by Eric S Brown
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is slated for release in Feb. 2023. A big question on the minds of diehard comic fans is will some version of the Micronauts be appearing in the film? The Micronauts were a Marvel Comic adapted from a popular toy line at the end of the 1970s. The comic proved far superior to the toys outlasting them by over half a decade. Written by Bill Mantlo, the Micronauts are an iconic Marvel property that sold as well as the X men in the early 1980s. They were a team of heroes and misfits much like the Guardians of the Galaxy who protected a subatomic mircoverse.
Sadly, Marvel lost the rights to the characters. Hasbro now owns the bulk of the I.P. with Marvel only retaining the few characters that were created within the comic and supposedly not even the film rights to those. With the team split between the companies, the Micronauts’ chances at reaching the big screen in any sort of recognizable form are very small. James Gunn has approached Hasbro several times for use of a Nauts’ character for his Guardians’ films but each time has been rejected. That said, not all hope is
lost.
In the comics, after the loss of the rights to the Micronauts, Marvel rebooted the team twice, first as the Microns and then later as the Enigma Force. Both of these versions included Arcturus Rann and Marionette, which Bill Mantlo created for Marvel, and with the team fleshed out by new, original characters including one named Psyklop. There is a scene in the trailer for Quantumania that shows a team of possible Quantum Realm (aka Microverse) freedom fighters who could very well be a MCU version of the team. Many fans certainly hope that they will be a modern take on the Micronauts who are long overdue any kind of adaptation to the screen.
