ROM (1979 series) #1

An unidentified object crashes into the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia. From the glowing crater, a massive armored figure emerges unscathed: ROM, the greatest of the Spaceknights. On a nearby road, a young woman named Brandy Clark nearly crashes her car when she encounters the giant on the highway. ROM uses his Energy Analyzer to scan her and confirms she is human — not the enemy — and stops her car from going over a guardrail.

ROM flies into Clairton, a small West Virginia town of 14,000, sending the populace into a panic. Sensing the presence of the evil he has tracked across the cosmos, ROM pulls his Energy Analyzer from subspace and scans the crowd. Two townspeople — Mike Collins and Perry Sykes — are revealed as disguised Dire Wraiths: alien shape-shifters hiding among the human population. ROM produces his Neutralizer and banishes them to the Phantom Dimension of Limbo. To the horrified witnesses, it appears that two of their neighbors have simply been disintegrated where they stood, and the town flees in terror.

Brandy Clark arrives on the scene and confronts ROM, accusing him of murder. Meanwhile, Mayor Bradford attempts to alert state authorities, but no one believes him. The sheriff's office has better luck, reaching Washington directly — a National Guard unit is dispatched to Clairton immediately.

ROM takes Brandy to the outskirts of town and uses his Translator device to communicate. He then recounts the Legend of the Spaceknights: two hundred years ago, his home world Galador was a peaceful paradise. The Galadorian Armada explored the galaxy benevolently, until they entered the Dark Nebula and were ambushed and destroyed by the Dire Wraiths. With the enemy advancing on Galador itself, volunteers came forward to sacrifice their humanity — having it surgically grafted onto cyborg armor — to become Spaceknights. ROM was among the first to volunteer and proved himself the greatest of them all. The Spaceknights drove back the Wraith forces and their creature Deathwing, but the enemy was routed rather than destroyed, scattering across the galaxy. ROM has spent two centuries pursuing the Dire Wraiths to Earth, where they hide in human form. His Energy Analyzer reveals their true nature; his Neutralizer banishes them to Limbo.

Brandy remains unconvinced — all she saw was two men die horribly. At that moment the National Guard opens fire on ROM. Their shells and flamethrowers have no effect on his armor, but as Dire Wraiths hidden within the Guard's ranks manipulate the humans into fighting their battle for them, ROM is forced into the agonizing position of harming the very people he came to protect.