In June 2002, a new Micronauts series by Image Comics was published for eleven issues before its cancellation in September 2003. The same year saw a four-issue limited series featuring Baron Karza’s origin and his relationship with the Time Traveler entity.
The Micronauts began life as comic book characters thanks to a fortuitous accident on Christmas 1977. Marvel Comics writer Bill Mantlo’s son Adam opened a new present, a line of the Mego Corporation‘s Micronauts action figures. Seeing the toys, Mantlo was instantly struck by inspiration to write their adventures. Convincing then Editor-in-chief Jim Shooter to get the comics license for these toys, Mantlo was hired to script their series.
The first series of the Micronauts ran from January 1979 to August 1984 and included 59 issues and two Annuals. The series was written by Bill Mantlo and featured art by Michael Golden. Other artists on the series included Howard Chaykin, Steve Ditko, Rich Buckler, Pat Broderick, Val Mayerik, Keith Giffen, Greg LaRocque, Gil Kane, Luke McDonnell, Mike Vosburg, Butch Guice, and Kelley Jones. Micronauts, along with Moon Knight and Ka-Zar the Savage, became one of Marvel’s first ongoing series to be distributed exclusively to comic book stores beginning with issue #38 (Feb. 1982).
Before Transformers, there were “Micronauts”. Micronaut figures were marketed as actually being 3.75″ cyborg beings, hailing from the fictional planet “Micro Earth,” and disguising themselves as toys.
Micronauts toys were known for their high number of articulation points (averaging 30) relative to other toys of similar size. The toys included vehicles and robots, and all of the Micronauts toys used interchangeable 5-mm connectors and ports that could be transferred from one toy to another.
With only the highly-accessorized Galactic Defender in the 10cm category, Series 3 focused heavily on Robots, particularly the “Trons,” and the new Micropolis line of interchangeable habitats, based on a gray four pin flex connector.
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