IDOL PURSUITS : ROM: SPACEKNIGHT (REDUX) - or - It's my (birthday) PARTY, and I'll ROM if I want to - AGAIN.

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ROM-TOR : SPACEKNIGHT!
Just how awesome would this costume / playset be?
Especially the Neutralizer!

This "costume" was inspired by those old
"Ben Cooper: plastic mask and
smock-with-an-image-of-who-you're-supposed-to-be-on-the-front-of-it-like-an-idiot"
old Halloween costumes.
(For those who don't quite know what I'm riffing on, I had showcased the complete sets of Dr. Strange Ben Cooper costumes way back [HERE])

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It's my birthday today and, due to a strange series of events, I find myself able to address an item that was discussed in my birthday post of last year (in a mega-awesome entry - found [HERE]). An item has been found and a burning question is now answered - one that has plagued me for nigh unto two decades!

It deals with ROM : SPACEKNIGHT, and specifically, with the ROM "action figure!"

In last year's birthday post, I showcased - quite extensively - not only the history of ROM : SPACEKNIGHT as a toy and a Marvel comic book title, but also of my epic journey of acquiring my own ROM figure(s).
(I ALSO posted a video that shows how the ROM figure worked - if you haven't seen it or read last year's ROM mega-post check it out after you read this one.)

Looooong story short, I mentioned how one day, sometime in 1990 (or so), after seeing a ROM figure on display in an antique toy dealer's shoppe (oddly enough on Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village, NYC), I was talked out of buying it right then and there by my oldest, dearest friend; Adam.

I then told the story of how the next day, as a birthday gift for that year, he presented me with... a ROM figure!

He swore to me that despite my protestations about accepting it, that he hadn't spent his own money to buy that same figure we had seen the day before - an action that would not have been beyond his generous nature - but that he was bequeathing to me the ROM figure that he claimed was HIS as a youth.

Like the ROM in the toy store, the ROM he gave me had no box.
It was also missing the NEUTRALIZER gun, but was perfect and complete in every other way.
He said he probably had used the gun in an experiment or something (also, a very likely possibility knowing him - as he was always up with the science!) and had misplaced it.
(I had no idea if the ROM in the store had any of its accessories or not.)

I would never go to the toy shoppe again to check his tale (because it would have been rude to do so) and over the many years since, whenever the subject would arise, he never once deviated from his "story" that the item was his own from his youth (even after he read last year's post).

A more nebulous guy than Adam you may never meet, so I was always left with an air of uncertainty as to the veracity of his claim. Instead, I treasured the gift and admire it to this very day.

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Jump ahead to a mere few days ago, and while visiting Adam and helping him take care of some family matters, we were clearing out his family's home of his old stuff.

While clearing out a desk, we opened a drawer and in the midst of a bunch of random bits and bobs of gadgetry I saw... THIS!

ROM's NEUTRALIZER!

It was hard to suppress the sense of childlike joy that I felt as I saw this.
With the discovery of this one simple piece of plastic, a mystery would be solved ("I told you it was mine." Adam said immediately afterward) - and my beloved ROM would be made whole.

.

Whole and Complete-ly awesome!

It's not that I didn't believe that it was his ROM, but I knew that it was even more likely that due to his kind and generous nature, he might have purchased that one from long ago.

Yes, as I mentioned last year, I do have a 2nd ROM. One that I found and purchased complete, in box, several years after Adam presented me with (what I now know for a fact was) his own.
But, while that 2nd one sits, "unloved" in a display case, nothing could ever replace the treasured gift my friend gave to me. A gift that I do take out of its case and "play" with every so often.

It makes me quite happy, even more so now, that I know that as a kid, my friend and I shared yet another comic-book-related interest - without ever knowing it.


(Remind me to tell the tale of how, as stupid kids, we actually tried to get into the super-hero biz...the tale is "polarizing"!)

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Remember to check out last year's ROM birthday post [HERE] if you haven't yet.
You won't be disappointed.