ROM Week: This Creature Men Call… The HULK!

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One of the things that might not have been made abundantly clear over the past week–what with the fact that he usually disposes of his problems by shooting them with his giant, unweildly square hunk of sheet metal Neutralizer–is that ROM also comes with a pretty standard array of super-powers.

After all, you don’t go out and trade your humanity to the Prime Director of Galador for a suit of cyborg armor that looks like an NES with legs without getting some pretty serious perks, and for ROM, said benefits far outweighted the drawback of not having any fingers. The cyborg armor gave him the ability to fly and–as we’ve seen–withstand even the raking, razor-edged claws” of Wolverine, but most importantly, it made him crazy strong.

Case in point, ROM #26, wherein ROM punches his way into Galactus’s spaceship.

 

 

I don’t know if you guys know this, but not everybody can do that. In fact, ROM’s strength was so remarkable that over the course of the first few years of the comic, other characters often compared him to the Hulk, at which time ROM would inevitably look off pensively and think to himself that one day, he would have to encounter this creature that men call… The Hulk.

Clearly, these two had to get together. Thus, Boisterous Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema’s Incredible Hulk #296.

 

 

Sadly, despite the fact that it features ROM shakin’ that ass on an awesome Bill Sienkiewicz cover, this one isn’t the all-out slugfest that I think everybody wants it to be, and falls slightly short of the issue of Power Man and Iron First where ROM Neutralizes a Dire Wraith hooker on the grand scale of ROM guest appearances.

The whole thing opens with what essentially amounts to a three-page advertisement for ROM’s own comic, catching up 1984’s impressionable youngsters on on ROM’s origin with handy shots of our hero totally chokeslamming a Dire Wraith and informing us that he’s using his Energy Analyzer to track down a strange source of radiation.

Said source is, of course, ol’ Jade Jaws, who has enough problems of his own to be getting on with. At the time, for those of you who don’t remember Secret Wars, Bruce Banner’s mind had finally gained control of the Hulk’s body, as long as he didn’t flip out and go BANANA.

And at this point, you should’ve already figured out what’s going to happen in about fifteen pages.

Anyway, it all comes down to a guy with the almost-unbearably manly name of Max Hammer, who responded to a terminal illness by blackmailing Bruce Banner into subjecting him to Gamma Rays, apparently forgetting how that actually works out for everybody except Doc Samson. Result: Crazy Old Man Hulk Monster.

 

 

As you might expect–what with the fact that this is a mid-80s Bill Mantlo issue of Incredible Hulk we’re talking about–this quickly leads to bone-shattering fight scene, and despite the fact that he manages to land a haymaker right to… well, to about a foot and a half below the old guy’s crotch…

 

 

…Banner quickly finds himself outmatched by the savage fury of a cranky old man. So let this be a lesson to you, kids: For the love of God, stay off the man’s lawn.

So severe is the ass-kicking that the Hulk receives from his geriatric counterpart that Banner’s mind retreats deep within the Hulk’s psyche, and, as predicted…

 

 

…the Savage Hulk returns with an uppercut that sends Hammer through the roof and pretty much out of the story.

And that’s about the time that ROM shows up, greeting the Hulk’s then-girlfriend Kate Waynesboro with the kind of modesty he’s known for.

 

 

Quite the charmer, that guy.

Before long, ROM’s managed to Neutralize the Gamma Radiation that’s killing Hammer’s test subjects and heads off for the confrontation everyone had been waiting for since ROM first set foot on the planet five years previous.

Needless to say, it doesn’t quite work out that well for the Greatest of the Spaceknights, and even the time-honored comic book tradition of ramming yourself head-first into your opponent’s breadbasket can’t stop this from happening:

 

 

And that pretty much settles that.

The Hulk, of course, ends up accidentally catching Kate on the backswing and runs off, and–despite the fact that it’s continued directly from the end of this one–ROM is nowhere to be found in the next issue, apparently having decided that chasing down lumpy, hooded space-witches is probably more his speed.

And considering that the Hulk ends up beating the living crap out of the Avengers two issues later in Hulk #300–still one of the most mind-bogglingly awesome comics known to man–I think we can all agree that was a pretty wise decision.

20 thoughts on “ROM Week: This Creature Men Call… The HULK!”

  2. A Fame Joke. .. .

    You win again Mr.Sims.

    I will now go to sleep and dream of ROM attacking the coffee shop I work at so I won’t be bored.

  3. Well, stand by for a whole line of new business cards – “Men call me blank, greatest of the blank blanks!”.
    Example – “Men call me Mal, greatest of the football watchers!” “Men call me Chris Sims, greatest of the face-kick sleuths!”

  4. “Men call me ROM, GREATEST OF THE SPACENIGHTS.

    Women call me at 555-7881 for a Good Time.”

  5. That cover is very provocative.
    Nothing quite like some squareish, ill-defined robo-butt to get the processor searching.

    ROM: Space Knight, and sexually comfortable activist for equal rights.

    Presumably the hard-moulded panties factor into that political stance, somehow.

  7. Yeah… for all the insane build-up that was going on in ROM’s book about an inevitable meet-up/beat-down with the HULK, this one let me down when I read it, lo’ those many years ago.

    It BOGGLED my mind that it wasn’t a two-part, cross-title epic.

    That would have made the most sense, from a storytelling AND marketing angle.

    It would have been like crack to kids back in 1984.

    I can only imagine that schedule-wise, HULK was tied up in SECRET WARS for awhile before this, and then he was soon to be thrown into the Crossroads storyline, so they only had THIS issue to CRAM ROM into this long-awaited meet-up.

    I don’t remember it even being hyped at the time.
    It just sort of snuck up on me.
    To the point where, as someone who didn’t read ‘The Hulk’ at the time, I almost missed it.

    Oh, and that cover?
    Mind-boggling.

    But, I guess Sienkiewicz could have pooped on paper and they would have claimed it a brilliant work, worthy of publication.

    Wow.
    It sounds like I’m bitchin’, but, really… I’m not.

    ANY ROM appearance is an absolute PLEASURE.

    He classes up ANY joint.

    ~P~
    P-TOR

  9. Sal Buscema is pretty awesome. He doesn’t get near as much love as he should.

    You have to have grown up with Marvel from 1975-85 to really appreciate how intrinsic Sal was to Marvel’s output. He was, literally, everywhere.

    I have the classic S. Buscema horrified, slack-jawed gape (used for unending numbers of background male characters) burned into the bedrock of my memory. It’s probably the last thing I’ll be left with when I go totally senile.

    (Which will be appropriate, because that will probably be the expression I’ll be wearing.)

  11. I started reading comics after Rom’s series had ended, but avid back issue bin diver that I was, I kept encountering his title and for a quarter, I couldn’t pass it up and after a few years I’d amassed quite a collection.

    It’s only now that I appreciate how truly bizarre and “out there” Rom really was, especially compared to pretty much anything Marvel had done up to that period — aside from possibly Starlin’s “Warlock.” If Titan books can get the rights to reprint an A-list property like “Transformers,” (including the issue featuring Spider-Man) why can’t some small outfit get the rights to Rom as well? Or Marvel pay the $500 or so it should cost to reacquire them?

    I want my Rom, damn it!

  14. It dawns on me that we’re going to need a whole separate week for the Falcon to ROM’s Cap, the Green Arrow to his Green Lantern, the mighty Torpedo!

  15. I second the request for the Torpedo! Chris, please tell me that you’re extending ROM Week into ROM Fortnight…

  16. Oh lordy, I’d managed to repress the Torpedo memory for so long…

  17. Am I the only one who, upon reading the panel where the Hulk vows to smash, heard instead the voice of Jay from “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?”

    “You are the ones who are the ball-lickers!”

    Just me? Okay.

    This comic had Kate Waynesboro? The future Ms. MODOK? That’s an extra touch of radness. Rom and Ms. MODOK would make a great team-up. Or a romance comic.

  18. You know, as a totally straight woman who doesn’t mind beefcake and who is the first in line to congratulate artists when they remember to give us het ladies a little fanservice, I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed in ROM’s knighted ass. That barely qualifies as a gratuitous ass shot! The intent was there, clearly, but F for execution. For shame, Bill S.! A blemish on an otherwise remarkable career.

    Now, you know who has a rockin’ ass? VISION. I’m not talking about the travesty of Teen!Vision, I’m talking the old school salacious synthezoid that bagged one of the hottest women in the entire Marvel Universe within months of his creation. Take THAT, Clint Barton!

    Ah, Chris, while I’m here, I regret to inform you that you have an issue with substandard merchandise on your Cafe Press website. I bought, with great enthusiasm, quantity two of your ISB thongs (size M, if you must know), and after wearing them only ONE TIME each, there were definite deficiencies noted in craftpersonship. As in, one tore within three hours of putting it on, and the other didn’t last through one wash cycle (hand washing, I might add).

    Now, Chris. I’d like to put a disclaimer here that neither thong was subjected to undue stress; I hadn’t even had TIME to get frisky with my male companion, and there were no vigorous fights with supervillains involving roundhouse kicks at the water cooler at work or anything during the course of wear.

    So, to tally:

    Thong #1: lasted three hours and fifteen minutes.

    Thong #2: lasted seventeen hours.

    For shame, sir. I’d like some recompense!

    If you want to learn from the masters the art of crafting night flawless lingerie, I suggest that you consult the good people of Azzuma.

    Take a look through the Lise Charmel, Aubaude, Chantal Thomass, and La Perla sections.

    THAT is what you should aspire to! Now, will I be receiving compensation in the form of monies, blood, souls, or some other as-yet-unspecified currency?