THE MICRONAUTS: CROSSOVERS WITH MARVEL CHARACTERS

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will look at the stories in which Marvel’s licensed toy I.P. the Micronauts interacted with established Marvel characters. My look at the early Micronauts stories can be found HERE and HERE.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #15 (March 1980)

Title: The Inside Job

Villains: Psycho-Man and the Antrons

NOTE: Technically, the first Micronauts crossover with Marvel characters was in their 7th issue and they encountered the Man-Thing, but I covered that issue in my look at their early stories.

Synopsis: At the Baxter Building headquarters of the Fantastic Four, the quartet notice that their old foe from the Microverse/ Quantum Realm – Psycho-Man – has broken out of his prison and returned to subatomic space.

Meanwhile, back in the Microverse/ Quantum Realm we join the current roster of the Micronauts – Commander Arcturus Rann, Princess Marionette, Bug, Acroyear, the roboids (Biotron and Microtron), Cilicia (Acroyear’s wife, at right) and Jasmine (Bug’s girlfriend). The escaped Psycho-Man shows up in his vessel which dwarfs their own, called the HMS Endeavor.

Psycho-Man uses a tractor beam to bring the Endeavor aboard his own ship and sets his biomechanical Antrons on them. Our heroes fight the Antrons. Elsewhere, the Fantastic Four are searching for Psycho-Man around the Microverse in their Reducta-Craft.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #16 (April 1980)

Title: Rendezvous in Sub-Atomica

Villains: Psycho-Man and the Antrons

Synopsis: The Micronauts overcome the Antrons, only to face Psycho-Man himself. As always, his armor lets him use humanoid emotions as weapons and he soon has our heroes on the run.

At present, the Fantastic Four catch up to Psycho-Man’s ship in their Reducta-Craft. They break in and, knowing Psycho-Man’s vile nature, join forces with the Micronauts against their old foe. The battle is still going Psycho-Man’s way, however.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #17 (May 1980)

Title: The Harder They Fall

Villain: Psycho-Man

Synopsis: As the battle continues, the Human Torch’s flames unfortunately eat up much of the available oxygen on the villain’s ship, slowly causing members of both super-teams to pass out. When they come to later, they are each imprisoned in cylindrical cells, ready for Psycho-Man to experiment on them. 

In the Microverse, the Thing and Acroyear are equally strong and they use teamwork to burst free and then free all their teammates. A new battle is joined, with Psycho-Man using his usual emotional weaponry plus his high-tech drones Alphatron, Betatron and Gammatron to fight his foes.

Teamwork between Bug and Invisible Woman sabotages Psycho-Man’s armor so he switches to another suit and the fight continues. Marionette (right) finds and frees Biotron and Microtron from the lab where Psycho-Man was storing them.

Jasmine loses her life saving Bug from an attack from behind and Bug is devastated. The heroes turn the tide against Psycho-Man, whose ship becomes wracked by explosions. The villain taunts the heroes by holding aloft Jasmine’s corpse, but Arcturus Rann flies by and retrieves her body.

The Micronauts and the Fantastic Four escape the crumbling spaceship and return to their own vessels. The Reducta-Craft returns the F.F. to the normal universe while the Micronauts fly off in the Endeavor.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #19 (July 1980)

Title: Divided They Fall

Villain: Odd John

NOTE: The previous issue, #18, did not include a Marvel crossover, so I moved on to this one. Jasmine’s funeral was held in the previous issue.

Synopsis: The Micronauts returned to Earth in the previous issue, and the still-mourning Bug goes off by himself. He falls into the clutches of Odd John, a new villain whose knowledge of insect biochemistry has enabled him to create a mutation-causing spray that turns insects into larger, monstrous creatures.

Bug (right), as a member of the Insectivorid race, is affected by the spray and also mutates into an ugly, hostile version of himself. He then leads Odd John’s army of mutates – all of them winged now, like the mutated Bug. The army attacks a grocery store in the nearest town, where Scott Lang, the new Ant-Man, is vacationing with his daughter Cassie.

Scott becomes Ant-Man and goes to fight the strange insectoid army.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #20 (August 1980)

Title: Enter: Ant-Man

Villain: Odd John 

Synopsis: Marionette saves Arcturus Rann (Space Glider) from Odd John, whom she knocks out. The Micronauts then pursue Bug’s army to the grocery story they have targeted. They join forces with Ant-Man and make clear to him that Bug needs changed back to normal.

Arcturus and Marionette get separated from the others during the fight and fall unconscious into a garbage truck which drives away. Ant-Man observes that his costume’s gas filled with Pym Particles causes the mutated insects to turn back to normal.

Ant-Man then releases a spare bottle into the grocery store’s air-conditioning system and all the insects – including Bug – revert to their original forms. The Micronauts and Ant-Man explain each other to each other. Scott arrests the villain Odd John while the Micronauts fly off to search for Rann and Mari. 

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #21 (September 1980)

Title: Say It with Flowers

Villain: Plantman

Synopsis: Marionette and Arcturus regain consciousness and fly off to see if they can find the other Micronauts. They briefly wind up hiding in a flower shop run by a pleasant young woman.

Little does the woman realize that her seeming boyfriend/ shop assistant is really Marvel’s longtime villain Plantman. He only wanted the job and to convince the lady he was in love with her because her shop shares a wall with a bank.

Arcturus and Marionette see the villain don his costume and use his enhanced plants to start robbing the bank. They subdue him when he threatens the young woman, then fly off.   

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #23 (November 1980)

Title: Field Trip

Villain: Molecule Man

Synopsis: We are shown that after Molecule Man’s most recent clash with his longtime foes the Fantastic Four, the molecule staff dropped down a factory chimney stack and wound up getting hauled away with trash and taken to a garbage dump.

A wino picks up the staff and, like any who touch it, becomes possessed by Molecule Man’s consciousness. After a destructive battle in and around the garbage dump, Biotron causes the villain’s physical form to suffer an electrical shock.

That shock causes the body to drop the staff, freeing the wino and once again imprisoning Molecule Man. Meanwhile, back on Homeworld, Lady Slug (captive at right) learns that the late Shaitan – Acroyear’s evil brother – had been endowed with the power of coming back to life in Baron Karza’s Body Banks.

Shaitan has had Prince Argon (in white armor), Slug’s fiancee, obey a post-hypnotic command implanted in him during his captivity in Karza’s hands. Argon has delivered Slug into the hands of Shaitan.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #25 (January 1981)

Title: Deathbirth (No connection to the Killraven storyline)

Villains: Mentallo and the Fixer

Synopsis: The story begins with Mentallo, a mutant with telepathic and psionic powers, and the Fixer, a genius at high-tech armor and weaponry. The two former enemies of S.H.I.E.L.D. were broken out of prison by Hydra for their latest plans. 

Hydra’s scientists have detected life in the Microverse, just like the Micronauts’ old foe Professor Prometheus did. Mentallo is in communication with the entity.

Mentallo and the Fixer track down and attack the Micronauts, intent on capturing them for study. Naturally, our heroes defeat them, and during a telepathic interrogation afterward, Arcturus – via his Enigma Force powers – learns from Mentallo’s thoughts that Hydra is conspiring with a malevolent entity in the Microverse.

That entity? It’s the presumed dead Baron Karza, former dictator of that subatomic universe. 

Back on Homeworld, Lady Slug looks on in horror as a roiling black mass in a volcano joins with her beloved Prince Argon, transforming him into Baron Karza reborn. 

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #26 (February 1981)

Title: Assault on S.H.I.E.L.D.

Villains: Baron Karza and Hydra

Synopsis: Arcturus’ psychic powers via the Enigma Force had plucked knowledge of S.H.I.E.L.D. from Mentallo’s thoughts. The Micronauts fly the Endeavor to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s helicarrier only to see Hydra troops attacking it. 

Our heroes join Nick Fury and his own troops in fighting Hydra. Once the villains are driven off, the Micronauts discover that, like Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D. has contacted the malevolent intelligence in the Microverse. 

It is, of course, Baron Karza, who uses the link with S.H.I.E.L.D. to physically teleport himself, Shaitan and a few of his Faceless Priests to the helicarrier. In the ensuing battle, Karza overcomes Arcturus and “mind-binds” the Enigma Force to his own consciousness, thus preventing Rann from using it.

A side-effect of all the energy unleashed in the fighting teleports Marionette to where Baron Karza just WAS – a volcano back on Homeworld. Slug plus her new ally Pharoid compare notes with Marionette and realize the peril of the situation.

Days later, Mari addresses a gathering of leaders and ambassadors from all the allied worlds that were once enslaved by Karza. Among them is Queen Esmera from Bug’s home planet of Kaliklak. The assembled dignitaries try making contact with the Enigma Guardians, the angelic heralds of the Enigma Force. (See my earlier Micronauts blog posts for the full breakdown on the way the series began as a Star Wars ripoff.) 

Contact is made and the council is shocked to see that Baron Karza has already used his stolen Enigma Force powers to bind the Enigma Guardians. He taunts Marionette and the others that he will soon rule TWO universes – the Microverse and Earth’s universe.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #27 (March 1981)

Title: To Snare Men’s Souls

Villains: Baron Karza and Hydra

Synopsis: We join the Baron at Hydra’s secret headquarters – a subterranean base underneath the Florida amusement park called Fantasy World.

NOTE: Yes, obviously it’s a pastiche of Disney World, which is a comical coincidence since here in 2024 Disney owns Marvel.

While Marionette, Slug, Pharoid and the allied worlds muster their armies to once more oppose Baron Karza, the Micronauts attack Hydra at Fantasy World, with Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. at their side.

Karza, now commanding Hydra, has had its scientists use Microverse technology to help them construct a portal connecting Earth to the Microverse so his armada of spaceships can attack our heroes. Shaitan (right) – or rather the reanimated body of Shaitan – begins to resent the abuse that the vicious Baron continues to inflict on him.

In the full-blown chaos of the battle, Biotron is destroyed and Arcturus Rann attacks Karza alone, hoping to retrieve the Enigma Force powers that the villain stole from him. Baron Karza defeats Arcturus again, then exults over how well his plans are progressing.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #28 (April 1981)

Title: Last Stand at Fantasy World 

Villains: Baron Karza and Hydra

Synopsis: With Hydra and the space fleet from the Microverse winning against S.H.I.E.L.D., Shaitan surreptitiously reactivates Baron Karza’s portal to the Microverse, letting through Marionette leading the allied forces, including Slug, Queen Esmera and Pharoid. 

The newly arrived armadas start to turn the tide against Karza and Hydra, but the villain still controls Arcturus’ Enigma Force powers, and Rann is still comatose, unable to fight him.

Shaitan, having declared his betrayal of the Baron, knows the hellish punishment he’ll receive if Karza wins, so as a prince of the Acroyear race, just like his brother, Shaitan summons the power of the Worldmind from their home planet Spartak.

NOTE: The Worldmind is a sort of Spartak-specific version of the Engima Force crossed with biospheric energies. Back in Micronauts #11, Acroyear used it against Karza while Arcturus Rann used the Enigma Force against him. Because the Worldmind’s power is being funneled through an interdimensional portal this time, the use of it is causing geological devastation back on Spartak.   

Since Shaitan is just an animated body with a mind but no soul, he is unable to wield the Worldmind and it disintegrates him. With Spartak already doomed with the wrenching away of the Worldmind to Earth’s dimension, Acroyear reluctantly uses its energies to fight Baron Karza.

Even that is not enough against the Baron and his stolen Enigma Force powers, so Queen Esmera (left) sacrifices her life by stabbing Karza with her suicide-sting, containing enough poison to wipe out millions.

Queen Esmera dies from using it, but it weakens Baron Karza enough for Acroyear’s use of the Worldmind to defeat the villain, driving Karza from his host body (Prince Argon) and into nothingness.

Meanwhile, Hydra has fallen to the combined assault from S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Allied space armadas from the Microverse/ Quantum Realm.

EPILOGUE: With Baron Karza and Hydra defeated, S.H.I.E.L.D. can mop up, but hundreds lie dead from the battle. In addition, the Micronauts (plus Pharoid, at right) reflect on their personal losses – Biotron dead, Queen Esmera dead, Spartak reduced to a harsh, stony wasteland, and Arcturus Rann in a coma.

*** In the near future I’ll examine more Micronauts stories, picking up right after this storyline.