With the Microverse on the brink of self destruction, the Micronauts return to the epicentre of the madness: their Homeworld.
Micronauts: The New Voyages #17 (1986)
Pencils: Howard Bender
Inks: Danny Bulanadi
The first of two late fill-ins from predominantly DC penciler Bender. It's nice clean art, but rather old fashioned compared to Jones. There is a wonderfully inventive four page sequence where the scene splits in two vertically down the page. Huntarr and Mari have a heart to heart on the left, while the action builds on the right, before it joins back up again.
The beleaguered Micros return home to finally save their old pal Devil from a broken transporter tube. Unfortunately what they end up freeing is the twisted form of Homeworld's Worldmind in Devil's body. Bill Mantlo established the concept of the Worldmind as a Gaia like soul of Acroyear's ex-planet Spartak. Gillis extended this notion, so that every planet has a distinct Worldmind. As Homeworld was left a festering, open wound by Karza, it's been unable to heal and spreading its pain and madness, upsetting the delicate balance of the engineered Microverse.
Philosophy is put aside while the Micronauts have a punch up with a giant red possessed Devil. Not sure if the red was a colouring error, as he's his usual pink on the cover. Huntarr is forced to put him out of his misery, so the deceased Devil quickly metamorphoses into their other form, the sprite like Fireflyte.
Commander Rann reappears at the end, inexplicably youthful again. It's odd that Gillis didn't include a line to explain this sudden reversion, unless we're to assume his encounter with the Makers was somehow responsible.
Micronauts: The New Voyages #18 (1986)
Pencils: Kelley Jones
Inks: Danny Bulanadi
This is largely a downtime issue before the grand finale, tidying up loose ends. The largest of which is Acroyear finally making amends with wife Cilicia over his destruction of their home world (Spartak, not Homeworld). He even gets to play midwife at the birth of his son, in typically violent Acroyear fashion. Gillis perfectly portrays Acroyear with an admirably quiet dignity throughout the New Voyages.
The focus elsewhere is also on couples, with Mari and Solitaire both worried about losing their respective partners, Rann and Bug. Solitaire is fully aware of the tragic fate that lies in store for them, yet fails to persuade the heroic Micros to abandon their dying universe. There are so many touching scenes in this issue it's hard to pick just one, but the last word should go to the Acroyears.
Micronauts: The New Voyages #19-20 (1986)
Pencils: Howard Bender, Kelley Jones
Inks: Danny Bulanadi
Scion returns in evolved form, with his masterplan revealed. He and Solitaire are prime beings, children of the Makers who are born to populate worlds with their very atoms. Solitaire rebelled and chose to live for millennia instead. With the unwitting aid of Huntarr, his fellow Micronauts are now transformed into prime beings, ready to jump in the Prometheus Pit in order to heal the Microverse. If that all sounds too existential for you, there's a brief fight between an enlarged Scion and Solitaire, for those who miss the giant fighting days of New Defenders.
After saying their goodbyes, the five Micros meditate on their impending deaths, before making the ultimate sacrifice. Each becomes their own Worldmind, creators of new life. It's a sad, yet fittingly beautiful and poetic end to the series. One of my favourite single issues ever.
Gillis was hoping for a double sized final issue full of splash pages, but the pair had to settle for the usual 23 pages, with Jones squeezing in 4 majestic double page splashes. Enough can't be said about Kelley Jones brilliant debut run here. His figure work and proportion could be a little off (Acroyear looks ten feet tall in some panels), but his detail and level of creativity still amazes. Great synergy between artist and writer can really raise work to another level, and Gillis was never better than when collaborating with Jones or Brent Anderson.
Their first issue together was entitled "Homeworld", so it's fitting the last is "Worldhome". Titles inbetween were chiefly drawn from literary sources, including Arthur C Clarke, John Hawkes, Andrew Holleran, Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Strauss, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Shakespeare, the Bible and... Carlos Santana. Cheers Google.
Unlike The New Defenders, the Micronauts stayed dead... this version of them anyway. With Mego defunct, Marvel allowed licensing rights to lapse. The Marvel owned characters Rann, Mari and Bug have made very occasional guest appearances since as 'The Microns', even getting their own miniseries, Enigma Force. The rights to The Micronauts license were eventually picked up by Devil's Due, then IDW, both of which produced their own short lived versions with mostly new characters (barring the omnipresent Baron Karza). In the past year Marvel negotiated to collect both original series over three omnibuses, so Mantlo and Gillis' marvellous Micronauts are finally back in print for everyone to enjoy.
I was a little wary of revisiting one of my favourite series for the first time in decades, but The New Voyages still holds up really well. PBG successfully transformed a toy inspired comic into grand scale science fiction, full of big ideas and very human drama. I'll leave the final word to the man himself.
"In The Micronauts I tried to do a science fiction comic that wasn't war in outer space, that wasn't space opera in the sense of being transplanted Westerns or war movies or pirate movies. I wanted to concentrate on ideas, on spectacle, and on characters. I tried to incorporate some real science into the series, and a little bit of weirdness in that the Micronauts were trying to find out why their universe was the way it was, instead of trying to overthrow a tyrant or beat a villain. I really wish we could go on and do more of it."
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