Spaceknight Saturdays: A Spaceknight Christmas

As malls across the continent trot out post-Halloween decorations and music to assault and insult the sense, so to must Siskoid's Blog of Geekery (everybody's hearing that with much echo, right?).

Yes, it's the Christmas season, not my favorite, especially in its insanely early stages, but Rom #30 IS a Christmas issue, so here I am. Truth be told though, if Christmas was more like "Silver Spiders in the Snow", it'd be more entertaining! I mean, this is a story that starts with a junkyard fight between giant metal spiders and a dog, and a poor guy who's had his junk dissolved and eaten.
"Stop eating my junk!" Hehehe. (Sometimes, I'm a real child, aren't I?)

But the real fun, I suppose, is seeing how Rom reacts to his first Christmas, i.e. what kind of gifts does a Spaceknight give?

From: Rom
To: All Clairton residents, including Brandy and Steve
Rom - Cheapskate. Peace of mind is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it? With all the Wraith fighting, he probably just didn't have time to go to the store.

From: Rom
To: Torpedo
The power to see Wraiths is a better gift, but Rom says it's "no gift at all!". So while Clairton gets essentially nothing, Torpedo gets a CURSE!

But then, Rom's not in the best of mental health. Here he is talking to the ghost of his lost humanity:
Yeah, I get those moments too on Christmas Eve.

If Rom can give peace of mind to Clairton this Christmas, it's that the Dire Wraiths have all been eliminated in that "sector", so where have they now? The answer is Washington D.C. Let's look in...
There they are, and they're getting uglier! The story of journalist Mack Killburn will have to wait another day, however. What about Torpedo's gift? Does it work? There he is flying over the old Marks farm, when...
Recognize anyone reforming from vaporized molecules? Holy crap, son! Don't miss the next issue next Saturday!!!

But back to Rom #30, already in progress. Coming upon the junkyard, he is attacked by mechanical spiders, the work of the alien villain, Metal Master, last seen fighting the Hulk in Incredible Hulk #6 (Mantlo doesn't believe in sell-by dates).
Dude can control any metal and wants Rom's armor to help him singlehandedly invade the Earth. Maybe also eat Rom's junk.
If the spiders can't do it, Metal Master transforms some scrap vehicles into junk-eating monsters!
Rom's not even phased. And when MM tries to take control of the armor directly, well, he probably didn't count on Rom's human cells being integrated into the metal. FEEDBACK!!!
So what happened to him? Still wandering the countryside, babbling incoherently? Assassinated by Scourge? Nope, he wound up in the Maximum Security mini-series (Kurt Busiek also doesn't believe in sell-by dates).

From: Rom
To: Bernie the Clairton junk man
That's a nice government contract. But does it really replace a man's junk?

Comments

Delta said…
The bit of Metal Master collapsed from "feedback" trying to use his power on Rom looks very similar to what happens to Avalanche when he tries them same thing on the Hulk in Hulk #263 (8 months prior). Even the two bad guys' armor is quite similar.
Delta said…
... as you can see in the very next issue of Rom, actually.