Rom: Dire Wraiths #3 - IDW Publishing

ROM: DIRE WRAITHS No. 3, October 2020

Published almost eleven months to the day when the mini-series’ opening instalment was first released, Chris Ryall’s script for Issue Three of “Rom: Dire Wraiths” was arguably worth its long wait considering just how action-packed its concluding narrative is. In fact, the nineteen-page periodical’s plot flows so fast towards its fulfilling finale that some within the comic’s audience probably felt that the former President of “IDW Publishing” could possibly have ‘squeezed’ at least another edition or two out of his book’s premise that the entire 1969 moon landing was almost disastrously eaten by a pack of slavering Dire Wraiths.

 As it stands however, the surviving extra-terrestrial antagonists found within this magazine are rather uncharacteristically easy for the ‘fleshbag’ humans to overcome, with one particularly formidable-looking specimen actually running away from his space-suited prey after it becomes abundantly evident that the sharp-toothed alien isn’t quite as strong as its hulking size would suggest; “But I can’t help notice you’re blustering a lot more than you are attacking! By all rights, you should’ve cracked me open like a Maine lobster but I’m still up and around.”

Enjoyably though, the astronauts’ ability to physically intimidate and later tactically outwit their multi-eyed opponents doesn’t debatably stop either Ryall’s storyline or illustrator Ron Joseph’s astonishing good artwork from being any less entertaining, as these elements actually provide the opportunity for some marvellously tense action-packed set-pieces, such as Sandra Shen getting the better of a Dire Wraith sorcerer on board the Adventure-One Satellite, or the space mission’s commander courageously ordering one of his fellow cosmonaut’s to kill him with a technologically-advanced laser rifle before the hapless hero can be consumed alive by one of the ravenous aliens.

Correspondingly as compelling is this comic’s secondary story, “One Small Step For A Spaceknight”, which does a good job of explaining just how Rom somehow magically managed to be in orbit of the Earth’s moon at just the right moment to save Apollo 11 from a truly grisly fate. Dynamically drawn by Guy Dorian Senior and Maria Keane, this five-pager’s highlight is witnessing the ursine member of the Solstar Order, Nikomi, unselfishly sacrificing himself to be abandoned alone in outer space, so as to ensure his armoured friend was able to save Mankind from the Dire Wraith threat.

The regular cover art of "ROM: DIRE WRAITHS" #3 by Luca Pizzari