Following Marvel’s announcement earlier this week that it has reached an agreement with Hasbro to publish an omnibus edition of Rom the Spaceknight, Marvel is now announcing that it has reached another agreement with Hasbro to publish an omnibus edition of the classic. 1970s/ 80s series, The micronauts!
Released in September MICRONAUTS: THE ORIGINAL YEARS OF MARVEL OMNIBUS VOL. 1 will collect The micronauts #1-29 & Annual #1-2 and hardware Micronauts Special Edition #1-5. Marvel will also release a special facsimile edition of The micronauts #1.
What are Micronauts?
We recently wrote about the origins of the Micronauts comic book, but long story short, the Microanuts were a series of action figures released by the Mego company beginning in 1976. The Marvel writer’s son Bill Mantlo received some toys for Christmas. , and Bill Mantlo was so intrigued by the toys that he asked Marvel editor Jim Shooter to license the figures. The shooter did, and The micronauts became a surprise hit comic in 1978 by Mantlo and artists Michael Golden and Joe Rubinstein, as a group of heroes who had adventures in the Microverse.
The success of The micronauts led Parker Brothers to ask Marvel to make a comic book based on his Rom action figure. Marvel agreed to do this, with Mantlo also writing this comic, and Rom the space knight was also a success. Marvel’s back-to-back action figure successes led to the company playing an even bigger role in launching Hasbro’s two biggest toy lines of the 1980s, GI Joe: A True American Hero And THE Transformers (with Marvel helping to create the story structure behind the toylines).
How long has Marvel released Micronauts?
From The micronauts were based on a licensing agreement between Marvel and Mego, when the last Micronauts The comic was released by Marvel in 1986 (six years after the toyline was completed), so Marvel lost the rights to use the Micronauts characters in the Marvel Universe. However, Mantlo and Golden had introduced original characters, so they may have continued to appear in the comics on occasion, and the Microverse (the microscopic universe where the Micronauts lived) continued to appear in Marvel Comics for decades. (the Quantumverse in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is essentially the Microverse under a different name). .
While this new licensing deal is only for the collection of the original comics, it does at least give some hope that maybe Marvel and Hasbro can strike a future licensing deal for the all-new Micronauts And ROMs comics set in the Marvel Universe.
The omnibus will have a number of variant covers in the direct market, starting with the main cover, showing Dave Cockrum’s cover for The micronauts #1, as well as covers by Steve Ditko (who drew the superhero Captain Universe, from The micronauts), Michael Golden (the original artist of the series) and Jackson Guice (who drew the series after Golden)
Source: Marvel