I have two, of course, but one is unopened on my wall! Still, this was one of the issues I had as a kid, so a good one to finally hit: from 1981,
Rom #25, featuring "Galador!" Written by Bill Mantlo, pencils by Sal Buscema, inks by Joe Sinnott; and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" Written by Stephen Grant, pencils by Greg LaRocque, inks by Steve Mitchell.
Some have pointed out some similarities between the silver Spaceknight here, and Marvel's own Silver Surfer: aside from the coloring, both were insanely noble, and had made horrible sacrifices to save their respective homeworlds, and later earth. But the Surfer's timeline is somewhat vague as to how long he was Galactus's herald: in-story, it seems like it could've been centuries, although the Surfer's girl Shalla Bal didn't seem to have gotten old and died, so maybe it wasn't? Here, Rom returns to Galador, after leaving 200 years ago to continue fighting the Dire Wraiths. Which is why he's confused when he's greeted as though he had never left? And that he was their Prime Director? The people hail and kneel to him, as the Hawkman-like Angel Elite form an honor guard/perimeter around him, saying they had not realized he intended to go out in public. Rom thinks back over his history, and the first two years of the book, as he approaches the "
Hall of Science!" It's a bit foreboding to him, as that's where he had been made into a cyborg Spaceknight, but also where his remaining human parts were still stored...He notices the doors were now covered with carvings, of his own heroic deeds; but that was troubling in itself since the Galadorians had never glorified war.
Before he can enter, Rom is confronted, by another Rom: it doesn't get a big reveal, it's on the cover, okay? Rom-2 also had the ornaments of office, the "Living Lightning" which look a lot like the thunderbolts Arkon threw around, and the "
Golden Globe of Power," which looks like a pain in the ass to hold with Rom's mitteny hands. Rom scans his duplicate with his analyzer, thinking it would be a shape-changing Dire Wraith: instead, Rom-2 was almost a literal mirror image of himself, human where he was machine, and vice versa. The Angel Elite fry Rom with weaponry that seemed specifically created to zap him; captured, he's hung up in a stasis field. Really surprised they didn't lean into the crucifixation angle of that; that might be a
tokusatsu thing. Rom-2 and a hooded figure question him: was he
sure he was the real Rom? Uh, yes; this wasn't anywhere as close to breaking him as they seemed to think it would be, but the worst was yet to come. Rom-2 was really Rom's old friend
Terminator: all of his human parts had been lost, so he was probably happy just to have Rom's spare bits. The hooded figure reveals himself to be...Mentus! That name doesn't really mean anything to Rom, but he was the 'evil' side of the previous Prime Director...y'know, he probably had a name besides the job title, but okay. The Prime Director, grieving that he had asked a generation to sacrifice its humanity, tried to project his will into a Spaceknight shell, but instead of creating an alternative to making cyborgs, just released his evil side. Mentus then faked the PD's death, but the populace greeted the returning 'Rom' as a hero and gave him the position. The people believed him when he said the Dire Wraiths were defeated, but Mentus was actually moving Galador to the Wraith's dark nebula: he was going to give them Galador, in exchange for ruling them, which he assumed they would in awe of his evil.
Back in Clairton, WV; Brandy Clark takes Steve Jackson to the drive-in movies, but not for anything fun: she needed to talk to him without anyone listening, since she could tell people were acting changed. Steve doesn't think they had been replaced by Wraiths, since they had new hero the Torpedo to watch for that, but after a mysterious fog settles in, the townsfolk turn on them like zombies. Worse, after they escape to the Torpedo's house, they find it filled with the same fog...
Meanwhile, on Galador, the Prime Director tries to encourage Rom, telling him Mentus fed on despair. Summoning his neutralizer from subspace, Rom frees himself, then the PD, then the frozen Spaceknights that had returned over the years but been betrayed by Terminator and Mentus. The Spaceknights strike first, to disable the duped Angel Elite; but Mentus had brought in Dire Wraiths, who are probably a little steamed Rom had only been captured, not killed. Rom faces his own face in the Terminator, who is willing to kill to keep at least some humanity, but he is then swayed by Starshine, who forgives his earlier coldness. Terminator turns on the Wraiths, using his neutralizer not just to banish, but to kill; seemingly sending them directly to hell. Rom also gladly accepts his old friend, even if it costs him his humanity, because goddamn he's noble. But, the collected Spaceknights then find the Prime Director and Mentus, both dead: appearing briefly as a big floating head, the Prime Director explains he had reabsorbed his evil side, but at the cost of his life. Still, he warns there was more danger ahead, as Galactus was coming...
as we saw, some time back! This one would have to be backpedaled a bit to get Rom a happy ending at the end of the series, but at the time was just one in an ongoing series of tragedies for the character.
Also this issue,
"Love Will Tear Us Apart"--wait, not that one! OK, I would've read this in '81, but I wouldn't hear Joy Division until several years later, probably on
120 Minutes or its tie-in CD. Set earlier than the lead story, Rom sends more Dire Wraiths into Limbo, while still trying to track down a field commander named Baran. He gets a tip from Brandy, who had researched recent developments in advanced sciences; but both her dad and her ostensible boyfriend Steve worry about her associating with the Spaceknight: it's more than obvious they've lost her and she loves Rom, even if nobody comes out and says it yet. Baran, for his part, had 'gone native': he had been on earth for at least five years, and had a human wife and adopted son, which his cohorts are appalled by. When his wife is captured by the Wraiths, Baran is forced to admit the truth to her; but Rom arrives in time, having looked Baran up in the phone book! The other Wraiths, having already turned on Baran, nearly kill Rom with new magnetic weapons, but Baran shoots and wounds one, giving Rom time to recover. Baran then surrenders: he had acted against his own to save his wife, but was done. Instead of banishing him, though, Rom considers him human now, and leaves him to try and hash things out with his wife, who isn't sure if they can go on. (If you know what eventually happens in the book, I'm not sure it works out for Baran either way!)
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