First Strike Micronauts #1

Written by: Christos Gage
Art by: Chris Panda
Colors by: David Garcia Cruz
Published by: IDW

Spinning of IDW’s Hasbro comic book event, we get a standalone issue concentrating on everyone’s favourite micro heroes: the Micronauts! For a newcomer like myself to this event, Gage rightfully establishes from page one whom these Micronauts are, but fails to explain exactly what their situation is. A recap box on where we find the Micronauts at the beginning of the issue would have been appreciated and signals a missed opportunity to link to the bigger storyline.

That aside, we find our heroes at the beginning of this issue on a random lawn, contemplating what to do next after what appears to be some pretty hefty revelations and the loss of one of their friends. This is quickly interrupted by, I kid you not, a gardener mowing the lawn. This sends the Micronauts’ scrambling to their ship to escape. In doing so however, they notice a swarm of flies coming for the gardeners. One of these gardeners gets bitten and instantly transforms into a mass of flesh.

After some quick thinking from the Micronauts, and a pretty easy disposal (they are robots and aliens, so unaffected by the flies), they determine that these flies were modified by “magic” and were sent by a race of aliens called the Dire Wraiths, who have previously allied with their villain Baron Karza. Tracking the origin of the flies, the Micronauts decide to go after the Dire Wraiths and we get, through some exposition on behalf of the characters, some background on whom these Wraiths are, and who their main adversary is on Earth: Rom the space knight.  

This issue was a fun introduction by Gage to the concept of the MIcronauts. I had heard the name over the years, known they had comics, toys and the like over the years, but never really paid much attention to them. Gage did a good job of quickly going over the individual Micronauts, their powers and what they bring to the table. This, combined with the overall narrative of including them in not only the crossover event, but linking them to Rom, made for a fun read.