by Eric S Brown
At the end of the 1970s, Bill Mantlo adapted a then popular toy line called the Micronauts into a Marvel Comic. The comic with Mantlo at its helm was, for a time, one of Marvel’s best selling titles and is one of the most iconic series of its era. Sadly, a five year original run and a second series that lasted for less than two years, Marvel lost the rights to the Micronauts.
Hasbro picked up the cinematic and toy rights along with the comic rights to the Nauts’ characters that Mantlo didn’t create. This horrid event left both Marvel and Hasbro each with only pieces of the intellectual property. That remains the case to this
day. The legal breakdown of the rights and refusal of the two companies to work together has prevented any of those two original Micronauts’ series from ever being reprinted. . . with one exception.
In November, 2020, IDW comics, was able to miraculously release an Artist Edition book of the Micronauts. It is the only collection of the Nauts ever published containing issues 7, 9, 11, and 12 from the first series as well as material from several other issues. This Artist Edition is also packed full of concept arts, art from the ads that promoted the series when it was being released, and so much more. And as if that wasn’t enough, the book is massive! It’s far larger in scale than even Marvel’s current line of omnibus collections which serves to greatly enhance the enjoyment of the art contained within its pages.
The Micronauts Artist Edition sold out in a flash and is now a prized item on the collectors’
market. Its original retail price was $150 but finding one below $200 now is impossible even if you catch a lucky break in an Ebay auction. The typical cost of the book now is closer to $300.
IDW also released a variant cover edition of the Micronauts Artist Edition that was limited to only 150 copies. These variants sold for around $1200 each during the height of the Covid Comic Boom and even now still command a price of $500 to $600 if you can find one.
