When fans are rabid for an aged property it’s sometimes hard to decipher if they’re interested in quality or nostalgia. Have you gone back to watch many of your favorite cartoons from when you were a kid? At least half of them won’t hold up.
I think The Micronauts falls on the side of “quality,” and not just because of its Bill Mantlo pedigree. There’s hardly any residual fondness from sources other than the comic, since the toys were only a minor hit and there was not an ongoing cartoon or film for these characters.
I’m not saying it’s Watchmen, but as comics about toys go, people aren’t voting for Micronauts just for nostalgic purposes.
The Micronauts, Vol. 1 is the #35 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes.
Past Ranking:
Probable Contents: The Micronauts (1979) #1 to 30, 35, 37, 44, or 46 & Annuals 1-2, plus bonus materials from reprint series The Micronauts: Special Edition (1983) #1-5.
Then, a second volume would include the remainder of this series (through #59), The X-Men and The Micronauts (1984) #1-4 (after 57), and Micronauts: The New Voyages (1984) #1-20, written by Peter Gillis.
Creators: Bill Mantlo writes this entire run – and, in fact, this entire series, save for the final issue.
Issues #1-12 were drawn by Michael Golden with inkers Joe Rubinstein, Bob McLeod, & Al Milgrom, and colorists Carl Gafford, Doc Martin, & Roger Slifer.
Afterwards, it’s line art primarily by Howard Chaykin and then Pat Broderick, inks by Al Milgrom, Armando Gil, Danny Bulanadi, & Doc Martin, and colors by Bob Sharen, Roger Slifer, & Barry Grossan.
Can you read it right now? Sadly, you’ll need to hunt down some floppies to read this series.
The Details:
The Micronauts were one of many licensed properties that Marvel developed into ongoing comics in the 1970s. The comics were based on a line of Mego toys that were first released in 1976, which in turn were based on designs and concepts from Microman, a line of Japanese toys.
If you’re a child of the 80s like me, you’re used to most major toy lines coming with a Saturday morning cartoon that was a combined story bible and toy commercial. Micronauts didn’t have that built-in media tie-in – the comics were it! That meant that writer Bill Mantlo was creating the Micronaut’s world and story from whole cloth with each issue – unlike Star Wars or Conan, which adapted other existing and implied stories.
That makes Micronauts a lot like Master of Kung Fu and ROM in Marvel’s licensed character pantheon, in that many of the characters and concepts in the comic belong to Marvel rather than Mego. [Read more…] about The Micronauts, Vol. 1 – The #35 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017