Knights roamed ye olde England, but in the 21st Century they’ll be out amongst the stars: Spaceknight life.
At least on screen. NASA or Elon Musk are yet to publicise any plans to send armoured astronauts to colonise the galaxy in Earth’s name.
It seems so long ago that Habro’s Allspark Pictures and Paramount Pictures announced plans for their own cinematic universe (another one), that would be home to franchises including: GI Joe, Micronauts, Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, M.A.S.K, and Rom the Spaceknight.
Hardly anything about the cinematic universe has been revealed since a writers room was created to oversee its development in 2016. Only a GI Joe reboot and Micronauts earned release dates. The rest could have been doomed to never happen.
But now Hasbro and Paramount have announced that Rom the Spaceknight still lives, and is in development. Ready Player One’s Zak Penn, who wasn’t part of the original writers room, is attached to script the adaptation.
Initially released as a toy in 1979 as one of many inspired by the success of Star Wars, Rom was a commercial failure. The figure only had a future in stores reduced section or as Time magazine predicted, would ‘end up among the dust balls under the playroom sofa.’ Either way, Rom would be resigned to toy Hell.
All that halted Rom’s fall into obscurity was the tie-in comic book by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema. The comic dug deeper into Rom’s backstory than the simple ‘cyborg from the planet Galador’ description used to market the figure. Rom was still from Galador, but only became a Spaceknight-alongside several others-to protect the planet from invaders, sacrificing his humanity in the process. The Spaceknights would only be able to reclaim their humanity once their foes the Dire Wraiths (shape-changing, magically powered aliens). To aid the Spaceknights in their mission, Rom was equipped with the Neutraliser; a weapon that could turn the target to and ash and vanquish the Dire Wraiths to Limbo.
With Rom the Spaceknight alive, pray for M.A.S.K and Visionaries.
A release date is to be announced.
