Marvel’s Micronauts Is Connected to Ant

The Micronauts are returning to Marvel, and they once inspired the world seen in the third Ant-Man film while sharing a connection to Transformers.

Marvel Comics is bringing back yet another forgotten property, with Micronauts being the latest to rejoin the publisher. Once a part of Marvel's lineup in the 1970s and 1980s, the series was one of many licensed properties based on non-Marvel toys and merchandise. Micronauts would grow to become entrenched in the Marvel Universe, not to mention be somewhat related to another toy franchise.

The Micronauts would give rise to the Microverse, a concept which is now quite important in the Marvel Universe. It would even show up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, albeit under a different. On top of this, the toys that the comics were based on also had a connection to Hasbro's Transformers, showing that there's much more to this micro-franchise than meets the eye. With the team first coming back with a classic omnibus collection, here's how Micronauts connects to other franchises.

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Envisioned by Marvel writer Bill Mantlo, Micronauts was one of Marvel's more underrated toy tie-ins. Clearly inspired by Star Wars and other science fiction hits of the era, the book told the story of beings from the diminutive Microverse, which itself is made up of various worlds. Throughout their adventures, the Micronauts team led by Commander Rann would face the evil Baron Karza and his forces, all the while going on to encounter heroes from throughout the Marvel Universe. Numerous other properties would have ties to the Microverse, with Jarella - a fierce love interest of the Hulk - hailing from one of the planets there. Unfortunately, when it was time to bring the concept to the MCU, things were a bit dicey.

Marvel Comics would eventually lose the publishing rights to the Micronauts property, meaning that nothing could be done with most of the characters anymore. This was especially the case in outside media, where the Microverse itself couldn't even be mentioned. Instead, the Ant-Man movies referred to it as the Quantum Realm, with the subatomic world being both similar and different to the Microverse than fans knew from the comics. Many of its worlds and the concepts behind them were truncated into the movies' version of the idea, and given the lack of the rights, the Micronauts themselves are never shown or mentioned. Thus, the world is now more associated with Ant-Man than with them, meaning that the Micronauts' lack of inclusion is a missed MCU opportunity.

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The Micronauts toyline was handled by Mego, though the rights would eventually be purchased by Hasbro. Hasbro is now known for its popular Transformers franchise, which is actually something of a distant cousin to Micronauts. The figures for the latter were taken from Microman, a Japanese toyline from the company Takara. A subline of Microman was Micro Change, which was made up of robotic characters that transformed into vehicles or gadgets/devices. These would not only be reused to form the first Transformers toyline, but the toys would in some cases become the most iconic Transformers ever.

The Micro Change figure Cassette Man would become the Decepticon Soundwave, with other toys also being used to create the heroic Autobot Bumblebee and the evil Decepticon leader Megatron. Of course, none of these were used in Micronauts, which instead featured the toys of Microman's hi-tech humanoid cyborgs. Beyond this same primordial toyline, there's been nothing else connecting Micronauts and Transformers. Ironically, both franchises would receive comic books from Marvel, though Transformers was set in a continuity of its own and never interacted with the Micronauts characters. Nevertheless, Micronauts remains an important part of Marvel Comics' story, and after several long decades, the company can finally revisit these microscopic heroes.

Timothy Blake Donohoo is a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he majored in Communication and minored in Creative Writing. A professional freelance writer and marketing expert, he's written marketing copy and retail listings for companies such as Viatek. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, playing video games, watching documentaries and catching up on the latest Vaporwave and Electro-Swing musical releases.