Episode 108, “There’s Something Awful on Muir Island!”
X-Men #125, September 1979
“There’s Something Awful on Muir Island!”
Written by Chris Claremont, Pencils by John Byrne, Inks by Terry Austin, Lettered by Tom Orzechowski, Colors by Glynis Wein, Edited by Roger Stern, Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter
Rom, Rom, Rom Your Boat, Gently Down The Stream!
In Which We Discover That Wolverine Has Been Insufferable Ever Since Nightcrawler Broke the Keurig Machine, That Jean Grey Has Been Traveling the Mediterranean Learning the Tantric Secrets of the Yoni and the Emotional Voids, And That At Last The X-Men Can Really Celebrate Because Everyone is Not Dead! Well, Except Changeling, but F— That Guy!
We Apologize For Our Anti-Orange Being Comments. The Jokes Were Crude and Thoughtless and We Had No Idea People of Orange Color Actually Had Tri-Genitals. Our bad.
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In 1979 Parker Brothers released one of a new generation of blinking and beeping toys: Rom the Space Knight. It was not well received, selling only a couple hundred thousand of the very pricey to make toy. The Time magazine review was fairly typical of the public response: “Rom is a spaceman doll whose computer memory gives it a disappointingly narrow range of behavior. It breathes heavily (one of its better effects), buzzes, twitters and flashes its lighted eyes, and sounds ominous gongs, one for good and two for evil. The trouble with this Parker Bros. homunculus is that it looks as if it should be able to use its arms and legs like a true robot, and it can’t. Rom will end up among the dust balls under the playroom sofa.”
Parker Brothers also contracted with Marvel comics to produce a Rom the Spaceknight comic, written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Sal Buscema. Unlike the garbage toy, the comic was fairly successful, lasting 75 issues in which Rom interacted with just about every character in the Marvel universe. Above is the first page of ROM #1, showing the arrival of the mysterious Rom on Earth.
Marvel’s right to publish Rom ended when the comic ended in 1986. For whatever reason, no one has since been able to undo the Rom rights Gordian knot, leaving not only the original Rom comic in limbo, but every Marvel comic in which he featured significantly. For instance, the Power Man and Iron Fist collected editions do not include #73, in which Rom appears and starts killing hookers in front of their pimps (they are actually Dire Wraiths and he is banishing them, not killing them, but it does look bad….)
Jean has become quite the Mistress of fiberglass insolation.
Moira knew their survival depended on Elton John never discovering what she had done with his glasses.
No one is more conscious of X-Men branding than Wolverine.
Damn, I am getting too old for this shit. And by shit, I mean the genocide of the human race.
This scene is so hot even the clouds are erect!
Why does Lorna always wake me before I get my top off?
Uggg, so bored… Hey, Orange Mullet-Guy, wanna bet I can balance this test tube on my crotch?
Moira was beginning to regret her decision to moonwalk everywhere.
Poor Beast. Banshee and Nightcrawler are trying hard not to laugh while Scott is clearly dialing the Time Lady.
Green dudes will always stalk a green-haired lady. As dependable as a cuckoo clock with an out of control pendulum.
