Tag Archives: Micronauts

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. Continue reading →

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will look at some of the stories Marvel Comics created around the licensed I.P. of Micronauts toys.

Back in 2014 I did a joking post pointing out the unsubtle parallels between the 1970s Micronauts series and the original Star Wars movie as well as Marvel’s original Guardians of the Galaxy team from 1969. For that blog post click HERE.

Just as the Guardians of the Galaxy team fought to free 30th Century Earth from the tyranny of the alien Badoon race, the Micronauts fought to free their planets from tyranny. The Micronauts was set in the Microverse (now called the Quantum Realm), a sub-atomic universe which was being ruled by the tyrannical Baron Karza.

BARON KARZA – The evil, black-armored Baron Karza was a very impressive villain, despite being one of the most blatant Darth Vader ripoffs this side of Japan’s Swords of the Space Ark movies.

The genetic engineer had kept himself alive for over a thousand years as the series began thanks to his Body Banks, where the genetic engineer supplied himself with replacement parts and organs from various victims. He also made other improvements to his body and devised body armor with powerful built-in weaponry. 

Karza’s rule was enforced by his Dog-Soldiers, his loyal, uh, … troopers … enhanced and obedient soldiers that were also products of his Body Banks. Other nightmares would be spawned from those banks as the Micronauts series went on. 

And now, the rag-tag rebels trying to bring down Karza’s empire of evil – 

SPACE GLIDER ARCTURUS RANN – The leader of the Micronauts. Rann was the very first Micronaut (the Microverse’s version of Astronauts), who was placed in suspended animation and sent out in a spaceship called The Endeavor on a 1,000-year mission of exploration throughout the Microverse. Continue reading →