Back in the 1970s and '80s Marvel tried their best to integrate most of the licensed properties they obtained into the Marvel Universe proper - ROM, the Transformers (later retconned out), Godzilla, the Micronauts... they all existed in the mainstream Marvel U. Here's a sneaky one though: I was reading Marvel's post-The Motion Picture Star Trek mag and Dracula makes an appearance (as a hallucination). He looks like Marvel's Dracula, which is no surprise since Marv Wolfman wrote the story, but then Spock recounts the legend of the character and points out that the "real" Dracula was supposedly killed in the 20th century by a man named ... Quincy Harker!
Nice one, Marv.
Replies
I've never read any of Marvel's Star Trek issues, but in ROM #5 Rom encountered the haunted house from the Dr. Strange story in Strange Tales #120.
I like to imagine Marvel giving it its own feature, in which it would fight crime. It could hide in vacant lots pretending to be derelict, and give crooks a hard time when they attempted to make use of it; trail them on the way to their hideouts, pretending to be an innocent building whenever they looked behind them; join the Avengers as their new HQ...
To judge by the cover, a race of gnomes popped up in #16.
I was just thinking about this sort of thing recently. It occurred to me that it's a pity we never saw a Super-villain Team-up between the Mcronauts' Baron Karza and Darth Vader! After all, they were both being produced by Marvel Comics, (and Marvel seemed to be on the inside track with George Lucas at the time).
Micronauts, Transformers etc tying into the MU was allowed back then because there were probably fewer razzer-frazzin lawyers involved in comics tie-ins. These days the licence holders no doubt insist on controlling everything when they licence out a property. It's one of the reasons that later appearances of the Micronauts have been so sparse.
I go on elsewhere about how great comics resulted from creators getting a free hand with toy properties, so I won't repeat myself. Additionally, I think there was a great synergy when licenced properties were set in the MU. Rom, Transformers, the 'Nauts etc - all gained some kind of oomph from being set in the MU. No doubt it tied the creators hands in some ways too, but overall it made for good solid comics, that were much loved by kids.
No doubt it meant that they were more widely read than would have been the case otherwise.
Luke is correct, this is not the Dr. Strange house, but it did indeed appear in ROM. Also, I think the Micronauts don't show up much anymore because Marvel doesn't have the license to use them at all, except for the characters they came up with (like Bug).
The elf doesn't show up in Marvel's Star Trek either, but I have that issue where they meet the garden gnomes. It's absurd, but I hold on to it because I have very vivid memories of buying it at a weird little convenience store while my animal hoarding parents were next door at an incredibly shady pet store, seriously considering buying a pet bobcat. (They ultimately didn't, fortunately.)
I wasn't talking about how the Micronauts might still integrate with the MU, but rather I was thinking about how the current licence holders of The Micronauts make it very difficult to actually licence them for seperate projects eg new comic series by any company, or TV/movie projects. The rights have been bought by a company that specialises in buying copyrights of various properties and licencing them out.
Michael Golden bemoaned how restrictive they were in an interview linked to in the Micronauts thread. He was involved in one or two such projects that never progressed very far. The puzzling thing for me is how the company can make money from the Micronauts if they make it impossible for anyone to use them at all.
Re Bobcat-buying parents. Sounds like fun!
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next