MICRONAUTS: THE SWORD IN THE STAR

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at one of the further adventures of the Micronauts. (My final Micronauts post.)

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #29 (May 1981)

Title: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Villain: Nightmare

NOTE: This issue picks up roughly three days after the end of the previous story, which saw Baron Karza’s second fall from power. In the process the planet Spartak was rendered uninhabitable, the Micronaut Biotron was slain, as was Queen Esmer of Kaliklak and Micronaut Arcturus Rann was left in a coma. 

Synopsis: Colonel Nick Fury delivers the eulogy for the hundreds of dead S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and hundreds of dead Microverse warriors who perished in the battle at Fantasy World. 

Acroyear’s wife, Cilicia, condemns her husband for using the Worldmind against Karza, thus causing so much damage to Spartak that it is now uninhabitable. Even now, the survivors must be leaving the planet to find another home elsewhere in the Microverse/ Quantum Realm. Cilicia quits the Micronauts in disgust.

Doc Samson, Hulk’s sometime ally and sometime enemy, tells the Micronauts that he can try to bring Commander Rann out of his coma the same way he brought Glenn Talbot out of his coma long ago in Hulk #200.

He will shrink them down to nearly sub-atomic levels and inject them into Rann’s brain so they can restore contact between his brain’s right and left hemispheres. Marionette, Bug and Acroyear enter Arcturus’ brain, while the roboid Microtron guards Rann’s unconscious body.

Dr. Strange’s old foe Nightmare attacks the Micronauts once they are in Arcturus’ subconscious. Ultimately, our heroes defeat Nightmare and bring Rann out of his coma, but the Enigma Force has left a large tablet with ancient Microversal hieroglyphics on it.

The tablet’s words warn of a coming collision between the Microverse and Earth’s “normal” universe. This was caused by the veil between the two universes being weakened when Baron Karza tore the Enigma Force out of Commander Rann’s mind a few issues back.

The Micronauts learn they must obtain an item called the Sword in the Star to prevent the destructive collision of the two universes. To do that, they must find Three Keys. The closing words on the tablet say “A time of darkness there will be/ Of great distress on land and sea/ Find thyselves and thou findest me/ The secret lies in these keys three.”

As the other Microverse fleets return home through the portal that Karza made Hydra construct, the Micronauts say their goodbyes to Doc Samson and Nick Fury. They then fly back into the Microverse themselves aboard their ship the Endeavor to begin their quest for the Sword in the Star. 

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #30 (June 1981)

Title: Home Sweet Homeworld

Villain: Aquon of Oceania

Synopsis: Back on Homeworld, an unknown amount of time after the end of the previous issue, the Micronauts explain to King Argon and his beautiful bride to be Lady Slug about the tablet and hieroglyphics. They ask Argon’s authorization to find the Three Keys and through them the Sword in the Star in order to prevent the destruction of two universes.

While waiting for Argon’s okay, Bug takes off his helmet and indulges himself with a pair of palace ladies. For a sophomoric joke by the artist, you may notice that Bug’s antennae – both usually drooping a bit – are bolt upright in this scene. Erect, you might say.

Microtron chews out Bug for his hedonism but then meets the “female” roboid Nanotron who is replacing Biotron as the newest Micronaut. The two fall in love at first sight.

NOTE: I have no idea how that works, but Nanotron is partly shaped like a woman’s torso. I don’t know why she has breasts, but I never understood that about Ultron’s bride Jocasta, either. I guess even androids like to motorboat. 

After tremors hit the capital city because of the pending disaster, the Micronauts save potential victims and King Argon gives the okay for their quest. He also orders every planet allied with Homeworld to join the search and to render any assistance the Micronauts request. 

As Arcturus, Marionette, Bug, Microtron and Nanotron fly off in the Endeavor, Acroyear must go his own way to find his scattered people and Cilicia. Prince Pharoid (at left), the ruler of Homeworld’s desert kingdom Aegypta, replaces Acroyear in the Micronauts.

On board an intra-atmospheric flying vessel, the Micronauts begin their quest in Homeworld’s seawater region. A war between the subaquatic realm Oceania and the futuristic floating city called Seazone complicates our heroes’ quest for the first key.

After getting caught in the middle of the action the Micronauts meet Lady Coral, leader of Seazone’s Dolphin Riders.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #31 (July 1981)

Title: My Body Lies Over Oceania

Villain: Aquon of Oceania

Synopsis: With Arcturus and Marionette prisoners in Oceania at the command of the subsea realm’s leader Aquon, the other Micronauts prepare to participate in Seazone’s major offensive against Oceania. They try to free their two teammates and obtain the first key.  

Amid much action, with Lady Coral and Seazone’s army in the middle of it all, we learn that Aquon is really Coral’s long-lost brother. He possesses one of the Three Keys but tells Arcturus and Marionette he cannot give it to them until after he uses it to fulfill its purpose.

That purpose was revealed to him years ago by one of the Enigma Guardians, Heralds of the Enigma Force, when it gave him the key. In the end we see that its purpose was to at last bring peace between the beings of Seazone and Oceania. With that done, the Micronauts fly off to the Homeworld region of Polaria to find the next key. 

Meanwhile, Acroyear, still mourning amid the ruins of Spartak, sees the famed comet that flew past Spartak at the time of his birth. Hoping it will lead him to the rest of his people (?) he boards his spaceship and flies after it. 

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #32 (August 1981)

Title: Snowblind

Villain: The Snowbear

Synopsis: Back on Earth, Dr. Strange is working with archeologists who have unearthed a tablet with the same hieroglyphics as the one seen in Arcturus Rann’s subconscious a few issues back.  

Meanwhile, on Homeworld, the Micronauts are in Polaria, a frigid region like Earth’s poles. Our heroes continue their quest for the next key and receive help from Polaria’s Queen Fria and a prince named Peacock. (Yes, really.)

Peacock recognizes the design of the second key to be the same design on the chest of a huge Snowbear that he and his people have been trying to kill for years. The next day, Prince Peacock slips away before the Micronauts are ready to join him, intent on finding and fighting the Snowbear alone, and presumably die fighting it, as he assumes is his destiny. 

The Micronauts follow him into the freezing countryside, where they fight an enormous batlike creature and the Snowbear itself, which is impervious to Arcturus and Marionette’s lasersonic pistols, Bug’s rocket-lance and Pharoid’s star scepter. Only Peacock’s Polarian arrows hurt it and, indeed, kill it.

Borrowing from countless Earth legends and myths, the writers have the Snowbear revert to the form of Queen Fria, who has been a were-beast all along. She and Peacock were in love, and with this tragic finale to their story the mourning prince retrieves the second key from her dead body and gives it to the Micronauts.

Meanwhile, back with Acroyear, we see that the Herald Comet, now revealed to us readers to really be an Enigma Guardian, has led Acroyear to Homeworld’s jungle region called Tropica. 

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #33 (September 1981)

Title: Devil of Tropica

Villain: The Great Game, I guess

Synopsis: Acroyear wanders the jungles of Tropica and falls into battle with a pinkish-furred intelligent creature. He, like all his race, are called Devil. (There’s no payoff to that, so don’t bother with it.) 

Devil’s companion is a female Tinkerbell sort of being called Fireflyte. Acroyear learns that the Fireflytes are all Enigma Force creations. They wield assorted mystical powers. 

Devil and Fireflyte tell Acroyear about the still-going Great Game. The prize of that game is a key left with the Devils long years ago by an Enigma Guardian. The Micronaut realizes it must be one of the keys his teammates are searching for.

In order to obtain it, Acroyear must break all the rules of the Great Game that the Devils have devised to try finding the key. He succeeds, then is told by a suddenly appearing Enigma Guardian that he must take the key to Homeworld’s Dead Zone.

Acroyear sets out for Dead Zone, accompanied by Devil and Fireflyte, who want to join the Micronauts. Elsewhere, Dr. Strange mystically enters the Microverse.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #34 (October 1981)

Title: Betrayal

Villain: King Argon

Synopsis: The Micronauts have been informed about Acroyear’s acquisition of the third key and told to gather in Prince Pharoid’s Aegypta. When they arrive, they see that King Argon has already had Acroyear, Devil and Fireflyte captured.

Pharoid reveals to the Micronauts that he was assigned to them by Argon to spy on them during their mission and he now helps betray them into the hands of Argon’s revived Dog Soldiers, Baron Karza’s former troopers. 

Argon takes the Three Keys and has Baron Karza’s former chief scientist DeGrayde lead his colleagues in analyzing them. King Argon hopes to use them to not just save two universes but cement his imperial rule permanently.

NOTE: Let’s cut to the chase here. As you’ve no doubt guessed, Baron Karza wasn’t fully driven from Argon’s mind during his most recent defeat. He’s slowly taking over Argon’s mind but we’re not supposed to figure that out yet. He’s even reactivated the Body Banks for genetic experimentation. 

Slug and the remorseful Pharoid lead soldiers to free the Micronauts from their cells. Arcturus fights Argon and Marionette fights DeGrayde while Bug, Acroyear, Microtron, Devil and Nanotron fight the Dog Soldiers and Fireflyte finds the Three Keys. 

Our heroes obtain the keys and head for Dead Zone, like Acroyear was told to by an Enigma Guardian last issue. Argon orders Slug, Pharoid and the Micronauts pursued, captured and turned over to the Body Banks.

MICRONAUTS Vol 1 #35 (November 1981)

Title: The Origin of the Microverse

Villains: King Argon and his Death Squad

Synopsis: The Micronauts and Dr. Strange meet up in Dead Zone, an entire region of Homeworld filled only with gigantic graves. The giant size of the Micronauts’ ancient races and the way the tablet with hieroglyphics was also on Earth make our heroes wonder if there is a link between Earthlings and the Microverse.

King Argon, now wearing a black version of his formerly white Force Commander armor, sends his secretly formed Body Banks supersoldiers the Death Squad to defeat the Micronauts and recover the Three Keys for him. 

While our heroes fight the Death Squad (Ampzilla, Battleaxe, Antron, Repto, Centauria, Lobros and Galactic Destroyer), Dr. Strange and Arcturus Rann join forces to prevent the imminent collision of the Microverse and our universe. The Three Keys unlock the vault of the Sword in the Star, which can repair the barrier between Earth and the Microverse.

The pair also learn that the discoverer of the Microverse was an Earthling from the far future. He was Prince Wayfinder and he led the last humans and aliens in a search for the Sword in the Star. The end of the universe had arrived and the sword was supposed to help the surviving races, including humans, Insectivorids, Acroyears, etc start again elsewhere.

With the entire universe ending, there was no place left to start over, so the Sword in the Star took them back in time to millions of years B.C. Prince Wayfinder and his followers realized that they dared not settle on ancient Earth or it would dangerously alter history.

The sword let them travel to sub-atomic space, there to have the humans populate Homeworld while the alien races sought out new worlds for themselves. The Sword was used to establish the Spacewall which keeps the universe and the Microverse separate, then sheathed and locked away.

Commander Rann and Dr. Strange work together, him using his now-restored Enigma Force powers and Strange wielding the Unipower, our universe’s version of it. The wall was restored to its original state, so Strange returned to his Sanctum Sanctorum.

The Micronauts, though they had defeated the Death Squad and just saved two universes, had to flee Homeworld in the Endeavor. King Argon had some of his fleet pursue them.

COMMENT: The writers dragged out the King Argon mystery way too long, finally having Baron Karza reveal his full takeover of Argon’s mind and body in Micronauts #50. I doubt anybody was surprised by that point.

FOR MY LOOK AT HOW THE MICRONAUTS SERIES BEGAN AS AN IMITATION OF THE FIRST STAR WARS MOVIE CLICK HERE.

FOR THEIR FIRST ISSUE UP THROUGH BARON KARZA’S FIRST FALL FROM POWER CLICK HERE.