ROM
Created By: Scott Dankman, Richard C. Levy & Bryan L. McCoy
First Appearance: Rom- Spaceknight #1 (Dec. 1979- comics)
Role: Why You Don't Make Things You Don't Own Into Canon
Group Affiliations: The Galadorian Spaceknights
PL 11 (214)
STRENGTH 12
STAMINA 10
AGILITY 2
FIGHTING 10
DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 4
AWARENESS 2
PRESENCE 3
Skills:
Expertise (Spaceknight) 8 (+12)
Insight 3 (+5)
Intimidation 4 (+7)
Perception 6 (+8)
Technology 6 (+10)
Vehicles 5 (+5)
Advantages:
Accurate Attack, Diehard, Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Neutralizer), Interpose, Ranged Attack 10
Powers:
"Plandanium Armor"
Protection 2 (Extras: Impervious 11) [13]
Regeneration 4 [4]
Immunity 11 (Aging, Life Support) [11]
"Drain Power Sources" Weaken Energy Stores 10 (Extras: Affects Objects Only +0) [10]
"Backpack Rockets"
Flight 8 (500 mph) [16]
Movement 1 (Space Travel 1) [2]
"Neutralizer" (Flaws: Easily Removable) (Features: Restricted 2- Only Rom) [16]
Movement 1 (Dimensional Travel- Limbo) (Extras: Attack 10, Ranged 10) (21) -- (22 points)
AE: Blast 8 (16)
"Analyzer" (Flaws: Easily Removable) [9]
"Detect True Image" Senses 14 (Vision Counters Illusion, Detect Energy- Analytical 2, Detect Dire Wraiths- Radius & Ranged 7) (14 points)
"Universal Translator" (Flaws: Easily Removable) [3]
Comprehend 2 (Languages) (4)
Enhanced Advantages 1: Eidetic Memory) (1)
-- (5 points)
Offense:
Unarmed +10 (+12 Damage, DC 26)
Neutralizer +10 (+10 Ranged Movement Attack, DC 20)
Initiative +3
Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +10 (DC 20), Toughness +12 (+5 Impervious), Fortitude +11, Will +8
Complications:
Relationship (Brandy Clark)- Rom denied his feelings for Brandy for years.
Enemy (The Dire Wraiths)- Rom has been charged with exterminating the genocidal Dire Wraiths, and has hunted them for centuries.
Responsibility (Galador)
Total: Abilities: 86 / Skills: 32--16 / Advantages: 15 / Powers: 84 / Defenses: 13 (214)
Rom- Eternal Example of What Not To Do:
-Rom, to date, probably stands as the single-best reason why you don't make a licensed property an actual part of the continuity of your shared comic book universe. Marvel managed to not make a giant mess with their
Godzilla comic, as they were able to take all their comics-only properties elsewhere (Red Ronin; Dr. Demonicus), but ROM? Rom is f'd up, man.
-Incidentally, I've never read even a single issue of his series, but what I felt were endless "Have you ever considered building Rom?" "Have you ever read Rom?" "I don't see a Rom build- will you ever do one?" requests/non-requests-that-are-pretty-much-requests, and people going on about how Marvel needs to buy the license back from Hasbro, ended up making me despise the character and everything he stood for, to the point where I wanted to be super-snarky and cruel every time he's been brought up. I was gonna be like "Marvel won't buy the license back from Hasbro because nobody in the f*cking world cares a damn about stupid Rom and his stupid comic book"... even though I'm pretty sure I got MAYBE three requests in ten years to build the guy. Sometimes I hold grudges and am a grouch
.
Rom's Origins:
-Rom was a robot-lookin' toy created by guys working for Parker Brothers (currently a subsidiary of Hasbro, aka the mightiest of the toy companies), who was looking to get into toys instead of simply doing only board games. Desiring a cheaply-made toy, the Rom toys had very few points of articulation and red eyes instead of green (which were more expensive to produce). And to advertise this toy, Parker Brothers licensed him to Marvel Comics, who put Bill Mantlo & Sal Buscema to work on a comic book series. Which of course they did an apparently pretty-good job of, which is why fans still talk about this character today. And the toy was an immediate failure, selling only 200,000-300,000 units in the US, blamed on poor packaging and marketing- Park Brothers subsequently abandoned the property. But the comic kept coming out.
-Rom hails from the planet Galador, which has defenders called "Spaceknights", cybernetic warriors who fly and are super-strong. They are opposed by the shapeshifting, murderous, magic-using Dire Wraiths. The comic lasted for seventy-five issues and four annuals, all written by Mantlo and drawn by Buscema and Steve Ditko. And all of this stuff, save Rom, was created by Mantlo for Marvel, and they interacted with Marvel super-heroes, thus Marvel owns it. But not Rom. This becomes a problem later.
-Rom is the first Spaceknight, looking like a giant robotic dildo with arms and legs, and uses a Neutralizer that banishes the Wraiths into Limbo (the "Otherplace" of Immortus, not Illyana Rasputin's cooler Limbo)- he is joined by 1,000 other volunteers, all with the promise that their human body parts will be reattached at a later date. Rom is eventually victorious, chasing the Dire Wraiths back to their home planet, scattering them through the universe in a panic. Now feeling responsible for them spreading all over, he deciced to vanquish the entire species, leaving Galador and ending up on Earth 200 years later, along with his partners Starshine & Terminator.
The Rom Comic:
-Rom thus battled numerous Dire Wraiths (who were often in human form, thus making Rom look like a murderous robot), along with Marvel super-villains, as Marvel made the unwise decision to include all of this stuff in the Marvel Universe proper- the Mad Thinker, X-Men, Power Man, Iron Fist and Galactus all made appearances in his book, and Rom himself crossed over into the occasional hero's book. Yes, a character Marvel did not own made appearances in Marvel properties.
-Rom eventually helps Marvel's heroes defeat all of the Dire Wraiths there (but not before they wipe out the entire town in which he was residing, and his "Human Buddy" Steve), and returns to a war-torn Galador ruled by a new generation of Spaceknights. When they destroyed the human remains of the Spaceknights, Rom led the original Spaceknights to Galador and wiped out the villains. He was able to reclaim his own humanity, however, and was changed back, finally admitting his love for Brandy, the female "Human Buddy". The remaining Spaceknights decided to travel the universe.
-Rom changed his name to "Artour", had two sons with Brandy, and still interacted with Marvel's heroes, with his name no longer mentioned, since that gets around the licensing issue (see below). He is believed killed in Jim Starlin's
Spaceknights mini-series in 2000-2001.
The Licensing Fiasco:
-The PROBLEM with all this should be clear to anyone who knows how copywrite and licensing works, but the short version is: Marvel didn't own the character for whom they were producing issues. They owned Galador, the Spaceknights, the Dire Wraiths, the hero Torpedo (who died when the town was overrun) and more, but they did not own ROM. Thus, when the license was not renewed, they were no longer legally allowed to reprint his comic. Which is the same thing that happened with
G.I. Joe and
The Transformers, and wouldn't be too much of an issue... except THOSE comics didn't interact with the Marvel Universe! A single
Transformers issure featuring Spider-Man was the worst it got.
Rom: Spacknight REGULARLY interacted with Marvel heroes, meaning that A) Nobody was going to be allowed to reprint
Rom comics, and B) Marvel was not going to be able to reprint any Marvel books in which
Rom had appeared. This leaves gaps in the reproduction runs of things like the "Essential" collections, Trade Paperbacks, and more!
-Now... is Marvel gonna buy the license back? They've bought Angela from Neil Gaiman. But... that's one guy. HASBRO owns this sumbitch. And even a failed-ass toy is clearly worth SOMETHING, as there's now a NEW
Rom comic out there, and there's been reports since 2015 of Hasbro creating a movie around the guy. So Marvel, you might say, is hooped. If they even cared. Which they've given no indication whatsoever that they ever did.
Rom's Powers:
-Man, I dunno. Super-strong, durable, has a Neutralizer. In actuality, difficulty in figuring out this guy's capabilities is literally the only thing that kept me from statting up Rom for all this time. Everyone asking me to stat him couldn't answer my questions as to his power levels, which made it impossible to figure him out- he's... this vague level that befits a DC character more than a Marvel one. I guess DC fans and Rom fans are cut from the same cloth- not as autistically-obsessive about statlines as I am.
-At least the Marvel Wiki now contains a bit mentioning his abilities to draw even with Rogue and Colossus, and the time he brawled with Gladiator of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. This means he's a Class 70-ish guy, apparently. He also has a Universal Translator, an Analyzer (that's usually a Dire Wraith detector, but can in fact locate them all over the globe by pointing it at a facsimile of a world) and a Neutralizer that's basically a Dimensional Travel Blaster. I figure Rom for a PL 11 close-combat guy (his Feats include going up against Ben Grimm and Gladiator, and lesser Spaceknights were able to handle Terrax back in the '80s), but PL 10 with his other stuff.
