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. Continue reading
THE COLUMBIA REDIVIVA – On this date in 1790 the American ship Columbia Rediviva arrived back in Boston Harbor under the command of Captain Robert Gray (at left), who had served in the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War. This voyage marked America’s first circumnavigation of the world.
The Lady Washington was captained by Robert Gray, but partway through the voyage around the world, Gray and Kendrick switched ships, causing minor errors in some sources ever since. Because Robert Gray is better known than John Kendrick there are sources which cite him as the commander of the C.R. during the entire circumnavigation. 
In the style of Balladeer’s Blog’s separate examinations of Hawaiian and Samoan myths as a subset of Polynesian Mythology comes this look at the deities worshipped on the Polynesian outliers Bellona Island and Rennell Island. Despite its much smaller size Bellona had a larger population for much of their history.
MAHUIKE – The earthquake god of Bellona and Rennell Islands (henceforth Bel-Ren). Like his counterparts in Hawaii and Samoa, Mahuike lived far underground and caused earthquakes by pushing at the earth with both of his arms.
More current events in this latest roundup from 
FIST OF FEAR, TOUCH OF DEATH (1980) – It’s the review FOURTEEN YEARS in the making! Yep, Fist of Fear, Touch of Death is yet another one of those classically bad films that I had planned on reviewing here on Balladeer’s Blog back in 2010 but it always fell by the wayside. At long last this review can stand alongside my examinations of other Bruceploitation flicks like 
Also stretching out this jumbled mess to feature length are scenes from several 1970s and 1960s Chop Socky movies which are supposed to be footage chronicling Bruce’s ancestor, who is called a samurai even though samurai are Japanese, not Chinese. Other forced connections with Lee pollute this sewage. 
He’s being himself, Adolph Caesar, as if he is doing sports commentary for the Madison Square Garden tournament for network television. The bizarre tone of this film is set within the first five minutes, as Caesar’s play by play of a karate tussle we’re seeing in the ring includes the words “suddenly, he grabs for the eyes and twists violently, ripping them out from the sockets and in a dazzling piece of showmanship tossing them to the crowd.” 
A VOICE FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1874) – Written by W.S. Lach-Szyrma. The 1874 date marks when a selection of stories that Lach-Szyrma had written beginning at some point around 1865 in untraced magazines were finally collected in novel form. The author penned more novels in the series as the years went by. 
Eventually during his years traveling among human beings, “Dr. Posela” rescues a friendly Englishman who is among those trapped in the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. The Earthling gets returned to England, and is delighted with Dr. Posela and his philosophical observations about humanity and his theories that life certainly exists on many other planets.
AUGUST 22nd 
AUGUST 24th
VICTIMS OF KAMALA AND HER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS – 
ANNA AND THE KING (1972) – It’s a shame that so few people remember this 13-episode attempt to make a television series of Margaret Landon’s classic novel Anna and the King of Siam. The producers even scored the coup of signing screen legend Yul Brynner himself to reprise his role as the King of Siam from the novel’s revered musical adaptation The King and I. 
Samantha Eggar was cast as Anna Leonowens, the British governess brought to Siam in 1862 by King Mongkut to provide a more cosmopolitan element to the education of his children, including 12-year-old son and heir Prince Chulalongkorn, played by Brian Tochi. 
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