powers can harm him, but the only weapon ROM has will end up killing Jack, and ROM's sworn to never take innocent life in his war against the Wraiths.
Jack is getting frustrated, himself, wondering aloud "What does it take to kill you, alien?" ROM thinks Jack's power could do the trick, but he can't really let him know that, now can he?
SO they fight some more, with "Ace" snapping some more pictures of the whole thing. ROM's energy absorbing power that he uses to feed himself but that can knock him out if he overloads (it was in a previous issue) starts sucking up some of Jack's power, and ROM realizes he has to leave to discharge the excessive power, or it might harm the innocent humans. He heads for space (FINALLY, I mean, he's a SPACEKNIGHT, and it's taken TWELVE DAMN ISSUES TO GET TO SPACE??), and Jack, being a creature of pure energy who doesn't have to breath, follows.
They exchange one punch and ROM goes flying, and he can't contain the energy anymore so he essentially explodes . . . and that causes Jack to get tossed back to Earth and the hell?!!? That's it? That's the big space fight we've waited 12 issues for? BUUUUUUULL CRAAAAAAAP.
Oh, whatever. Jack corrects his fall and flies back to Safeguard and takes credit for defeating ROM, and "Ace" goes off, thinking she's got photographic proof of the scoop of the decade! ROM, meanwhile, is floating in space.
So that's one year of ROM SPACEKNIGHT down. Tune in two weeks from now to see how the comic outlasted the toy! BY BEING GOOD.
Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; if this doesn't work, heads will roll.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 12:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 02:59 am (UTC)^-I see, it's the police man from Plan 9! So he DID get another job after that travesty!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 03:29 am (UTC)