Thursday, July 24, 2025
We brought up the Dire Wraiths of ROM fame yesterday, but of course there has yet to be an action figure for those horrible creatures. Unless you use your imagination, in which any figure could be a shape-changed Wraith. (That one's a Skrull, put that back!) There was a pre-Legends, Toy Biz prototype for a Dire Wraith figure shown I believe in ToyFare long, long ago; that may have been intended for the same Silver Surfer wave that had the Meegan, which we've seen a few times. But, for the next few posts we'll check out some Wraith appearances, starting with one not in the GCD: from 1985, Marvel Age #23, cover by Bill Sienkiewicz!
Despite the great Wraith cover, this issue was hyping up "The New Direction" for the title, post ROM #65, which guest-starred about every hero in the Marvel Universe at the time. Actually, then I start looking, and can only think of who wasn't there: the Defenders roster had changed, so no Hulk or Dr. Strange, although Namor gets in there; no Thor but Beta Ray Bill instead; and no Spider-Man since Ditko wouldn't draw him! Anyway, after banishing the Wraiths from earth and all of Wraithworld to Limbo, Rom was free to return to space, and meander around before returning to Galador and the series finale #75.
Most of the art shown was Steve Ditko, although there's also an unused version of the ROM #61 cover by David Mazzucchelli and Terry Austin
There's also a reused photo of the old Rom promotional costume, which I would've guessed hadn't been used in like five years at that point.
Also, Marvel Age doesn't have the series' covers in the GCD, because despite being all about the comics coming out, in itself there wasn't enough comic content by volume to qualify for inclusion. Which is a shame, since some of the covers were pretty good; and there were usually comics from Fred Hembeck every issue!
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6 comments:
I had to see who inked Ditko because they helped make Ditko’s then modern day art look better than it had a right to & it was P. Craig Russell. Kudos to the guy for doing the impossible because, and no offense to other Ditko inkers, they didn’t really make his work look as good as Russell did, although to be fair to them, they REALLY didn’t have all that much to work with, kinda a making chicken salad out of chicken shit type deal as it were.
I’m sure there were too many people too scared or polite to ask Ditko was style never progressed or evolved like his peers did, but they should’ve because man did it CLEARLY regress after the 60’s.
Anyhoo….
As cool as it would be to get a Dire Wraith action figure, I’m not sure it’d sell well enough on its own, but would be worth it if it came in a ROM two-pack.
Anyone ask David Mazzucchelli why the random inclusion of a box of Kleenex in that cover? Just seems like an odd choice to put on a ROM cover.
Btw, love that old school ROM costume even though it DEFINITELY looks cursed, and he’s seemingly aiming his neutralizer at the kids, which is definitely understandable 😏
Eh, I disagree about the Ditko thing- he did pretty good when he was doing somebody else’s story. It’s when he was writing and drawing his own stuff that it got crazy and hard to understand. Even then, I sorta get what he was going for and it was definitely unique.
Wasn’t Hembeck like one of the only ones at Marvel to like Jim Shooter? It always throws me for a loop when someone does something with him that isn’t making fun of him.
I think as published, that Mazzucchelli Rom cover has him sinking into blackness alone; Terry Austin added all the other stuff, possibly just as a lark.
I don't know if Hembeck liked Shooter: for that strip anyway, I think he needed a straight man for the bit.
And Shooter DEFINITELY fit the bill by all accounts
I'm 60% sure it was Shooter's--could've been Archie Goodwin maybe--a Bullpen Bulletins piece hyping up DREADSTAR, with the hook that Starlin was a madman trying to kill him...
That does sound like Shooter more than Goodwin because according to Starlin he never had any issues with Goodwin during his tenure at Epic, it was the financial department & probably Shooter where he had the biggest problems with.
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