MICRONAUTS #23 (1980)
by Bill Mantlo & Pat Broderick
I never thought I’d cover the Micronauts again after that one time they faced “Vincent Von Doom”, but that’s where Molecule Man shows up for basically no reason.
This one is also written by Bill Mantlo but it has Pat Broderick drawing; by sheer coincidence, we’ll soon see him on the Legion retrospective.
I’m jumping into this basically blind… as I said last time I’ve tried to get into the Micronauts a couple of times, but there’s something about it that makes it impervious to me. Maybe it’s the lore or the characters, but whereas Rom (another licensed toy property bought by Marvel) was integrated into the mainstream quite seamlessly, the Micronauts always feel off to me.
Anyway, we begin with toy-sized Biotron surveying a junkyard in an attempt to find parts to repair the Micronauts’ ship.
Whereas Rom suffered from lackluster pencils (yeah I’m not a fan of 80s Sal Buscema), Micronauts always had excellent pencils. Even when I have no idea of what is happening, it’s pretty to look at!
Well, not literally since the scene takes place in a junkyard, but you know what I mean.
Biotron ends up being caught by a random homeless guy…
…who ends up touching Molecule Man’s wand that inexplicably has been discarded in the junkyard.
So the homeless guy is the latest victim of possession by Molecule Man; he’ll actually be the last time this happens.
Also note that we’re either retconning or forgetting Marvel Two-In-One #1 because in that story it was Molecule Man’s son that got trapped into the wand: this story, and the next as well, treats it as if the original Molecule Man never died at all.
And how DID the wand end up in the junkyard? Turns out that it wasn’t destroyed in the furnace at the end of the Fantastic Four story.
It’s a good thing that Molecule Man completely drops the wand after this story, because the heroes have been consistently awful of keeping track of that damn thing!!!
Molecule Man “fights” Biotron, but he’s more concerned by the fact that he’s possessing a black guy.
Dude, you turned into a snake man once!!! Is being black REALLY that much weirder!?!?
Let alone being of another race, you once turned into another SPECIES!!!
Molecule Man probably didn’t expect to be fighting a Transformer. That’s an entirely different licensed book!!!
Biotron tries to flee to his toy-sized helicopter, but Molecule Man chases him… by flying an ironing board Silver Surfer-style. (????)
Yep. We have one of the most powerful supervillains of all time fighting a toy by riding an ironing board. I would say that now I’ve seen everything, but who am I kidding, this is not even in the top twenty weirdest scenes I’ve reviewed.
Yeah, I might not know a lot about Micronauts, but Biotron is just a liiiiiitle outmatched here.
Which makes even more absurd that he wins easily, by electrocuting Molecule Man (!!!!) by cutting a power pole.
Molecule Man could have won if he had tried anything, ANYTHING but describing the scene!!!
He could’ve turned in into a gas, or changed the water into sand… but nope!
And it’s already the end, because this is just a 12 page story. There are two other stories in the issue, but they have nothing to do with Molecule Man.
The good news is that the Molecule Man mini-retrospective ends in the next review with a GOOD story: his first run-in with the Avengers… and Jim Shooter.
Historical significance: 0/10
Utterly insignificant for Molecule Man.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
I mean no disrespect to Biotron since I know nothing about him, but Molecule Man lost to a toy!!!
Does it stand the test of time? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Since I’m not focusing on the Micronauts and Molecule Man is BARELY in this, I don’t think I can properly score this one.
Not the worst Molecule Man story I’ve reviews so far (Marvel Two-In-One is definitely worse), but easily the worst use of the character… possibly ever.
As for what Bill Mantlo was thinking, I have only one question:
