"The End" Week: Micronauts #11!

This will be the fourth Micronauts last issue we've looked at during "The End" week, from the third different company. And like a couple of those, this one wasn't really the end, either. From 2017, Micronauts #11, written by Cullen Bunn and Jimmy Johnson, art by Max Dunbar.

Like all the previous versions based on the toys, this incarnation of the team had a Biotron, Microtron, and Acroyear, even if they were slightly different than before. The other three members are more linked to the toys than previously, because this was produced with Hasbro: in fact, Space Glider Phenolo-Phi would get a (tiny) action figure in the IDW Revolution set! This was part of their shared universe plan, with tentpoles Transformers and G.I. Joe and supporting acts ROM, Action Man, Visionaries, and the Micronauts here. (They squeeze one more toy line in here unannounced, as Acroyear uses a Weeble as a weapon more than once!) Nothing wrong with that...except that they may have jumped the gun a bit. IDW's Transformers continuity had been running since 2005, over a decade before Revolution tacked on these new elements. Just this year, IDW wrapped their current Transfomers runs, and by extension everything else, with Transformers: Unicron. (That included the end of Transformers: Lost Light, one of the best books out there.)


While the series ended here, there were two miniseries next, Wrath of Karza and ROM vs. the Micronauts, the latter a crossover Marvel never got to. (A brief aside: IDW needs an intern or something to update the GCD, especially since there were a number of variants.) These Micronauts would get a short goodbye story in Transformers: Unicron #4, since they are doubtless to be reformatted as well. Sometime, somewhere, the Micronauts will face Baron Karza again; just maybe not this line-up. I wonder if Revolution might not have been a better idea if saved for a full reboot, and I'm not even sure if the new continuity planned in 2019 will be a shared universe again: I thought Hasbro was steering IDW closer to the movie continuity, although if they go with the Bumblebee rather than Michael Bay movies, maybe it would be okay.