How many subatomic cultures have we seen?

[Lorendiac]

I posted a version of this over on the DC board -- but that one was only asking for answers from DC's continuity. Now I'm asking a Marvel-specific version of the question!

How many times have we seen characters from subatomic cultures debut in Marvel comic books?

I can rattle off a few examples right away. For instance:

1. Marvel used to publish a licensed "Micronauts" series. The title characters had all been born and raised in the "Microverse" -- meaning each person was (in his "natural" size) much smaller than a typical atom! They managed to get big enough to be about "action figure-sized" as they ran around on Earth-616 for awhile, however.

2. The Fantastic Four's enemy Psycho-Man originally came from such a setting. (Although I remember that in the 1980s his OHOTMU entry would say it had later been scientifically determined that he actually came from another dimensional reality -- instead of literally just making himself much bigger or much smaller as he moved from his homeworld to the FF's Earth and back again. But that was only a belated retcon, right?)

3. Back in the 1970s: Jarella, a princess of the subatomic kingdom of K'ai, was madly in love with The Incredible Hulk. (Then she died tragically, of course.)

I'm sure there have been other examples of characters with subatomic backgrounds. Anybody care to take a stab at dredging some of them up from memory?

[Monty_Cristo]

Princess Pearla rules subatomica. it's a place that the Fantastic Four and Ant-Man (1st and 2nd version) have visited a number of times. that might be the same place Psycho-Man hails from because he took it over once.

there's also another micro-world we haven't yet seen where the Young Masters of Evil character Big Zero is supposed to live. she's part of a neo-nazi faction that has based itself in the microverse.

http://marvel.wikia.com/Amity_Hunter_(Earth-616)

[Monty_Cristo]

and don't forget the place where the pym particles originated; Kosmos dimension. i think the Thunderbolts have traveled to that world before.

[Joe Acro]

Wasn't it later established that Psycho-Man and Jarella are from the Microverse as well?

[strathcona]

Wasn't it later established that Psycho-Man and Jarella are from the Microverse as well?

Originally they weren't. But in a one panel flashback to a story that has never been published in PAD's Captain Marvel series there was reference to a storyline that had Thanos teaming up with Baron Karza and fighting the X-Men. During this all the microverses were merged into one. Definitely the Micronauts and K'ai (Jarella's World) were, but it can be assumed others were too.

Microverses have also been proved not to actually be subatomic, rather they are just normal other dimensions that are accessed from the main 616 dimension by shrinking. Once you shrink to a certain sub-atomic size you are shunted to another dimension.

[Lorendiac]

and don't forget the place where the pym particles originated; Kosmos dimension. i think the Thunderbolts have traveled to that world before.

I was a regular reader of the "Thunderbolts" title in those days, so I bought that material as it came out -- but offhand, I don't remember Busiek's scripts saying that these characters (the Kosmos residents) lived on a subatomic scale. I think that was long after Marvel had abandoned any such premise. I vaguely remember getting the impression that the T-Bolts simply jumped back and forth across a garden-variety "dimensional barrier" in that adventure.

I guess another way to put it is this: I'm looking for stories that introduced characters who were explicitly stated in their debut stories to be physically smaller than a "normal atom" as their "natural size"; and who nonetheless were intelligent beings. I don't think Marvel allowed anyone to have that be explicitly stated in his origin story in anything published after the early 1980s at the latest -- and, in fact, it was during that decade that they started retconning the origins of people whose previously published stories had made such statements!

So I guess most of the stories that would fit my criteria would come from the Silver and Bronze Ages. (There might even be some now-obscure Golden Age contenders, for all I know!)

[Ravin' Ray]

Believe it or not, Dan Slott wrote up Superego, the Living Atom, in Amazing Spider-Man #658 when the Future Foundation, including Spidey, visited "her" in the Microverse. She's a whole culture into herself.

[The Black Guardian]

The Handbook appendix site has a list of the various microverses and D-listers.

http://www.marvunapp.com/list/microver.htm

[Lorendiac]

The Handbook appendix site has a list of the various microverses and D-listers.

http://www.marvunapp.com/list/microver.htm

But where's the fun in that when we can search our memories for such trivia instead?

Incidentally, I see that list doesn't even mention Yttrium, the subatomic world which was originally supposed to be the birthplace of Hyperion of the Squadron Supreme. (Although I believe poor Hyperion's origin story was later retconned six ways from Sunday.)

[dupersuper]

(Although I believe poor Hyperion's origin story was later retconned six ways from Sunday.)

Well, he is a Superman homage after all...