Micronauts [2016] #9 - IDW Publishing

MICRONAUTS No. 9, January 2017

“Stranded on a world full of giants” with “relics from Microspace… all around”, Cullen Bunn’s script for Issue Nine of “Micronauts” certainly must have shown its 5,022 readers the gusto with which the Bram Stoker Award-nominee had grasped his chance to “build my own version of the Micronauts strange microscopic cosmos.” For whilst Oziron Rael and his team-mates spend the entire twenty-page periodical’s narrative firmly rooted on modern-day Earth, the American author’s introduction of the Kronus and their time-travelling mechanical ruler, allows him to develop an intriguingly complicated backstory behind all of “these wild toys” which tells of a time where the Entropy Cloud “sweeps across Microspace consuming everything in its path” and disconcertingly strands its pitiful few survivors thousands of years in the future…  

Indeed, despite being significantly conversation-heavy and dialogue-driven, the opening third of this publication arguably conjures up all manner of exciting possibilities for its lead cast, following the Egyptian-influenced automaton’s revelation that the Pharoid momentarily has access to the entire recorded “history of doomed Microspace” and the possibility of creating a “different result” for it; “That string represents everything you know. But what if you could take a second string from the pot? You now have two different timelines. All of time and space is an infinite amount of strings in a pot larger than you can fathom. A different string can be chosen.”

Admittedly, the arrival of Commander Klain’s mercenary forces and willingness to “afford a little collateral damage” soon dispels any notion that Oz will actually be able to utilise any learning from the events inscribed upon the ancient civilisation’s buildings in hieroglyphics. But the seed of the titular characters having endless adventures exploring numerous prehistoric sites searching for “an inter-dimensional portal” back to their own universe is well and truly planted, even if it is then superseded by a high-octane battle between the likes of the time casket’s insectoid-like people and Mister Mayhem’s military team.

Packed full of grenade explosions, laser fire, tiny winged extra-terrestrials and the Heliopolis’ doomed evacuation of the surviving Kronus, this book’s final third is about as pulse-pounding as one could debatably hope for. In fact, its fast-paced, pulse-pounding panels show off artist Max Dunbar’s drawing ability at its dynamic best, especially when the genetically engineered super-warrior, Acroyear, is pencilled rescuing his hapless captain from the dastardly clutches of Klain by slicing the Earthman’s fingers right off with his power sword.

Written by: Cullen Bunn & Jimmy Johnston, Art by: Max Dunbar, and Colors by: Ander Zarate