Original Art from OHOTMU's Spaceknights Entry

More from the queue.  I'm going to see if I can keep this up weekly, at least until the queue is empty.

This is (some) of the original art for the Spaceknights entry of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (affectionately known as OHOTMU).  I can't find the e-mails that went along with it, but this came from an eBay auction some years ago.  All I recall -- if indeed, I still recall correctly -- is that it sold for a mere $5.  I desperately wanted to bid on it, but I had just won an auction for a piece of original art from Rom #45 and couldn't spare any more money at that moment.  The seller was kind enough to give me permission to post the scanned art and, I believe, provide a larger scan than appeared on eBay.

I'm not sure how well this will appear on the blog, but at the bottom is Joe Rubenstein's signature.  Each OHOTMU entry had a different penciller, Rom regular Sal Buscema in this case, but Rubenstein was the inker for all of OHOTMU.

The headshots are labeled in pencil.  The first row is Rom, Starshine (Landra), Terminator, and Firefall (Karas).  The second row is Hammerhand, Javelin (Darin), No Name, and No Name.  The last one has "No Name" circled and a note above saying "who he?".  Above that is the apparent reply, "[Mentus]", which is obviously wrong.  The third row is Vola - Trapper, Raak - Breaker, Unam - Unseen, and Tarm - Seeker.  The final row is Skera - Seeker and Plor - Pulsar, with the last two empty slots labeled "Rainbow #25/10" and "Gloriole Ann #1".  At least I think that's what they say.  Those would be the issues of Rom that each debuted in, but I don't know the meaning of "/10".  It does not match a page on which Rainbow appears.

For reference, here's the published page from the first volume of OHOTMU.  You'll note the first "no name" Spaceknight was removed and the second one named Astra.  Also, Rainbow and Gloriole were added right where their empty slots were.  Of minor note, they substituted Brandy Clark's name for Landra's, reducing her and Archie Stryker as Firefall to half-slots with just their names.

The same art was used for the Deluxe Edition, except someone accidentally turned Pulsar's head upside-down!  For that edition, Marvel added Brandy as Starshine, Lightningbolt, Heatwave, and Dominor. The art was used again many years later for Marvel Legacy: the 1980s Handbook (seen below), where it still had Pulsar upside-down.  For that book, a few more Spaceknights were added, but art directly from issues of Rom was used rather than producing new art.