Toy Bender

I’d like to focus on a classic toy of the late seventies and early eighties that might not be remembered as well as other lines from that era. That toy is ROM, and even though it didn’t last very long on store shelves, it has a rather interesting history.

ROM was invented by a guy named Bing McCoy (not kidding), who then sold the idea to Parker Brothers. At that time Parker Brothers was interested in entering the toy market outside of their board game business. For various reasons, the toy never caught on. Before fading into obscurity however, ROM had made the cover of Time in 1979 and spawned a fairly successful comic book tie-in (more on that later). Here’s a full color comic book ad for the toy:

And here’s the television ad courtesy of YouTube:

As you can see, this TV ad does a great job of introducing ROM and it almost feels like an ad for a movie. ROM was an electronic toy that could make nifty breathing sounds, had light up eyes, and came with some nifty gadgets to boot. What kid wouldn’t want a toy that was this cool? Sadly, a lot of kids. You’d think just the name alone would have created a sure fire hit.

Instead of completely going away, ROM lived on for several more years in comic book adventures. ROM didn’t have some crappy comic book tie-in like the old He-Man and *shiver* Mad Balls comics, either. Just the opposite was true. While Parker Brothers only sold a few thousand ROM toys and canceled the line, the comic book lived on for a six years and 75 issues not including a few annuals before it was finished.

Most of the title’s success was due to the high caliber of the creators attached to the project. ROM was scripted by Bill Mantlo, one of the gods of comic book awesomeness. Artwork was by Sal Buscema at first, who was then later by Spider-man co-creator and Marvel legend Steve Ditko. With such big names on the title, it is obvious that ROM had a lot of support from Marvel to make ROM a hit.

I only discovered the greatness of ROM after finding a few issues of the comic in my local comic book store’s .25 cent dump bin. The issues I found had a very dark tone. Damn dark, in fact. ROM is a Spaceknight who is dedicated to eradicating the forces of the Dire Wraiths from the universe. Unfortunately for human-kind, these Dire Wraiths have begun a secret invasion of Earth. ROM came to Earth in his never ending quest to destroy the Wraiths, who are basically evil incarnate. In the process he gained a girlfriend who gave up her humanity to become a fellow Spaceknight (who looked pretty damn goofy at first) for a time to fight along side of ROM. Instead of 20 odd pages of stupid commercial garbage, ROM readers got something completely dark and gritty.

Take issue 49 for example. The comic opens up with the Dire Wraiths descending on a town. It’s not any town, either. It’s the home of ROM’s space girlfriend and fellow knight Starshine. In previous issues the Dire Wraith’s had proved to be vicious killers, so if you a regular reader of the comic you knew that some very bad things were about to go down. And go down they did as the evil Dire Wraith’s first kill a teenage girl and proceed to murder the rest of the family, including the kid.

Not content to stop their carnage there, the Dire Wraiths attack and kill a minor character from earlier in the series before they proceed to murder Starshine’s parents to prove just how evil they are.

This is some strong stuff for a comic based off a kid’s toy, especially for comic books that were usually aimed at younger audiences. The series continued with some great issues for awhile until ROM finally managed to end the Wraith presence on Earth. After that, things kind of went downhill for the comic. Still, it was a great ride while it lasted.

ROM, whever you are Toy Bender salutes you.

For further Rom Reading Check out:

ROM’s Wikipedia Entry
ROM Spaceknight Revisited

Toy, toy collecting, action figure, ROM, Spaceknight, comic book, Parker brothers, YouTube, video, commercial, ad, Marvel