Marvel Comics IDW Publishing Yaffa / Page Ginger Rabbit Studio Marvel UK/Panini UK Skybound

Rom

by Bill Mantlo Writer Robert Kirkman Writer +2 more

1979–Present 1 issue Ongoing

Series

Rom began in 1979 as a licensed tie-in to a Parker Brothers toy that flopped commercially within its first year. Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema built a very different story around it at Marvel, following a cyborg Spaceknight from the planet Galador as he hunted the shape-changing Dire Wraiths on Earth. The Marvel run lasted 75 issues and four annuals before ending in 1986, when the toy license expired and the books went out of print for decades.

IDW Publishing revived the character in 2016 inside the Hasbro Comic Book Universe, pairing Rom with Transformers, Micronauts and G.I. Joe in a continuity separate from the original Marvel stories. That run closed out with the 2018 Transformers: Unicron crossover. Marvel reacquired reprint rights in 2023 and has since republished the original Mantlo and Buscema issues in facsimile and omnibus editions.

Skybound brought Rom into its own shared universe in 2026, reuniting Void Rivals creators Robert Kirkman and Lorenzo De Felici for a fresh take that again pits Rom against the Dire Wraiths.

Publishers