Spaceknight Saturday Surprise: Because Sometimes a Reed Richards from Another Dimension Is Using Rom's Gear

Don't tell me he isn't.

(from FF #9 by Jonathan Hickman, Steve Epting and Rick Magyar)

We're Losing Another One of the Boys

I mean, Emma's a nice girl and everything, but... think of the guild!!!

Spaceknight Saturdays: Where Are They Now?

Honest. This is the very last Spaceknight Saturday ever. Rom's rights remain tangled, and after the very poor showing of the Starlin/Batista mini-series, there wasn't much chance of their ever returning. Until the Annihilation Saga...

Good luck making sense of the Gen3 Spaceknights's appearance in Annihilation though. Not only do they appear in the contemporary Marvel Universe alongside Nova and other heroes of today, despite the mini taking place 20 years in the future*, but they're being led by FF villain Blastaar.I can spot Tristan, Starshine, Hammerhand, Firefall, Sentry, Javelin, Scanner and what I presume is a new Lightningbolt. Is that Terminator in black or did things finally come to a head back on Galador? No clue. The Spaceknights don't get a line, and by the last issue of the series, their survival is in doubt.

We never see Gen3 again, though what looks like Gen4 does appear in the the Annihilation: Conquest Prologue. A Galadorian cruiser and a number of Knights arrive at the Kree homeworld and forge an alliance with the Kree. Their go-to guy is Daystar (make your jokes).
Talking about "Spaceknight Restitution" makes me think Gen3 really didn't survive the Annihilation War. He's there to upload some Galadorian software into the Kree military war-net, but things go awry when the robotic Sentries (Marvel really likes that name, doesn't it?) go berserk and start attacking everything in sight. Seems like the Spaceknights have been infected by the Phalanx, a big bad nanotech thingie.
Spaceknight "Crusade Missions" have been perverted by this new enemy, so once again, it doesn't look to good for the Spaceknights. At least issue 6 of that mini shows that not all Spaceknights have been nano-infected as their forces add to the combined might of the hero fleet in breaking down the barrier around the Kree homeworld, but as background extras.

Such is the legacy of Jim Starlin's Spaceknights.

WATCH THIS SPACE! I'll be running a poll on Monday. YOU HELP DECIDE: What will replace Spaceknight Saturdays in the coming year?

*The answer to this paradox can actually be found in the letters page of Spaceknights #5.
Ah, time flows a little differently on Galador. That explains everything. Also note that on Galador, "future" means "never".

Spaceknight Saturdays: Let's Get It Over With

This is it! The double-sized epic blow-out! The Wraith War to end all Wraith Wars! It all ends HERE!

Well... not quite. The normal-sized Spaceknights #5 does feature a huge battle between good and evil Spaceknights, but it doesn't quite deliver on resolving the threads weaved into the last 4 issues. So I'll entreat you to join me a round of THAT MAKES ROM SAD every time Starlin and Batista miss the boat. Let's practice that, shall we? For example, look at that inaction cover. All together now: THAT MAKES ROM SAD!

Yes, yes it does.

The players: The new Spaceknight Squadron versus the Wraithknights. Almost immediately, Val the Angel (Sentry) - who is NOT the hero of this series - declares single combat with the biggest baddest Wraithknight.
He has to regain the honor lost when he let Rom be killed, but still... Not only should one of Rom's sons get a chance for proper avenging, but it hardly makes sense for the other Knights to respect the duel's conventions when victory is on the line. But what do you expect from a leader who's idea of strategy is this:
Yes. watch your back, Starshine. Especially when the bad guy is on your front. One last cue: THAT MAKES ROM SAD (from now on, you're expected to know when you should just chant those words).

Of course, Balin also thinks having been given Terminator's title was a huge honor. I guess nobody told him he turned traitor.

Then, two more players enter the fray: The combined fleet of the dissident protectorate worlds who think the Spaceknights are the real enemy and the Deathwing, a Wraith creature the Spacknights weren't able to overcome at all in previous issues. So what do you do about a monster your entire Squadron can't even scratch? If you're Balin, send only a single Spaceknight after it. THAT MAKES ROM SAD!
And Firefall actually makes it scream! So much for consistency. Hasn't this sequence already made Rom sad enough?! Apparently not, because Sentry uses the scream as a diversion to finally stick it to his Wraithknight foe. (In space, everyone can hear you scream.)
I love his reaction, but the death blow is all in shadow, anti-climactic at best. THAT MAKES ROM SAD! The Deathwing goes crazy and moves to attack the poor misguided alien fleet, but the Spaceknights still have their hands full with the remaining Wraithknights. Methinks it's time for a deus ex machina, and it comes in the form of Axadar the Neutralizer that doesn't look like Rom's Neutralizer, popping out of nowhere (subspace).
It wasn't destroyed by that bomb after all, just 'ported itself (very slowly) to Tristan's hand. And not only does it enable him to nullify the Wraithknights' armors, but also send the Deathwing to Limbo (so it was a polymorphed Wraith?). On top of that, the gun reveals all the plot the comic can't in its few remaining pages. THAT MAKES ROM SAD! It tells Tristan Lord Gaspar was the mole. It reveals that anger is what keeps Balin from holding the Neutralizer. And so on.

Then the Vanguard shows up, the army that was supposed to fight this battle, but they don't do anything. The alien fleet is at peace once again, and the Wraiths are defeated. So why were these guys introduced at all? Just to MAKE ROM SAD! It's a lot like the plot point about Scanner risking brain damage by keeping the Knights mind-linked. That had neither a purpose or any consequences. THAT ALSO MAKES ROM SAD!

If the Wraithknights are corrupted Galadorians (which they apparently are) and you don't count the Deathwing (which at no point is refered to as a Wraith), then no Wraiths were harmed in the making of this mini-series. The Wraith we do see gets away, and wipes every trace of evidence linking him to the plot, including Gaspar's mind. THAT MAKES ROM SAD!

The epilogue has Balin put an end to the rivalry between him and Tristan, Tristan lets Brandy stay on a Prime Director, and a Wraith War is threatened but you know isn't followed up on. Ever. THAT MAKES ROM SAD!

How does the comic end?
Uh-huh. Right. You know what to say to that.

Next Saturday: The Spaceknights - where are they now?

Spaceknight Saturdays: Versus Gay Pah Ree

Here we go. The penultimate chapter of a story starring Spaceknights working for an Empire that looks nothing like the Galador from Rom, fighting Dire Wraiths that look nothing like the Dire Wraiths from Rom, recently escaped from Limbo though they never call it that... You know the drill by now. Why the words "Limbo" and "Neutralizer" aren't allowed is a mystery to me. Or maybe Starlin has something against Caribbean dance competitions.

In the wake of their battle with a Deathwing, the Spaceknights try to go back to Galador to get the Neutralizer and fight back. What they don't know is that it's apparently been destroyed by a saboteur's bomb (don't believe it for a second).
To make things worse, the Dire Wraith(s) have turned two more planets against Galador, including the Pah Ree who originated the bomb in the previous panel. The Pah Ree. And Limbo sounds too stupid, I suppose. It's very distracting, but then, Starlin revels in distracting me:
Advice: If you're going to replay Arthurian legend in your space opera, don't have the characters talk about Arthurian legend. There's hitting the nail too squarely on the head, and then there's THIS.

So the Spaceknights's armors are kind of cracked and dented from their last battle and they're asked to stand down. The Colonial Vanguard, an army of Spaceknight wash-outs will carry on. How this is considered strategically sound when the most powerful weapons of the Galadorian Empire have just had their metal butts handed to them, I don't know.
Yeah, that's what I said. Tristan is convinced that if they do take part in the battle, he can lead them to the Dire Wraith using his precog abilities. Why exactly the Knights feel the need to patch their brains into Tristan using Scanner's telepathic abilities, risking her brain damage, isn't clear. They just stay behind Tristan anyway. How can they concentrate under the full brunt of his emo genes?
And he leads them right to... the Wraithknights!
Ok, let's see that battle then be done with it.

Spaceknight Saturdays: Redemption (Ha!)

At the mid-point, Starlin's relaxed handle on the material starts creating inconsistencies in the Rom mythos. He calls Limbo the Ebon Dimension, for example. Why the change? It's not a copyright thing, and Limbo's never looked black to me. It's like he's going out of his way to erase any connection with the previous series. Well guess what, Starlin. There's a big fat "Spaceknights" on the cover.

Another objectionable element is the Galadorian Empire. In the first issue, Trion is described as under Galador's protection, but now Galador is preventing Trion to secede from the "Empire"? I can't believe "Emperor Rom" would have conquered (even diplomatically but so permanently) other worlds. Before you raise a finger an inquire about Galador having an Empire from well before, I'll remind you that Galactus moved the planet to another galaxy during the original series, and that the planet was soon devastated by the NextGen Knights. In other words, an Empire would have been built by Rom in the Galadorian reconstruction. In fact, it's the mulleted Lady Brandy who wants to keep the Empire in one piece and won't give Trion its independence back. Uh-huh.

So our boy Tristan/Liberator keeps getting his visions, all of them dismissed by Balin/Terminator. But how can he dismiss the promised appearance of a deathwing?
Sentry - the angel guy - believes, however, and he pledges himself to Tristan, becoming his (ho ho ho) wingman. Then the visions start becoming true again, and the Wraithkights attack. But nothing the Spaceknights throw at them works, not even Scanner's use of cliché!
Why Hammerhand seems to be attacking her also is just part of the frustration I have with this series. Though the designs are cool and the overall look of the comic is dynamic, the action choreography is frequently confusing. Wingman, can we have a pep talk please?
Ok, I feel like I can plow on ahead now. Only 9 pages to go. Terminator hits upon the idea of unleashing his blast weapon at point blank range to pierce through the evil knights' shields. I say "hits upon the idea", but it's probably just his natural violence that proves fortuitous. And when I say "point blank range", I mean "in the crotch area".
But then the Deathwing arrives and the Spaceknights have to switch strategies. When their choice of recounting how you can beat a Deathwing without Rom's nullifier fails to inspire the troops, Vanium the Knight You Didn't Even Know Was There tries to open a portal back to Galador, though unbeknowst to them, corrupted Lord Gaspar has set a bomb in the nullifier chamber...

Next: Bang?

Spaceknight Saturdays: Dishonor! (That's the Title, Not my Verdict)

Except it kinda is...

So you know the set-up by now: 20 years later, Galador is thriving and protecting a number of planets with a new generation of Spaceknights, except some corrupted Spaceknights have turned one of those worlds against Galador. Among the Knights, Rom and Brandy's two sons, one of which is dangerously unstable and who has been tapped to be leader after his father's death. Oh yeah, and we have Starlin on record saying he didn't give a crap about this project which is maybe why he throws every Arthurian cliché at the book. Calling Galador "the Realm" is particularly annoying.

As is Brandy's complete lack of grief. I guess 20 years does change a person. Aside from instilling a sense of the American idiom to only one of her sons, there's little of the Earth woman in her. Speaking of that son, Tristan, he's a little bit prescient, getting these incapacitating visions more and more often:
Since the Dire Wraiths are shapechangers, you really can make them look like anything, especially 20 years on. However, I don't think Starlin should have revealed that yet. The creepy character appears later, pulling the strings, but there's no mention that it's a Wraith. Telling us it's a Wraith here just lets all the air leak out of the balloon. But Starlin doesn't care, so yeah.

The guy being manipulated by the Wraith is Lord Gaspar, whom Tristan gets a very bad vibe from.
Why DOES he make your skin crawl, Tristan? Maybe because the guy's title is LORD OF SPIES? How trustworthy can he be? I guess if he was Lord of Double Agents, that'd be too on the nose...

With Trion at war with Galador The Realm, the Spaceknights suit up for their first mission. Here's the whole gang. Click to biggie-size it.
It's an interesting batch. Only characters have names not recycled from 1st or 2nd generation Spaceknights: Sentry (so that means the goof running around the Marvel Universe is Sentry II... or if we're 20 years later, this one is?) and Liberator (cuz can't use "Rom"). Starshine and Firefall are among the most honored names, of course, but it's nice to have a new Scanner as well (no glasses?). I AM surprised to see a 2nd generation Spaceknight title though. The first Lightningbolt was NOT a good guy.

Case in point, as soon as the battle starts and the Knights are ordered to use non-lethal force (they're trying to fix a misunderstanding, after all), Lightningbolt is the guy who forgets to put his armor on Stun.
Tristan has to keep an eye on his wingman from then on. Sent on a patrol, Tristan gets another vision that reveals an enemy location a bit off the patrol route, and flies into an ambush. SNIPER!
So he won't have to watch Lightningbolt anymore. That wasn't a long subplot. The corrupted Spaceknights flee and Balin of course blames Tristan for the death of his wingman. If he hadn't deviated from the patrol route...

Next: More.

Spaceknight Saturdays: Extended!

So yeah, I've decided to keep this going beyond Rom's "best before" date. Spaceknights is a five-issue mini-series that is at once a labour of love from artist Chris Batista and a labour of hate from writer-for-hire/telephone caller Jim Starlin. What does that do to a comic? Apparently, relegate it to "it never happened" status with the fans, as much as Star Trek V or Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars or even Teen Wolf 2.

But we're gonna give it a shot. It's not like every comic I've ever featured on this blog has been GOOD, right? And the creative team did have a number of challenges to overcome. One of which was doing a series that spun out of Rom without having the rights to that character. I do like their solution: Elevate Rom to sainthood and explain the backstory in tinted glass. That gives the artist all kinds of creative license!
Tinted Glass Rom has a halo and Neutralizer energy coming out of his hands...
He is a god among men.
Strong opening to the series. Now, another challenge was the whole matter of repopulating Galador. At the end of Rom Spaceknight, we were left with the impression that Rom and Brandy were going to pull off an Adam and Eve and do it all alone, but it's now some 20 years later and the planet's got a population and only two Spaceknights identified as Rom's sons. Further, as we start things off, we meet a member of the angel elite who is the only one of his subrace ever to genetically qualify for Spaceknighthood.
Pretty cool, but surprising, as the angels all seemed to have been killed by Dominor's NextGen Spaceknights. So did Rom harvest DNA from various corpses and surviving Spaceknights (cuz where are THOSE guys now?) and grow his civilization back in test tubes? Or did we only see events occurring in the capital city and there were a number of other enclaves around the planet? Since there are some old men walking around shouting advice, I guess it's probably the latter. Or are those older characters Spaceknights who have cloned their humanity back? It's not real clear, and it may just be that Starlin never read the key issues.

And what of Rom in this new world? Well, we can't really call him that, so they call him "First One" (confusing the issue of who begat what further) and "Prime Director" (that's the highest position in the land) and "Father/Dad" (his sons only) and "Artour" (his first name finally revealed? More on that later). In any case, Rom's cameo is very brief indeed. Seems like he was killed just before the series started.
So the series is really about Rom's two heirs, Balin and Tristan, both NextNextGen Spaceknights and deep in a Cain and Abel relationship. Balin is the volatile "bad" brother who has inherited Terminator's title (a nice nod to the fact that Terminator stole half Rom's humanity) and Tristan is the "good" brother all in white (he's the new Rom in all but name). It's a Marvel comic so they fight.
These new Spaceknights can apparently switch to and from armored mode. I guess Rom didn't want anyone to lose their humanity ever again. Those things are so easily mislaid, stolen or destroyed. With Rom gone, Brandy tries to take the reins of leadership, but she's not a real Galadorian, which weakens her claim to the throne.
That must suck about as much as being called Brandy Prime. She should have kept her maiden name.

So she names Prince Balin, Sir Terminator, as successor, and he must confirm that succession by pulling out Axadar, the Neutralizer recast as a sentient object that only allows itself to be yielded by someone worthy of it (and that apparently has had a big makeover).
That's a fail. If you haven't clued in yet that the series is robbing Arthurian Myth blind... We've got Rom being called Artour (Arthur), we've got the Neutralizer turned into Excalibur, we've got his sons named after knights of Earth legend, and we've got brothers sure to be pitted against one another (à la Arthur and Mordred).

Balin isn't the chosen one, but no one thinks to let Tristan try, so the darker brother inflames the crowd with his charisma and takes on the mantle of leadership anyway. Just in time, because a corrupted Spaceknight has forced the planet Trion to declare war on Galador.

Frankly, despite the dissonant transition between series and complete lack of mittens, it's not a bad start. Next: Things get worse. (Am I talking about the situation or the comic? Come back and see!)

Spaceknights: The Next Next Generation

In 2000, Marvel published a 5-issue limited series sequel to Rom that was met with resounding silence, winning the dubious honor of being their lowest seller that year. Doesn't sound promising, does it?

I've decided to push Spaceknight Saturdays 5 weeks more (inching towards my threeversary on December 9th) and take into account the story of Rom's sons, warts and all.

Speaking of warts, though the series was the brainchild of artist Chris Batista, Marvel brought in Jim "Cosmic" Starlin to write it. Here's what Starlin had to say about it (interview with Universe HQ):

"I thought [Rom] was a pretty dumb character back in the seventies. I just took on the job of scripting the series so that I could pay for some parts for my boat."

Yikes!

Join us tomorrow for the work-for-hire, phoning-it-in splendor that is Spaceknights #1!

Dire Wraiths vs. the Thing: Rematch!

I'm not going to cover every single Wraith appearance, flashback and cameo this week, but FF 277 is one issue that I've had in my collection for a long time, right up there with Uncanny X-Men 185-188. It tells the tale of the Thing's rematch with a Dire Wraith. But this time, he doesn't have Rom to help him out.

There's also a Mephisto story (Byrne split the book in half horizontally), but we don't care about that.

Our story takes place as Ben Grimm finally returns from the Beyonder's planet. Can he pick his life up where he left it, or has somebody been sleeping with his girl Alicia?
The answer is (b). Fighting ensues until Alica stops it with an insulting slap. Oh well. And in any case, that's when the Wraiths decide to send their planet out to meet ours through a black hole in our sun (Rom #64).
As per Ben's luck with women lately, the first girl he tries to help out of the cataclysm turns out to be a bad one.
The last time, Ben met male Wraiths and ripped them to shreds with his bare, de-powered fists. Can he handle a female? He obviously keeps himself up to date, so maybe he can. Drill tongue!
And it's a fail for mah Wraith sista! And then Rom #65 happens and things get back to normal. Yeah, I thought those two issues lasted a lot longer. Maybe Ben took in a movie before trying to rescue the girl or something. He HAD been away a long time, after all.

But his winning streak against Dire Wraiths remains unbroken, which is the only thing that's important!

Rom: Universe X

Earth-X (or Earth-9997 if you don't want to mistake it for the DC Earth where WWII never ended) is a parallel world in the near future where Black Bolt released the Terrigen Mists into the atmosphere, turning everyone into a superhuman. As you can imagine, that pretty much fracks society up and the result becomes an extended What If. But I'm less interested in the What Ifs here than I am about the What Abouts. Specifically: What about Rom in this alternate Marvel universe?

He's there! In Universe X #3, Captain America, Baby Mar-Vell and a super-powered Ka-Zar jump to Belasco's version of Hell/Limbo and find they're all the same. So of course, you've got Dire Wraiths there. If any of this doesn't seem to make sense, please note that Hell has indeed frozen over.Ka-Zar's mutate ability, by the way:
Steps into the fray: Rom! Proving that you never give up the fight, and that the action figure may be copywritten, but not his damn accessories!
And I like that his shield is a piece of his armor, too. It's not a big role, and we don't get much in a way of explanation, but you can imagine Rom dying and spending the whole of the afterlife fighting Wraiths. In the end, he gives his Neutralizer to Cap, giving him the means to destroy his enemies without killing.
You know, that reminds me of Cap yielding Thor's hammer. I bet the guy can pull Excalibur out of a stone too. That's just cool.