So why are we talking about him? Over the past year or so ROM has been showing up on the Transformers radar. This mysterious silver Transformers Bot Shot was among the new figures displayed one year ago at Toy Fair 2013.
We later discovered that the figure in question was indeed ROM The Spaceknight when that massive list of upcoming figures leaked out of Hasbro customer service.
TRA BOT SHOTS ROM THE SPACE KNIGHT A2587
Sadly, the Bot Shots line seems to be in limbo and ROM has yet to see a release. However, that may not be end of the line for our silver robotic friend. Hasbro quietly filed for three ROM The Spaceknight trademarks, as cataloged below by Lee Seitz on his blog EclecticLee:
So, there are currently three trademarks Hasbro has applied for. The first is for comic books and was granted in April 2013. They've already used the first of their five possible extensions to use it in commerce (i.e. publish a ROM comic book). Extensions are required every six months if Hasbro doesn't have proof of use. Five extensions give them three years to do so.
The second trademark is for "toy action figures and toy robots convertible into other visual toy forms," which leads to the already existing rumor that Hasbro is going to make Rom part of the Transformers toy line. It, too, was granted in April 2013 and has had one extension filed against it.
The final trademark is for "entertainment services, namely an on-going animated television series for children." This one was only granted in June 2013 and, because I've gotten lazy, is new to me. It would seem to contradict Hasbro making Rom part of the Transformers, unless such a TV series would be a spin-off of Transformers: Prime or something. The first extension was just granted last month.
Bleeding Cool builds upon this by mentioning they've heard from a reliable comics source that IDW will be making a move on this property soon. Lots of potential within the Transformers universe for ROM. IDW's Transformers universe includes multiple robotic races, and let's not forget the upcoming BotCon theme features knights.