Review: Rom #10

"Warrior over Washington." Rom flies through the skies of Clairton, W.V., looking for his friends, Steve Jackson and Brandy Clark.  He finds them in jail, where they have been locked up over the death of police officer Artie Packer. Rom bursts into jail, analyzes the police, sees they are human, and takes Steve and Brandy away. Leaving Brandy in Steve's care, Rom heads to Washington, D.C. to find Project Safeguard and his neutralizer. He is detected on radar, and attacked by military jets. He defeats the jets, but when he lands to check out the wreckage, a Dire Wraith ship appears and captures him.  Meanwhile, back in Clairton, Steve Jackson leaves Brandy to visit the jail, where he turns out to be a wraith, and the real one is still in prison.

Review: Rom #9

"The Stalker in the Night." Rom is trapped deep underground, having fallen there last issue.  What he does not know is that he is in the lair of Serpentyne, the last surviving member of a lizard race.  Rom's circuitry continues to rebel from the touch of the Deathwing last issue, but slowly he recovers, and he summons forth his Energy Analyzer. He follows a trail of energy, and behind him comes Serpentyne, wishing to fight.  Eventually, Serpentyne catches up, and tells the story of his race, and their destruction at the hands of the wraiths. He is the only survivor. Vengeance must be his. So he attacks Rom, seeking to stop him from being the one to take out the wraiths. Rom and Serpentyne battle, and Serpentyne breaks off a stalagmite, seeking to run Rom through with it, but he trips, and the point breaks off and skewers him instead.  His madness passed, Serpentyne apologizes, and then dies. Rom heads off to continue looking for his Neutralizer.

Review: Rom 8

"Deathwing." Steve and Brandy mourn the loss of their friend, a police officer named Artie, as Rom looks on.  Steve rages against Rom, blaming him and once again entertaining doubts about the Wraiths, but Rom tells the story of another world destroyed by the Wraiths, and warns that this could be Earth's fate. Then with his Analyzer, Rom determines Artie is alive, so he departs, and Brandy and Steve let in the rest of her lab, so that Artie can be taken care of.  Rom uses his Analyzer to track Wraiths, and finds them pretending to have a funeral for one of their own.  In the mean time, a mysterious reptilian creature seems to be hunting the other Wraiths in Clairton.  Rom arrives at the grave yard and attacks the Wraiths. Their leader summons a Deathwing, but the creature is hard to control, and ends up turning on him and killing him. Rom's arm is touched by the creature, and he loses control of it, falling into the grave, and then down into a deeper pit.  The monster hunting Wraiths appears, and is revealed to be Serpentyne.

Review: Rom 6

"Dog Day Afternoon." Steve Jackson and Brandy Clark take Rom to Steve's filling station, where they hide him inside.  Rom absorbs some energy from an electrical outlet and then goes into "sleep" mode, while Steve takes Brandy to work.  Meanwhile, the Dire Wraiths blame Agent Kraller for the failure of the Archie Stryker/Firefall plot from issues 3-4, and punish him by having a Deathwing kill him.  Back near Clairton, W.V., two Hellhounds telepathically track Rom from the destroyed house (issue 5) to the filling station, and they attack him.  There is a great battle, in which the hounds trap Rom's neutralizer in a force field. Steve comes back to see the battle unfolding, and uses gasoline and a lighter to burn one of the hounds. Rom deals with the other one, but his armor is over-charged by an electric wire, and he collapses.

Review: Rom #5

"A house is not a home."  Rom hides in the woods with Brandy and Steve as the police, unknowingly accompanied by incognito Dire Wraiths, search for him.  Eventually, the Wraiths bring out Hellhounds, which are telepathic trackers, and Rom is forced to flee. After dodging Wraith disruptor rays, Rom gets his human charges to safety in an abandoned house.  However, the house turns out to be a creature that once fought Dr. Strange, and it tries to capture Rom and the humans.  Rom uses his neutralizer to send the House back to Limbo, thereby protecting Brandy and Steve.

Review: Rom #4

"The Fire, the friend, and the foe." Rom battles Archie Stryker, the two-bit criminal who has been tricked by the Dire Wraiths into being grafted to the armor of the dead Spaceknight, Firefall.  Stryker wields the Living Flame of Galador, while Rom wields a neutralizer.  Throughout the battle, Stryker tries to kill Rom, whereas Rom is attempting to avoid doing the same, since he knows Stryker is misguided. As they battle in the sky over West Virginia, on the highway below, Brandy Clark is being abducted by Dire Wraiths, and Steve Jackson is pursuing them. Brandy and Steve manage to force the car being driven by the Wraiths to crash, which kills the Wraiths, and enables them to stumble free.  Meanwhile, Rom manages to subdue Archie Stryker, and convince him that the Wraiths didn't just put a suit of armor on him -- they bonded Stryker to it forever. It can never be removed!

Review: Rom #3

"Firefall." A team of law-enforcement officials shows Archie Stryker a video of Rom's rampages on earth.  Angry at the deaths of what he thinks are humans, Stryker agrees to work with the officials to take the fight to Rom, not knowing that they are all Dire Wraiths in disguise. Meanwhile, Rom detects major Wraith activity and goes to confront it. As Brandy Clark comes home to find more police in her apartment and is taken away by them, and as Stryker undergoes physical training, Rom attacks an underground Wraith stronghold.  She banishes most of the Wraiths to limbo, only to be attacked by a new weapon -- Archie Stryker, now grafted into the armor of the former Spaceknight Karas, aka. Firefall.

Review: Rom #2

"Second Coming." Rom smashes into the vault area of Laserium Corporation, chasing a Dire Wraith. The Wraith is in the custody of the Stryker gang, led by Archie Stryker, and they're at the Laserium to steal from the vaults.  Rom ignores the humans and dispatches the Wraith to limbo, but Stryker only sees a human being turned to ash. When the police arrive and capture him, he tells the chief of police, who is also secretly a Wraith, that he will do anything to stop Rom. Next, Rom returns to the home of Brandy Clark to seek out her council.  Brandy's boyfriend Steve Jackson sees this and calls the police, thinking Brandy is in danger.  The Wraith-chief comes along and has the police employ "top secret" (actually Wraith-made) weapons. Rom defeats the police, and his analyzer shows that the chief is a Wraith, so he sends him to limbo.  Again to everyone else, it looks like Rom has killed someone. Rom then departs, not wishing to cause Brandy any further trouble.  Meanwhile, Stryker vows to get even with the Spaceknight.

Review: Rom #1

"Arrival!"  A comet crashes to earth, and out of it emerges Rom, greatest of the Spaceknights. A car approaches, and the shocked driver, Brandy Clark, loses control.  Rom saves her from going over a cliff. Then he summons his energy analyzer and scans her, after which he flies off. In the nearby town of Clariton, Rom scans the residents with his analyzer, and then summons his neutralizer and turns two of them to ash. As people flee in fear, Rom notices Brandy again, and this time he flies off with her. Using his translator, he tells his origin story: his people were at war with the Dire Wraiths, and he and others volunteered to give up half their humanity to become cyborgs.  The Spaceknights won a victory, but the shape-shifting wraiths fled to various worlds. Rom has come to earth to hunt them down.  Brandy isn't sure she believes him, but then the national guard shows up, and attacks.  Rom battles them. Among them are several wraiths, who try to kill him and capture Brandy, but Rom uses his neutralizer to send them to Limbo.  Then he flies off, leaving Brandy to wonder what is really going on.