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

Rom: Dire Wraiths #2 - IDW Publishing

ROM: DIRE WRAITHS No. 2, November 2019

Absolutely crammed with some of the most gratuitous, zero-gravity based violence seen this side of the Moon, Chris Ryall’s sense-shattering script for Issue Two of “Rom: Dire Wraiths” soon builds up a death tally which would surely sate even the most blood-thirsty “IDW Publishing” reader. Indeed, for any uber-nostalgic fans of the short-lived 1986 animated series “Inhumanoids” and its scientist-rich, super-team of heroes, the Long Beach-born writer’s “One Small Step For Dire-Wraith Kind” kill-count will disconcertingly prove a truly traumatic twenty-page passage.

First of all, the narrative strongly suggests straight from the start, that absolutely nobody is safe from having their extravehicular mobility unit lethally torn asunder and vital organs wantonly exposed to the cold vacuum of space. True, there is a modicum of trust that NASA's Apollo 11 astronaut crew will survive the horrific ordeal befalling them, especially as the steadfast Adventure-One Team repeatedly hurl themselves in harm’s way so as to protect Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. But considering the shroud of national security which overshadows all of this comic’s events, it quickly becomes clear that a cover-up relating to their tragic demise would not be beyond belief; “Houston. Houston, do not turn the cameras on. Repeat, keep the Eagle dark. There is a… situation I do not want broadcast.”

In addition, Ryall appears utterly unafraid of murdering off this comic’s lead cast without any warning whatsoever, whether it be a “simple matter” of a Dire Wraith literally boring into an unsuspecting astronaut’s boot so as to liquefy their body from the inside out, or simply gnaw another unsuspecting victim’s helmeted head clean off with a viciously vengeful bite. Such unrestrained carnage does rather satisfyingly work both ways, with the Dire Wraiths themselves adding to this book’s death toll courtesy of a truly patriotic spear throw across the thin atmosphere of the lunar surface using “Old Glory”. Yet is is undoubtedly the "pathetically weak" humans who bear the brunt of this book's grisly atrocities.

Delightfully, all of these pulse-pounding panels are gloriously pencilled by Luca and Andrea Pizzari, with colorist Jim Boswell providing some extra punch, thanks to some vibrantly vivid palette choices. In fact, even towards this publication’s end, when a lone Dire Wraith inexplicably decides to deliver a heavily-wordy piece of exposition to the surviving astronauts rather than just hew them asunder with his barbed tentacles, the creative team’s artwork quite compellingly carries the audience along, thanks to a tremendously well-drawn splash page featuring the Spaceknight, Rom.

Writer: Chris Ryall, Artists: Luca Pizzari & Andrea Pizzari, and Colorist: Jim Boswell

Rom: Dire Wraiths #1 - IDW Publishing

ROM: DIRE WRAITHS No. 1, October 2019

First announced during the July 2019 San Diego Comic-Con, and penned by a man who had wanted the character of Rom to “return to comics long before I was ever in position to inquire about” writing a comic about him, this three-part mini-series’ opening instalment certainly must have intrigued its 4,599 strong audience with a storyline featuring NASA's Apollo 11 astronaut crew facing a murderously menacing party of Dire Wraiths during their momentous Moon landing. But whilst Chris Ryall undoubtedly provides this nineteen page periodical with an authentic air of late Sixties life within the confines of a lunar module, his inclusion of the technologically advanced Adventure-One Team, complete with state of the art spacecraft, disappointingly soon disperses any notion that this book is going to focus upon Neil Armstrong’s three-man team desperately fending off the hostile aliens with whatever limited resources they have to hand.

Indeed, rather than portray the complexities encountered by the Eagle's crew during their historic mission, and the sheer terror a reader might imagine them facing when they suddenly realise that there isn’t “just the three of us in all the universe”, the current President of “IDW Publishing” instead spends a large portion of this publication sedentarily sketching in the backgrounds to its increasingly bloated cast, such as Arsenal, Badger, Hank, Mixmaster, Scalpel, Doctor Sandra Shore, and even NASA’s “first female engineer at Kennedy”, Joann Morgan. This massive influx of characters arguably would blow the mind of any bibliophile unfamiliar with the “Hasbro” animated series “Inhumanoids”, and certainly doesn’t help matters when the Long Beach-born author attempts to imbue all four of this tale’s lethal Dire Wraiths with similar individuality; “Spare me from such stupid soldiers. I remember a time when study of the sciences meant something to Wraith culture.”

Luckily however, Issue One of “Rom: Dire Wraiths” is blessed with the layouts of Luca Pizzari, whose prodigious pencilling is highly reminiscent of that seen within the pages of the science fiction comic “2000 A.D.” during the late Seventies. In fact, even though much of their ‘screen time’ is spent arguing over whether Russian Colonel Anatoli Kiev is allowed to take a formidable-looking heavy weapon with her or not, the Italian artist’s engaging style automatically emboldens each member of Earth Corps with an air of military might, especially to those familiar with the exploits of “The V.C.s” (Vacuum Cleaners) as drawn by Cam Kennedy.

The regular cover art of "ROM: DIRE WRAITHS" No. 1 by Luca Pizzari