If the current crop of comics turned into movies are any indication, it’s becoming abundantly clear Hollywood will not stop until it’s strip-mined comics dry. I’m expecting that Detective Chimp film by 2015. But I’m fairly certain there’s a few properties in comics no one in Hollywod is game to touch. For example-

ROM: Spaceknight

Who the Hell is That?

ROM is basically the coolest toy-to-comic adaptation there has ever been. That’s a group that includes the Transformers, by the way. Back in the 80s, Hasbro came up with a toy called ROM, a little robot thing with blinking lights which lifted it’s arm and stuff.

Of course, for a kid in the 80s, this was the equivalent of having your own working starship. Hasbro came up with its own marketing campaign for ROM, including the obligatory TV spots. But to help sell them, they asked Marvel Comics to produce a series featuring their toy. They gave them the ROM toy, the names “Spaceknight” and “Dire Wraith”, and told them to see what they could come up with.

What Makes Them So Special?

In a moment of genius or madness, Marvel gave the handful of ideas to writer Bill Mantlo, who deserves some sort of humanitarian award for what he came up with. He very likely could have shit out twelve issues of generic shoot-em-ups and gone back to snorting cocaine off a midget or whatever Bill Mantlo did with his spare time, but instead he turned in a sprawling epic space opera which rivals Star Wars in scope and vision.

ROM is a Space Knight, a cybernetic being from the planet Galador who chose to be made into a monstrous machine-man to fight the Dire Wraiths which are trying to take over his world. You know they’re evil because they have “Dire” in their name and they look like this

The trouble with Dire Wraiths was they could shapeshift to look like anything. Even Galadorians. Even Humans.

That was what ROM found when he crash landed on Earth while pursuing the Wraiths, which had fled before the combined might of ROM and his fellow Spaceknights. ROM has special scanners which allow him to see who is a Dire Wraith. The trouble is human lawmakers and other Earth superheroes didn’t, and got very angry with ROM for disintegrating what to them looked like innocent people.

You’ve got to admit it does look bad.

So ROM had to stay one step ahead of the humans, while simultaneously tracking down all the Dire Wraiths he could and obliterating them. Also, he had to try to hang on to some semblance of humanity (or Galadorianity) as his increasing quest for vengeance made him question how much of him was still a feeling being, and how much was cold machine.

It was a great concept, and one which ran for seven years and seventy-five issues. Not bad considering the toy the comics had been designed to help sell only managed to move around 500 units, and was eventually discontinued by Hasbro. ROM toys now predictably go for hundreds of dollars on ebay, so check your attics guys, you never know.

Finally, I should quickly mention that ROM comes from the Thor-school of “talk constantly about how kickass I am”

In other words, he’s far more awesome than any toy tie-in has any right to be.

Why it’ll Never Work

At this point you’re probably wondering why this isn’t on Marvel’s list of movies currently in production. After all, any company that likes money — and Marvel definitely likes money — should be all over this franchise, right?

Unfortunately while it’s true ROM would make a great big-screen outing, the problem comes down to copyright. Marvel and Hasbro have been fighting for years about who exactly owns the copyright to ROM, and more specifically, who would get paid if a big screen adaptation were made. Fans of the comics haven’t even been able to get a collected edition, making ROM one of the very few comics properties out there which you still have to track down in single issues if you want to read it today. Or, you know, download it from a torrent site. NOT THAT I’M SAYING YOU SHOULD DO THAT.

What We’ll Have to Settle for Instead

A toy-tie-in turned popular comic series about robots from space who fight other evil space creatures with Earth as the battleground… I’m afraid we’ve already got what we wanted, guys. It’s Michael Bay’s Transformers.

I’m sorry.

For a great in-detail look at ROM, head over to Comics 101- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3