ROM #69 [1985]

ROM #69 [1985] is one of five issues of Ditko's run on the series inked by P. Craig Russell, with the 22-page story "This World Alive". The story is, as always, by Bill Mantlo.

This story features ROM, in the aftermath of the defeat of the Dire Wraiths, searching for others of his kind, humans from Galador who had been converted to robotic forms to fight the Wraiths. His search takes him to an odd world which... well, it's Ego the Living Planet. The cover gives that away, so does the story title to a lesser degree. A shame, as that's the kind of reveal that would have made a nice surprise. Anyway, Ego was a great concept introduced by Jack Kirby in the pages of THOR back in the 1960s, and by this point had returned a few times to encounter the Fantastic Four.  ROM's quest for his comrades takes him deep into Ego's ecosystem, where he first encounters the Kirby-designed antibodies that are always on the attack against intruders, and then some half-digested Wraiths on his way to the brain of Ego.

Enjoyable stand-alone story mixing in one of the great cosmic concepts of the Marvel Universe.  Ditko's art works well on the almost abstract enlarged organic designs needed for Ego, and Russell's inking is really sharp, and the printing shows it off better than some other issues in this run.

U.S. 1 #12 [1984]

Well, what can you say about U.S. 1? A short-lived series from Marvel based on a toy-line, Ditko was brought in to do the final issue, published the same month he began his long run on a more successful toy-based comic, ROM. The 23-page story with the somewhat inspired title "The Truck Stops Here" is written by Al Milgrom and inked by Danny Bulanadi.

This being the only issue of the series I've read, I'm sure I'm missing many of the subtleties, but there's a lot of expository recapping that explains the story of aliens coming to Earth, looking for a human for an interplanetary mission, picking the wrong guy from a pair of trucker brothers, leading to this point where U.S. Archer has to race his truck U.S. 1 around the world against his brother Jefferson, aka The Highwayman, driving Blackrig.

And I almost hate to say it, but it's not bad. Milgrom seems perfectly aware of how absurd all this is (I hope...), and plays it for the camp value (like the CB radio embedded in U.S.'s skull). Ditko does a solid job with some dense storytelling, and while most of the characters and settings don't lend themselves to anything flashy, he does a good job with the alien and the space fleet. Even Danny Bulanadi, definitely not my favourite Ditko inker of the era (he does most of Ditko's INDIANA JONES issues) does a decent job here.

ROM #66 [1985]

"The Day After!" is a 22-page transitional issue of the long running series. The previous issue wrapped up the war with the Dire Wraiths which was pretty much the title's focus up to this point, with a resolution very steeped in Marvel continuity and involving the Avengers, Defenders, X-Men and others. There's just some clean-up to do, with ROM banishing the rest of the now powerless Dire Wraiths who threatened Earth, plus a lot of recap of the background of the characters to explain ROM deciding to leave Earth and his friends behind.

So a bit exposition heavy and not much room for visual creativity, so not the best issue of the series if you want a sample, but not bad for regular readers.

Steve Leialoha inks this issue, and that's always a pleasing combination. The final double-page splash of ROM in space, apparently quite quickly going to a system with some freaky looking planetary configurations, is really neat.

The letter column also has a comment about a cameo by Spider-Man in an earlier issue, which the editor clarifies was added by the inker. There's also a circulation statement, apparently ROM sold about 155,000 copies an issue back then.

ROM #59 [1984]

This is the first issue of Ditko's extended run on this series, joining original writer Bill Mantlo and lasting until the final issue of the book with #75. The 22-page story "A World Alive" starts with some quick catch-up, as we're in mid-story. Mantlo does a pretty good job throughout the book re-establishing the major points of the series, so this is a good introduction to ROM, an alien cyborg Spaceknight who has spent the previous 58 issues defending the Earth from his long-time foes the Dire Wraiths and their escalating attacks. The latest wave has the Wraiths infecting insects, so of course Ant-Man finds his expertise required. Ant-Man uses his shrinking powers to send ROM and his companion Starshine down into the body of an infected ant to discover the roots of the problem.

Very neat visual gimmick throughout this story of the pages featuring ROM and Starshine shrinking generally keep them the same size from panel-to-panel while everything around them grows, revealing greater detail as we get further down and some odd perspectives. Keeps it very visually entertaining in the midst of a pretty talky comic.  Also, Ditko gets to give his 30-year-old skills drawing ants a workout, and that's always neat.

Bob Layton is the inker for this issue, and I kind of liked the very slick, modern shine he puts on the artwork, the kind of style I wouldn't want to see on most Ditko work, but that I'm glad we did get to see a few times (Layton would ink one more issue of ROM).

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #11 [1986]

Ditko's lengthy run on ROM, wrapping up the series with writer Bill Mantlo and a variety of inkers, had concluded a few months before this issue of Marvel's Handbook series came out, so he appears here with the primary illustration in the space hippie form that he ended the book with (um, spoiler alert). Of course, no one would recognize that, so a proper ROM figure appears behind.

Joe Rubinstein provides the embellishing. Man, he must have been getting sick of this series by this point...

Micronauts Annual #1 [1979]

The Micronauts were a toyline that spawned a surprisingly long-running Marvel comic. Steve Ditko teamed up with writer Bill Mantlo for a trio of issues from 1979 to 1982, as well as several stories featuring the Captain Universe concept, which spins out of events in the comic. Ditko's works on the title first in this annual, which has three short stories telling some of the backstory of the main characters, I gather leading directly to the early issues of the regular series.  I don't think I ever read a Micronauts story other than those by Ditko, but since this one goes back to the beginning, and Mantlo provides the needed exposition, it reads pretty well.

Each of the three stories is 11 pages, including an introductory splash page featuring the narrator, "Time Traveler, emissary of the Enigma Force".  The first story is "Timestream", and features explorer Arcturus Rann and his robot companion Biotron on the final day of their 1000 year exploration of the Microverse, when they encounter a long-dead world in the Force Nexus with a single resident, the armoured Galactic Defender.  I'm sure all that makes sense to someone.  Anyway, the point is that Ditko's art is well suited to this story, with lots of weird space scenes, alien landscapes and some especially good work on the Galactic Defender character, who rapidly ages once his helmet is shattered.

The previous story ends with Rann heading back to Homeworld, where the next story takes place.  "Coup" follows the royal family of Homeworld, and lays out some of the events that lead to Baron Karza successfully executing the coup of the title, killing the king and queen, sending their children Mari and Argon on the run. The final story, "Arena of Death" follows two prisoners who had a cameo in the previous story, Price Acroyear and Bug, as they're forced to fight various beasts in an arena for the amusement of Baron Karza. Ditko does a good job with this combination sci-fi/fantasy milieu, and his style works well with the characters, who are pretty well designed for a bunch of toys.

Ditko also does a 2-page spread of the characters in the regular series, including Captain Universe, and plugging and upcoming appearance by the Fantastic Four and their old villain Psychoman, and does the cover for the issue. This is a surprisingly entertaining comic for something called MICRONAUTS ANNUAL #1, with 36 pages of quality Ditko pencils and inks.  The introductory splash pages are especially well designed.

ROM #68 [1985]

Surprisingly, ROM is probably the second longest run (in page count) that Ditko ever had on a character, drawing the last 17 issues of the series, as well as an annual, from 1984 to 1986 (I'm pretty sure 419 pages beats his Captain Atom total), all with Bill Mantlo, writer of the series from jump street. The run is also interesting because it was very much an "inker of the month" thing, with a dozen inkers over the course of 18 stories (P. Craig Russell did five scattered issues, no one else did more than two). Unfortunately part of the run had among the worst printing Marvel ever subjected us to, so you can't judge some of the inkers fairly.

Anyway, #68 has the story "Ad Infinitum", a 23-page story inked by Brett Breeding. This is a single issue story with ROM flying through space, following the end of his long war against the Dire Wraiths, and encountering a group of humans who are in a war against robots they created who turned on them and exiled them from their homeworld. ROM, being half-human/half-robot, tries to intercede in the conflict and convince the two sides to live in peace...

And completely fails, witnessing helplessly as they destroy each other. That was a pretty cool ending. A pretty fun book, far from any sort of high art, but a lot more interesting than a book based on a toy should be.

I liked Breeding's inks on this, solid, very clearly Ditko and very nice on the flying in space bits. Ditko did some nice design work on the design of the alien world and robots.