   rom (also known as rom the space knight or rom: spaceknight) is a fictional character, a cosmic superhero in the . rom first appeared in rom spaceknight #1 (december 1979) by bill mantlo and sal buscema. ==publication history== ===toy=== "rom the space knight" was a toy co-created by scott dankman, richard c. levy, and bryan l. mccoy (us patent #4,267,551). it was sold to parker brothers, and was the inspiration for the comic book series. the toy was originally named cobol after the programming language but was later changed to "rom" after rom (read-only memory) by parker brothers executives. the toy set a precedent for the game publishing company, which up until that time had only ever produced board games. as this was a new venture for the company and given that electronic toys were still very new, a decision was made to produce the figure as cheaply as possible. as a result, the final product had very few points of articulation, and twin red leds served as rom's eyes instead of the originally envisioned green, which were more expensive to produce.{{cite web |url= http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/comics/rom/actionfig/mccoy.shtml|title= an interview with bing mccoy|first= lee k.|last= seitz|date= january 4, 2006|publisher= rom spaceknight revisted!|archiveurl= http://www.webcitation.org/6
1979_comic_debuts Characters_created_by_Bill_Mantlo Characters_created_by_Sal_Buscema Comics_based_on_toys Comics_characters_introduced_in_1979 Extraterrestrial_superheroes Fictional_cyborgs Fictional_knights Fictional_linguists Fictional_soldiers Marvel_Comics_aliens Marvel_Comics_characters_who_can_move_at_superhuman_speeds Marvel_Comics_characters_with_superhuman_strength Marvel_Comics_superheroes Marvel_Comics_titles Military_science_fiction_comics