Writer – Bill Mantlo
Artist – Sal Buscema
Inker – Sal Buscema
Colours – Ben Sean
Letters – Rick Parker

Rom is still at Project Safeguard after having recovered his Neutralizer and not only does he have to face off against the government, he must combat the Jack of Hearts.  Once again, Rom is having a day for which there is no other word but bad as he just cannot seem to win for losing.  The government thinks he has just murdered a bunch of people because that is how it looks to them, even though Rom protests the opposite.  Readers will know that they were Dire Wraiths but to everyone else, they see nothing else but dead men and women and not the aliens they truly are. When the Jack of Hearts shows up, he only has one thought in mind and that is to stop Rom at any cost.  The battle is fierce and Rom does not want to hurt him and flees because of it, but Jack follows as he intends to finish Rom off.  As they take their battle into space, Rom has absorbed far too many of Jack’s energy bursts and overloads, crashing into the ocean with Jack thinking himself victorious.  There is not a lot of character development in this particular issue by Bill Mantlo, but there is a ton of action to keep the book moving along at a speedy pace.  Jack of Hearts is not the first hero one would immediately think of out of all the heroes in the Marvel Universe for Rom to face off against, though he has always been an interesting third-tier hero.  The one thing which is a little strange is how Jack simply took everything to heart, believing that Rom was a villain without even stopping to investigate.  It might be a little cliche, where it is always fight first, talk later but it manages to work if done well. In the end, they are less the actions of a hero and more that of a soldier following orders, or even that of a classic bad guy.  Sal Buscema does a fantastic job on the artistic front and paints some great action scenes throughout the book, though everything he does is quite wonderful.  One more great issue in a line of great books.

4.5 out of 5