Comic Review: Michael Golden’s Micronauts: Artist’s Edition (IDW Publishing)

IDW Publishing and Marvel Comics releases a sci-fi graphic novel about some champions from the inner space of Microspace, which is to celebrate this special edition drawn by the author in Michael Golden’s Micronauts: They Came From Inner Space, the artist’s edition.

Out of all the comics that I’ve reviewed, I get to review the special edition that was originally published in Marvel Comics back in the late 70s. Many fans are expecting this to have on their collection, but I’m not very familiar with the series because I wasn’t born in the 70s. Either way, this artist’s edition showcases so many pages that the artist drew from every progress of the page to the completed page, they consider this book as the holy grail of all comics out there. The story is originated written and illustrated by Michael Golden, along with the writer Bill Mantlo. Michael has been known in the comic industry in his late 1970, and best known to work on Micronauts, and he’s regarded as one of the masters of comic art as this book has released, however, this artist’s edition book and the series is regarded as the holy grail for the fans. He has been drawing comics for DC and Marvel ever since he started drawing in the late 70s.

If some of you don’t know about Micronauts, it’s about some group of characters based on the toy line and he created this comic with both original characters and characters based on toys. The plot tells that the main characters originate in the Microverse which is an alternative planet earth where all the diverse spherical habitats are linked together at the same point of view. The team fought against the evil Baron Karza, an immortal black-armored dictator who gained control of the Microverse, and the planet’s champions has to put to stop him from overtaking his homeworld. There are some varieties from the comic that the artist contributes to making the characters that are based on toys, which would make Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, with Buzz, and his team, and Zurg in a nutshell.

The front cover shows gorgeous cover art which is drawn by Michael himself in black and white, and from the perspective, I’m guessing that these champions are fleeing from a giant lawnmower. The details of the cover art are flawless, you could almost feel like you’re holding an entire page in the palm of your hands, however, the concept makes you think that this is Toy Story, but this is the reference before Disney Pixar used that kind of idea to create a CGI film. But the whole comic book series ran from 1979 to 1984. The characters have some interesting gestures while they’re running away from the lawnmower. The two heroes from the upper left side seem like he’s going to jump or fly over the danger, while the armored cyborg from the right seems that he’s going to fight while holding his sword. The cyborg from the down left side looked like Optimus Prime from Transformers, and hopefully, he’ll turn into a truck but his appearance seems that he’s jogging than running, and the bug man from the right seems that he’s trying to leap over the grass like a grasshopper. Well, either way, this is more like an action series of any other comic that you’ve ever read, but this comic is legendary at it’s finest.

So the whole graphic novel special edition showcases every page of the manuscript drawn by the author in completed pages in black and white in its most natural state. Allowing the reader the opportunity to not only look at the original manuscript beautiful pages of some artist’s work but to also read the stories as well. The one thing that I like about the art is that the artist produced his illustrations to see how this comic was created traditionally, while I was holding on my computer using Clip Studio Paint to work on my project, but it’s been a while since I’m witnessing a hand-drawn manuscript just like that. And apparently, the Micronauts were all small figurines just to begin with and it was taken place in the alternative planet earth, I’m just guessing that’s how the Earth from the 6^th Universe was destroyed by a pointless war. It shows a beautiful form of every page which is more than any other comic artist would draw that way, and this is actually a perfect collection to collect for the fans and comic artists like him and myself. The pages were scanned from original art and presented at the same size that it was drawn back then. There are some pages on the manuscript that was drawn in blue pencil which would make it a rough draft and it makes it too good to be true that you’re reading this right now.

The work of the whole comic is stunning, and it makes it more amazing, to begin with. With all the details that the artist showcased the whole pages makes the readers feel more amazed to see the original art. The art style is a no-brainer because every Marvel comic consists to have that same art style just like the other series back then, but the details that he produced in black and white have done well with a lot of lightning and shading. Having an artist’s edition like this one is just making the readers more eager to have this for their collection and this whole edition is produced for the fans, who are extremely excited to see Michael Golden’s work at this time. So this artist’s edition of Micronauts is a well collective comic for the fans and for comic artists to study this phenomenon as well.