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Post by brianf on Nov 29, 2016 2:24:44 GMT -5
 Micronauts #16 "Rendezvous In Sub-Atomica" Writer - Bill Mantlo Breakdowns - Howard Chaykin Finisher - Al Milgrom Colorist - ? (not listed, maybe Bob Sharen?) Letterer - John Costanza Editor - Al Milgrom Cover Artist - Michael Golden Synopsis Big fight issue. Micronauts confront Psycho-Man, he uses his emotion effecting Psycho-Ray on them spreading doubt, fear & hate. Princess Mari is the only one who seems unaffected, and as she goes in for the attack the Fantastic Four arrive. Yeah, mostly fighting this issue - some of the more interesting sound effects include SSKRAAA, FZAP & TROOM A giant Human Torch shows up on the last page Comments: Since I've agreed to finish this review thread I've been disappointed with myself in how slow I've been following through, so I've decided to just blaze through these Chaykin issue to get to the comics I like better, aka Micronauts #19 on. But this was overall a fun comic. Maybe I'm enjoying this a little more than the last issue because I had a few vodka drinks while i was reading this issue? I also like to see Princess Mari being the most effective member of the team this issue - I am not of fan of the damsel in distress trope. A REPTO showed up this issue - this is what the toy looks like -  And lets get a look at a big Torch -  |
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Post by brianf on Nov 29, 2016 3:49:45 GMT -5
 Micronauts #17 Writer - Bill Mantlo Breakdowns - Howard Chaykin Finisher - Al Milgrom Colorist - Roger Silfer Letterer - Jim Novak Editor - Al Milgrom Cover Artist - Michael Golden Synopsis: The giant Human Torch consumes a good chunk of the oxygen in Psycho-Mans ship, knocking out our heroes & giving Psycho-Man the upper hand. And even poor roboid Biotron is apparently destroyed in their defeat. Our heroes are then hooked up to a hokey "Psycho-manipulator" keyboard contraption, which after escaping from easily they have to confront more product placement micro toys & an unemotionally engaging death with the murder of Bugs lady Jasmine. By the end of the comic the FF take off, the roboid buddies Biotron and Microtron are repaired & back to normal. Comments: This issue always bugged me - Pyscho-Man seemed dumb, the introduction (then death) of Jasmine lacked any punch, and while there were a few ideas that seemed like they could go somewhere, over all it's a badly written & drawn comic. I thought I read somewhere that Mantlo originally thought of this a more of a mini-series & once the comic got popular (and Golden wouldn't commit past 12 issues) he had to readjust his plans. It's just a guess, but it seems to me that these initial post Michael Golden issues were Mantlo flailing about, trying to refocus. Later on things dramatically improve, but yeah, if the Chaykin Micronauts were the only issues I had ever been exposed to I doubt I would be a fan of either the Micornauts or Howard Chaykin. More toys added that are just toys -  There was a moment of pathos, Bugs helplessness at Jasmines death -  |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 29, 2016 8:09:07 GMT -5
Agreed on the death of Jasmine... instead of adding poignancy to the story, it was just a complete waste of a promising character.
Many cool series made the same mistake over the years: sacrificing carefully built personal interactions or promising settings for the sake of one page of shock value. Shaking the tree might be a good idea from time to time to keep things from getting stale, but chopping it down, burning it and scattering the ashes usually results in a poorer book, not a richer one.
Micronauts was very guilty on that score. So much death and misery!
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Post by rom on Nov 30, 2016 13:59:48 GMT -5
Excellent scans here! I distinctly remember that cover to Micronauts #17 - very iconic & memorable.
IIRC, I had at least one of the Micronauts figures as well - I remember it had a glow-in-the-dark partial head.
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Post by brianf on Nov 30, 2016 21:42:26 GMT -5
IIRC, I had at least one of the Micronauts figures as well - I remember it had a glow-in-the-dark partial head. There's a few good sites with pictures of the figures, like InnerSpace Online |
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Post by brianf on Nov 30, 2016 21:47:20 GMT -5
 Micronauts #18 Writer - Bill Mantlo Breakdowns - Howard Chaykin Finisher - Al Milgrom Colorist - Roger Silfer Letterer - I. Watanabe Editor - Al Milgrom Cover Artist - Michael Golden Synopsis: Breaking through the space wall, The Micronauts return to Earth, though Commander Rann says "We could be anywhere in the known or unknown universe." Bug, in mourning, buries Jasmine. Later, the team exploring finds a house that is to their scale - it's actually a doll house, full of dolls owned by a little girl named Helen. Helen has weird powers - she brings her dolls to life, and shoot force beams out of her eyes. Before she can hurt the Micronauts her mother calls her to dinner, and as the team escapes they wonder what actual planet they are on. The End. Comments: This story could have been good, but the execution is poor and it's not very memorable. And while there are flashes where the art seems more than pedestrian, over all things stay bland. We get another new toy jammed into the series, the "Star Searcher". Nice cover at least.  |
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Post by brianf on Nov 30, 2016 22:07:47 GMT -5
Can I say - when i was buying these comics off the shelf I didn't know a ton about Howard Chaykin, but I had seen his art before and I never understood why his artwork looked so crappy doing Micronauts. Here's some Chaykin art from 1975 - the man can draw. Just not Micoronauts i guess.  |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2016 22:20:09 GMT -5
The Star Searcher is one of the Micronauts vehicles I managed to find and pick up at the last toy show I went to (Columbus Toy Show)  Comments: This story could have been good, but the execution is poor and it's not very memorable. That's pretty much my assessment of the entire Micronauts run at Marvel (both series) past the first 12 issues with Golden (which I ranked as one of my all time top 10 comic stories in Brian Cronin's most recent survey) and why I stopped doing the review thread. Mantlo seemed to have 1 story to tell and told it in the first 12 issues, everything else either meanders around without direction or rehashes the Karza story when the book needs a boost, but nothing fresh was ever really added after the conclusion of the first story line. And his characterizations of the main players got worse as the series went along, there was no consistency and personalities were changing at the flip of a switch to fit whatever bland melodrama he was trying to inject into the series when they didn't spend multiple issues in a row naval gazing and moping woe is me. There was always a lot of potential, but everything after issue 12 was a swing and miss for me, he never found anything interesting for them to do except fight Karza and Karza wannabes, and that story had diminishing returns because nothing would ever equal the heights the first 12 issue epic reached. Mantlo when he is on can do amazing stuff, but most of this run was not him at his best and mostly meh. Some of it may have reached solid entertainment, most was just missing the mark. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2016 22:22:29 GMT -5
Can I say - when i was buying these comics off the shelf I didn't know a ton about Howard Chaykin, but I had seen his art before and I never understood why his artwork looked so crappy doing Micronauts. Here's some Chaykin art from 1975 - the man can draw. Just not Micoronauts i guess. Migrom had a lot to do with the look of Micronauts under Chaykin. Chaykin was mostly just doing layouts or breakdowns with Milgrom doing the finished art (which means he did full pencils and inks over Chaykin's layouts). What you see is more Milgrom than Chaykin. -M |
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 30, 2016 22:29:30 GMT -5
Can I say - when i was buying these comics off the shelf I didn't know a ton about Howard Chaykin, but I had seen his art before and I never understood why his artwork looked so crappy doing Micronauts. Here's some Chaykin art from 1975 - the man can draw. Just not Micoronauts i guess. Possibly a lack of interest in the material, possibly over-extended. he followed this with painted art for Hulk Magazine, for new Dominic Fortune color stories. I suspect that was already in the works and taking up his time. He was also involved in conceptual work on the Heavy Metal movie. He may have just whipped through this. EDIT: Or what MRP said above while I was doing some checking of timelines. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 30, 2016 22:39:34 GMT -5
ps. i tend to agree about Mantlo having basically one story and the rest of the series was largely a variation of it. I loved Pat Broderick's art, which kind of elevated the sameness of the story; plus, i'm a SHIELD fan, so Fury, HYDRA, and Fixer & Mentallo were nice additions. It was the first Karza return, so I wasn't that miffed. After the next storyline, with the keys culminated in more of the same, I stopped reading. Again, nothing wrong with the art; but, the story wasn't any different. It's the same problem I have with Force Awakens. I saw that movie 40 years ago and like it better then, when it was fresh. The fact that it was better than the prequels didn't mean much; what isn't better than those films? Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars is 2001 compared to those films.
That said, I liked enough elements in those 2 repeats that I kept the comics and reread them occasionally. However; not so much the stuff between 12 and 19.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2016 22:40:56 GMT -5
Can I say - when i was buying these comics off the shelf I didn't know a ton about Howard Chaykin, but I had seen his art before and I never understood why his artwork looked so crappy doing Micronauts. Here's some Chaykin art from 1975 - the man can draw. Just not Micoronauts i guess. Possibly a lack of interest in the material, possibly over-extended. he followed this with painted art for Hulk Magazine, for new Dominic Fortune color stories. I suspect that was already in the works and taking up his time. He was also involved in conceptual work on the Heavy Metal movie. He may have just whipped through this. EDIT: Or what MRP said above while I was doing some checking of timelines. I think a lot of that is why he was just doing layouts/breakdowns too. Chaykin has done some great sci-fi, but his Micronauts and Star Wars work for Marvel was not his best. Part of it was time crunch, part of it was incompatible inkers, and part of it was lack of interest and mailing it in for a paycheck. We think in hindsight how could he not be interested in Star Wars but when he was working on those first six issues, Star Wars wasn't "STAR WARS" it was what most people thought was a b-grade sci-fi flick aimed at kids and no one had any idea at that point it was going to be a cultural phenomenon, so you pencilled the pages, collected your check and moved on to other projects that were more personal or interesting. As long as the editors were happy, you moved on. -M |
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 30, 2016 23:10:09 GMT -5
Possibly a lack of interest in the material, possibly over-extended. he followed this with painted art for Hulk Magazine, for new Dominic Fortune color stories. I suspect that was already in the works and taking up his time. He was also involved in conceptual work on the Heavy Metal movie. He may have just whipped through this. EDIT: Or what MRP said above while I was doing some checking of timelines. I think a lot of that is why he was just doing layouts/breakdowns too. Chaykin has done some great sci-fi, but his Micronauts and Star Wars work for Marvel was not his best. Part of it was time crunch, part of it was incompatible inkers, and part of it was lack of interest and mailing it in for a paycheck. We think in hindsight how could he not be interested in Star Wars but when he was working on those first six issues, Star Wars wasn't "STAR WARS" it was what most people thought was a b-grade sci-fi flick aimed at kids and no one had any idea at that point it was going to be a cultural phenomenon, so you pencilled the pages, collected your check and moved on to other projects that were more personal or interesting. As long as the editors were happy, you moved on. -M Plus, he had already been there, with Cody Starbuck and Ironwolf, before Lucas. Lucas had even seen Cody Starbuck (check out Han's wardrobe choice, as Michael Moorcock said, in his intro to the First Comics American Flagg: Hard Times album), which is part of why he asked for Chaykin. Just saw an interview where Chaykin said he wasn't reading much sci-fi by that point; he had been turned onto crime fiction, by Archie Goodwin, and was getting more and more immersed with that. |
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Post by brianf on Dec 1, 2016 1:36:30 GMT -5
Chaykin seems like the kind of artist that if he has passion for the project he's great, but if it's just a paycheck, well, he'll show up.
I also kinda like some of Milgroms art (I'm a fan of the original Marvel Presents GotG, warts and all) & inks (Warlock) so even now the obvious disinterest displayed on the pages just makes me think "missed opportunity".
I also do remember enjoying the Jackson "Butch" Guice issues too, so I'm looking forward to rereading them.
But I also love myself some Gil Kane, but my memory of his run wasn't that spectacular.
FYI - While I bought a lot of these comics off the shelf back in the day, in the late 80's I pretty much sold everything. It wasn't until I started scouring ebay around 5 years ago and found cheap full runs of of a lot of this stuff that I had a chance to reread them. And some of the issues, like these Chaykin ones, I just kinda scanned through. So I'm looking forward to this re-re-etc-reading of the series.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2016 1:43:56 GMT -5
Chaykin seems like the kind of artist that if he has passion for the project he's great, but if it's just a paycheck, well, he'll show up. I also kinda like some of Milgroms art (I'm a fan of the original Marvel Presents GotG, warts and all) & inks (Warlock) so even now the obvious disinterest displayed on the pages just makes me think "missed opportunity". I also do remember enjoying the Jackson "Butch" Guice issues too, so I'm looking forward to rereading them. But I also love myself some Gil Kane, but my memory of his run wasn't that spectacular. FYI - While I bought a lot of these comics off the shelf back in the day, in the late 80's I pretty much sold everything. It wasn't until I started scouring ebay around 5 years ago and found cheap full runs of of a lot of this stuff that I had a chance to reread them. And some of the issues, like these Chaykin ones, I just kinda scanned through. So I'm looking forward to this re-re-etc-reading of the series. I started a full read of Micronauts when I started this thread, and I just wrapped it up earlier this year having read all 59 issues of the original series plus both annuals, the 4 issue X-Men/Micro mini, the 20 issues of New Voyages, the 2nd Marvel series, all the Devil's Due and DD/Image issues of their Micronauts version, the Karza mini they did and the new IDW series, plus the first book in the Time Traveler trilogy, a prose series based on the Image/DD version of Micronauts (haven't been able to track down vol. 2 or 3 yet). It's worth the read for sure, but I think the only stuff I would definitely go back to reread is the first 12 issues of the 1st Marvel series and the IDW stuff. -M |
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