ROM #68: There's a reason this book isn't called "ROM: Space Diplomat"

After Rom killed off all the Wraiths on earth* (*Rom #66! Jaunty Jim Shooter!), he had nothing better to do than wander about Steve Ditko's increasingly weird vision of space, full of multi-ringed planets and weird-colored splotches. At the beginning of this issue, he runs into a gang of humans riding Scooty-Puff, Jrs (apparently, they're ready for Safe Fun and possibly blowing up Infospheres). Since Rom's life is a never-ending series of excuses for him to philosophize while being shot at, they start shooting at him and he starts philosophizing.

Eventually, Rom is brought aboard the human's mothership, where he meets an old woman that you'd think was an old man were it not for the breasts and pronoun use. She explains to Rom that they come from a planet that was taken over by machines, forcing humanity off-world. Even their ship is mouthy and rebellious, though the chaps on the death-scooters seemed to have them pretty well whipped. They're cool with Rom because, in spite of his toaster-headed appearance, he's half-human, in case you were wondering.I like the ship. He's easily the coolest character in the whole story, all mouthy and insolent. I can totally relate to the ship; I wouldn't want to help a scary old broad dressed as Dracula living inside me, either.

Anyway, prior to the robot Bolshevik revolution, the world in question was "so like paradise that the loss of it makes [Lady Dracula] weep," but they had a problem with overpopulation. To ease the strain all the extra people would have on the world, it was decided that they'd embark on a mission of colonization. However, in a logical leap I can't make heads or tails of, they decide that, in spite of the current surplus of people, space exploration is too dangerous for manned crews. So they build a robot to do the job for them. An intelligent robot. Evidently, they'd never developed the necessary science fiction to let them know that this couldn't possibly end well.

One montage later and the eerily phallic robot is born.Automata heads off into space, only to one day cease transmitting. He's presumed destroyed by all but one scientist, the Jor-El-style doomsayer who told everyone about the dangers of overcrowding. Not wanting to cause more trouble, he decides to keep his thoughts that perhaps the robot simply quit its job to himself.

Automata ends up returning with a matching fleet built in his own image, and they proceed to laser beam the crap out of the population. See, he decided he needed a whole planet on which to build his race, and that the humans would just get in the way.

Lady Dracula tries to talk Rom into killing off all the machines for her, but Rom's in no mood to fight another war. Instead, he heads down to the planet to talk to the robot in charge in hopes of reaching a compromise. His initial efforts to talk to the robot troops are interrupted by another wing of Scooty-Puffs, and a fight breaks out. There's also the fact that Rom's translator looks like a freaking gun, which never helps.

After breaking up the skirmish, Rom makes it to the planet's surface and faces a now much larger Automata.The robot tells Rom there's no way his race and the humans can coexist, and Rom hits him back with some Spaceknight knowledge:Rom's message falls on deaf ears, because as he says "before the final die is cast," the humans attack. Watch what happens next!To put this in perspective, this is like if Theodore Roosevelt's intervention in the Russo-Japanese War ended not with a Nobel Peace Prize, but with Japan sinking into the Pacific while all of Russia exploded. Rom negotiated the end of the world.

Way to go, Greatest of the Spaceknights.

May as well finish the song...