New ROM and Mircronauts comics from IDW

[3Storms]

I am kinda curious; I hope they do the Micronauts characters from the comic books which never got made in the past besides Acroyear and Baron Karza.

[samurainoir]

[emeraldknight47]

Next Year?!? I want my ROM fix NOW!!!

[monitor_ep]

By Jay Cochron at TNI:

I had a chance to talk with Hasbro's Derryl DePriest this weekend about the return of Micronauts and ROM. So he first confirmed the news but says they aren't quit ready to reveal their plans yet. He did say we can expect things to start off with Micronauts in a fairly big way and then move on to ROM. We should likely hear more about these next year during Toy Fair.

So far away.....

[monitor_ep]

Just for giggles visit my Micronauts wiki and look at the failed cartoons:

http://comic-books-in-the-media.wiki...CS:_Micronauts

[ubermanx]

Remember that IDW has an excellent relationship with Marvel. Just look at the Artist Edition reprints IDW does of Marvel material.

silver-surfer-cover-db552.jpg

And there is the continuation of the Marvel GI Joe: Real American Hero comic.

GIJOE_RealAmericanHero_Annual_01_CvrA.jpg

I do understand licensing with Hasbro over GI Joe is different than ROM and Micronauts. but given this good working relationship perhaps a deal has been struck that regardless of ownership we will see the full Marvel series reprinted and perhaps continued with all the names and characters.

Looking forward to a lot more clarification from IDW int he coming weeks.

- Marty

[Starroid Raiders Dagon]

I think Rom is listed as Spaceknight on his original toy packaging. Lots of concern online that neither property can do well without the characters owned by the Marvel Universe. I remember both series had unbelievable artists, and writers, so hope IDW can pull that off. I'm going in with high hopes.

[monitor_ep]

I can see Marvel replacing Rom with Ikon:

Ikon the Space Knight.jpg

Ikon is an enigmatic female Spaceknight who appeared on Knowhere claiming to be the leader of The Annihilators and the Greatest Living Spaceknight.

What gets me is what is IDW going to with Rom the Not Space Knight.

[samurainoir]

Here's the other shoe... looks like Marvel is going to be publishing a ROM-less Spaceknights comic?

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/06/29/marvel-to-publish-a-rom-less-space-knights-series/

[VintageMike]

MY small hope here is that since IDW has published some collections for Marvel they can work out a deal. Micronauts sans the Marvels properties was tried and didn't do well. Rom has enough of a mystique people may try the first issue, but if only has the Rom name/armor I'm afraid it would suffer the same fate.

[thunderbolt]

Dr. Demonicus was in Godzilla 4 and 5 before he showed up in Shogun Warriors.

[samurainoir]

Maybe Acroray has some insight into this...
(although we haven't seen him on the boards in a while)

an official Rann variant released as some kind of exclusive by Palisades right?

[samurainoir]

Love it!

OK, I get that Marvel certainly doesn't have clear ownership of ROM, but Gunn says the same about Bug? I don't get that since Marvel has used him a bunch of times in recent years. Man, I would have lost my s**t if Bug had shown up in the Guardians of the Galaxy film!

I'm sure it's enough of a grey area and even the potential of a legal fight over rights was deemed too risky for a movie that had so much $$$ riding on it. I'd guess Marvel Legal told them not to risk it. As with the Malibu properties, and now Fantastic Four and X-Men, why should Marvel/Disney "invest" so much time and effort and money into a character that they might not reap 100% profit on? Make business sense, if not any sense to us fanboys who would love Bug et al in Guardians.

It is all a little confusing... I guess it depends on the individual contracts, and I'd bet those licensing contracts back in the day were full of holes and grey areas, BEFORE it became big money rather than licensing out toys for comics (likely at little cost) to promote the brand as a form of marketing.

In the case of Star Wars... Lucasfilm seems to have full rights lock/stock. Dark Horse reprinted that run unchallenged.

Ditto Transformers... since they purposely debuted the Marvel UK character Death's Head in a separate comic prior to his (originally slated first) appearance in Transformers... vs Circuit Breaker who is likely Hasbro property now (it was reprinted IIRC by IDW?) even though no one probably cares about this character.

At some point it was determined that Red Sonja did not belong to Marvel. Although Marvel seems to "share" Kulan Gath?

Red Ronin debuted in Godzilla right? Marvel claimed him.
Doctor Demonicus made his debut in Shogun Warriors, but Marvel also seems to have ownership over this character.
Marvel also seems to claim the Dire Wraiths from ROM.

[Starroid Raiders Dagon]

In for both of these!

[hedrap]

OK. Abrams killed the Marvel license in '97, so the Bug comic and whatnot was attempt to reclaim IP on non-toy based characters. Spaceknights looks to fall into the same wheelhouse.

EDIT: Marvel has no rights outside publishing for characters they created. I'm guessing Hasbro/Abrams could claim Marvel needs to give them a "Inspired By" credit, which is certainly true.

This is a main reason Marvel tries to steer clear of material pre-1980's for film/TV development. It all goes back to the Ghost Rider legal headache.