I picked up the first issue, then didn't see another until he fought the air force (8 I think).  Then bought them up to #50 or so, missing a few.  I wished they had kept him grey as in the first issue.

Hated the killing of all the supporting characters.  Mantlo had a tendency to do that, as if he was getting rid of people he had no more stories for.

And hey, since ROM originally started out as a toy, feast your eyes on the real deal!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktFvrEQKdjw

They certainly don't make ads for kids toys like this anymore!

And here's a shorter, more conventional approach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILIaPluH4pc

I loved and still love ROM. In the UK he started in a comic called 'Forces in Combat' which was one strange mix of reprints - Nick Fury and his Howling Commandoes side by side with ROM and others. Basically, if there was a combat premis to the original comic, it went in that reprint.

The comic got cancelled when ROM was at issue 11 I think - basically ended on a cliff hanger. I then went and started to buy the American comics so I could continue to read the story. Along with the X-Men, ROM was one of the main reasons I started to actively hunt down American comics as opposed to waiting for UK Marvel to reprint them (I literally couldn't wait for X-Men 137 so went and found it in a regular newsagents for 15 pence - over a year after it had been published!).

I do think the comic was stronger at the start, before it became Marvel Team up part 2, and Sal's art was astonishing. Akin and Garvey brought something new to the art in the second phase but Sal's draftmanship seemed lost. They certainly could do metal though.

Gerry Talaoc (Mis-spell?) was a disaster for ROM but I thought worked well over his pencils on Hulk.

And I had the toy, which in the UK was marketed alongside Action Man's Spacesuit. Was he marketed alongside G I Joe in America?

   These are my recollections of ROM.  I first became aware of the character through the toy advertisements, and a childhood friend from the neighborhood who owned the toys.  Later came the comicbook written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Sal Buscema (the first instance of Sal inking his own work).

   What drew me to the comic were the issues where the Spaceknight was teamed up with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (Mystique's version) of all guest-stars.  That was where I got hooked on Sal's art.  I stuck with the series until well into the 20s, when the inker team of Adkins & Garvey joined the creative team.  Mantlo seemed to be trying for an angle where Rom's homeworld of Galador was caught up in some sort of intrigue, and there was a change in the nature of the Dire Wraiths that tied them in with the Skrulls, of all beings.

   Other than that, those were some of the best comics I could recall reading.  Mantlo and Buscema were able to keep me hooked on a character that I would've otherwise seen as an attempt to cash in on a toy license.  Marvel in those days did some pretty neat stuff with their licensed properties (they had the original Star Wars adaptations, and ongoing comics which included Walt Simonson amongst the creative lineups).