Giant Robots and You

Here's a conversation starter, next time you're with your parents ask them what kind of toys they had growing up. You might hear He-Man, or Transformers, or maybe G.I. Joe. But I can assure you, one toy brand you'll never hear pour out of your pappy's pie hole is a little metal man with his own comic book named ROM, The Space Knight.

ROM the Space Knight was originally a toy created by Scott Dankman, Richard C. Levy, and Bryan L. McCoy. This 6-inch tall plastic light-up toy was packed with three attachable weapons and sold by The Parker Brothers toy company. To get this toy more publicity, The Parker Brothers licensed the character to Marvel Comics to create a comic book series based on ROM. "ROM #1" was released in 1979. Coincidently, 1979 also debuted Mobile Suit Gundam, the first of many Japanese cartoons about robotic warriors. ROM was once a man who lived on a utopian planet called Galador which was attacked by a magic race of shape-shifters known as The Dire Wraiths. In order to protect his planet, ROM was the first citizen to volunteer for The Space Knight Program. Several body parts were removed from ROM in order to accommodate his new robotic armor. ROM was given the Galador's greatest weapon The Neutralizer, a laser that-rather than killing The Dire Wraiths-would banish them to a small dimension called Limbo. Inspired by ROM's battle against The Dire Wraiths, 1,000 other Galador citizens volunteered to become Space Knights. Not satisfied with just fending the invaders off, ROM personally attacked The Dire Wraiths' planet Wraithworld. However, the Wraiths were able to escape ROM and scatter throughout the universe. Feeling responsible for the escape of these genocidal aliens, ROM took it upon himself to find and destroy every last Dire Wraith. His adventures would take him to Earth were he would make few friends and many enemies. As any Wraith on Earth would take the appearance of a human and ROM's Neutralizer would zap the Wraiths into another dimension, ROM was seen by the public as a killer  robot. ROM had super strength, regenerative armor, flight, and the ability to summon his weapons from subspace. His tools included The Neutralizer, a Dire Wraith-detecting Analyzer and a Universal Translator. He would have confrontations with The Fantastic Four, The X-Men and The Avengers. Since his debut, ROM the Space Knight would have adventures up until 2001, where he was presumed dead, but The Space Knight mantle would continue on through the rest of The Space Knight Corps.

While his toy did poorly on the market-becoming more of a collectable nowadays-ROM's comic book did better than most people expected. He had his own cast of characters, a small rogues gallery and a handful of interactions with Marvel's heroes and villains. ROM is considered one of Marvel's classic cosmic heroes and his backstory surprised me with it's detail. As far as giant robots go, ROM is defiantly in my Top 10 along with Voltron, Megas XLR and The Thunderzord, of course. And with the kind of attention Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy has gotten lately, I wouldn't be surprised if we one day see ROM the Space Knight in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thanks for reading!

#ROM4GOTG3!