It Came From the Longbox
Finally! A use for Spam!(The e-mail kind, not the Hormel kind.) Spamusement. Read it. Particularly this one or this one or this one. We have been laughing about it all evening. And it's done by one of the founders of Panic, which means a lot to Mac geeks like me.
Sorry--distracted by Alton Brown making Bananas Foster. His website has some really nice-looking knives, though I'm not sure anything can replace our Global chef knife. It's quite possibly the best knife I've ever used. Plus, I love the way these look.
It Came From the Longbox
Pulling an issue from random from my collection of comics, I find... ROM #5.
(I dunno why I have a fascination with ROM, other than the pathos of the whole "must encase body on metal armor to fight Dire Wraiths" deal. Or the fact I never got to get the toy. Of course, I never got a Big Trak after asking for one for years, and I'm not obsessed by that.)
In this issue, ROM is yet another misunderstood hero in the Marvel universe, wanted by the cops after blowing away one of Dire Wraith enemies in broad daylight. He's pining for his lost love on Galador while hanging around a pair of local hu-mans. There's also a guest appearance by Doctor Strange! Because no hero can go that many issues without running into somebody else in the Marvel roster.
In addition to a Hostess ad featuring The Human Torch, there's the Hubba Bubba ad demonstrating how to blow a bubble, pleas to sell Grit (how many of these smiling kids are dead now, I wonder?), a big spread on how much dough you can make selling seeds, and tons of house ads.
This issue is a bit of a bridge between the previous arc, where ROM shows up on Earth and gets misunderstood, and the next. Which if memory serves, is fighting the guy he fought in issue 4. Anyway, ROM breaks out all three of his three accessories (the Energy Analyzer, the Neutralizer, and the Translator) in an effort to fight a demon Dr. Strange banished. The weird part is, the only time we see Dr. Strange is in a vision or a flashback to an issue of Strange Tales, so Stan and friends are lying just a wee bit on the cover.
ROM, like Shogun Warriors, was a comic tie-in to a merchandising property. Though the story in this particular is kinda iffy--ROM's main battle in this issue other than the demon is against a chair of all things--I do like how it grows beyond the cheap tie-in. And because this is the age of the internets, somebody's compiled more information about ROM than you can wiggle a corn dog at.
