Over the course of its run, ROM had 4 annuals. The the first Annual was a standalone adventure where Rom fights a bizarre alien that comes to Earth, plus a story set in the past, when he was defending Galador from the Wraiths and seemed betrayed by another Spaceknight.
I don't know if it was an edict from editorial or just Mantlo's preference, but the remaining Annuals all tied into developments in the ongoing series to varying degrees. The final Annual was set during the stretch after Rom left Earth to find Galador, and he and his Spaceknight allies run afoul of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. The third Annual brought back Hybrid, the Wraith/human child that embraced his Wraith heritage, but he's planning to use the girls on the New Mutants as mothers for more hybrid kids, and he somehow makes Brandy Clark human again, wrenching her out of the Starshine armor.
Granted, Rom probably considers that a net positive, since Brandy was growing increasingly brutal in the war against the Wraiths, which he thought was a sign she was losing her humanity. Or she's got PTSD from the Wraiths killing everyone she loved except you and no one is offering therapy, just opportunities for revenge. But the whole "humanity" thing in ROM is always a little curious. Rom is described as a cyborg, that still has organic parts somewhere under the metal. But he's missing half his "humanity" which, along with all the other Spaceknights, is a glowing orb stored in a mausoleum. So it's not some organs that were removed in the procedure, but its restoration transforms a Spaceknight, somehow, back into the flesh-and-blood human they were before.
The end result of Hybrid's actions is Brandy can't fight alongside Rom any longer, or accompany him into space. Meaning she loses the last connection she had to her home, which probably fuels her feelings of loneliness and leads to the Beyonder sending her to what's left of Galador.
The second Annual, is sort of a mix. It's set in the past, at the climax of Galador's war with the Wraiths, as a way for Mantlo, Buscema, Akin and Garvey to introduce some other Spaceknights that fought alongside Rom in a little "squad": Taram the Seeker, Skera the Scanner, Vola the Trapper, Plor the Pulsar, Unam the Unseen, and Raak the Breaker. Their abilities, the personalities (Raak's a loudmouth egoist, Unam tends to wallow in self-pity), their relationships (Skera and Taram are siblings, Unam and Plor were both in love with Vola.)
At the same time, it sets up the entire series. Rom purses the Wraith fleet, but when given the option between following the flagship to the Wraiths' homeworld, or chasing the smaller vessels as they scatter. The end result is Rom banishes every Wraith on the planet to Limbo, but all those smaller ships are free to infiltrate other worlds. Like, say, Earth. So after his Spaceknight Squadron pals help him through a spell the Wraiths cast before being banished, Rom insists they have to keep fighting, to scatter across the stars and make sure the Wraiths can't do to any other world what they tried to do to Galador.
Thus the Wraiths come to Earth, followed by Rom. The Wraiths, suspecting has deprived them of their home, try to make Earth into a new home. The Spaceknight Squadron scatters, leading to Rom eventually finding them during the last year of the book, and several of them have changed in their own ways. Raak's embraced a situation that lets his ego run wild, while Unam's bitterness at the power he received curdles into its own form of monstrosity.
No comments:
Post a Comment