Issue(s): ROM #38, ROM #39
Cover Date: Jan-Feb 83
Title: "Suffer the little children!" / "Deathrise!"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
Sal Buscema - Penciler
Ian Akin & Brian Garvey - Inker
Ann Nocenti - Editor

Review/plot:
ROM teams up with Shang-Chi and his British Agent allies to stop Dire Wraiths from engaging in a black magic ritual...

...that would have resurrected a Dire Wraith that landed in ancient Egypt centuries ago and took the form of a human child.

Meanwhile, someone called Doctor Dredd offers to turn Brandy Clark into the Spaceknight called Starshine.

Mantlo has a surprisingly decent handle on Shang-Chi. This wasn't a bad set of issues.

And the art team (i'm including colorist Ben Sean here) does a tremendous job with the wild Wraith stuff.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP has Shang-Chi and company here between Master of Kung Fu #121-122. ROM arrives in this story "from the western coast of Wales", which is where he was last arc. But i have ROM in Contest of Champions and Marvel Two-In-One #99 between this arc and the last one. The MCP places those appearances much later, between ROM #46-47. But that raises the question of where Starshine is during those appearances - surely she would have been included in Contest of Champions if she existed at the time! So i'm deciding that after ROM #37, ROM gets pulled into Contest of Champions, and soon afterwards he gets involved in the altercation in New York, and then he retraces his steps, returns to Wales, and then heads to England here.

References:

• ROM encounters Mara, a Wraith High-Witch that ROM thought he dispatched to Limbo in ROM #33.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

we can safely say this is the issue least likely to ever manage to get reprinted-with both Rom and shang chi.

fnord, I noticed your thinking about placing Marvel Two-In-One #99 right before this issue. I've read the Rom Spaceknight series, as well as the issues that tie in with it, from start to finish a couple of times over the years. And I could never figure out exactly where to place MTIO #99.

The best place I could think of to place it was during the events of Rom #33. I figured that Rom could have teamed-up with the Thing in NYC after Rom leaving West Virginia and traveling north, before he arrives at the orphanage and meets Sybil. But your reasoning can work, as well.

Thanks Ben. As i think you know, once i settle on a placement, i usually prefer to keep it there since i've already worked out all the dependencies for that placement. And in this case that could mean Contest of Champions and all of the Thing's guests in Two-In-One, etc.. ROM is mobile enough that i don't think a strict placement by location is necessary. So i'm glad you think my placement can work, even though your idea might have been as good or better.

ROM was an extraordinary work really. Unrepeatable too. It had the team-up schtick, it had the almost Busiek-esque internal referentiality tapping bits of the Marvel Universe's forgotten corners, it had the science fiction / monster comic vibe, and it had a really weird looking hero.

Look up how outright freakin LAME the actual ROM toy was and marvel at what strange inspiration created this amazing, classic comic book from such a strange stub.

That’s some great art! Inkers really added to Sal’s pencils.