Appearing in ""Death-Duel at Daytona Beach!""
Featured Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- ⏴ Steve Coffin ⏵
- Ray Coffin ⏵ (First appearance)
- ⏴ Prince Shaitan ⏵
- Duchess Belladonna ⏵ (First appearance)
- ⏴ Prince Argon ⏵
- Time Traveler
Locations:
- Microverse
- Earth
- Florida
- Daytona
- Florida
Vehicles:
Synopsis for ""Death-Duel at Daytona Beach!""
"What in heaven's name did you do to our yard?!!" says Ray Coffin when he gets home. Muffin, the puppy, is stunned; there are flames and craters; and he steps on some kind of toy. Looking closer, he sees a very realistic corpse, and he pays more attention to his son Steve's story ....
The Endeavor warps in over I-95, followed closely by Shaitan in his surviving cruiser, which fires a torpedo barrage. Traffic backs up. Radar at Cape Canaveral registers two suspicious blips. Fighter jets scramble to investigate. The running battle reaches Daytona International Speedway. The Micron ship is outgunned; Acroyear proposes a more personal conflict. Microtron and Marionette provide covering fire while Acroyear and Rann eject with glider packs. The ships dive into the Speedway Skateboard Circus, a skate park. Shaitan orders his ship to split up; Acroyear immediately shreds one of the pods.
The Time Traveler appears to Marionette with a warning and a disturbing thought: there is a tracking beacon onboard the Endeavor, and Baron Karza now knows there is another universe beyond the Microverse.
Meanwhile, back on Homeworld, Baron Karza welcomes one of his best "customers" to his Body Banks. Duchess Belladonna is 900 years old, thanks to a succession of "donor" bodies. This time she wants Princess Mari's (i.e. Marionette). Karza assures her that she will not have long to wait. Belladonna, impatient, will settle for Mari's brother Argon (captured in Micronauts #1), but Karza has other plans for him. He is chained to the wall of a dim dungeon cell.
The fighter jets reach the speedway but don't see any UFOs and head for home. Below, a fighter pod dogs Rann. Acroyear tears the cockpit off another pod and sends it through the manager's window, interrupting his call to the police. Marionette takes out a pod, Rann another. The surviving two pods reunite and turn on the wounded Endeavor. Acroyear stops it dead in its tracks with one mighty kick, and it warps out.
Rann and the crew take stock. Biotron dumps the tracer beacon. They decide to head back to the Coffin house to find Bug.
Back at the Coffin house, Bug has recovered. He figures the wreckage of Shaitan's other cruiser is his ticket home, but Ray Coffin has it in a shoebox on his desk. Ray calls his friend Phil at the Cape, insisting that his son has had a close encounter of the third kind. And Mr. Martinelli, manager of the skate park, tries to explain to the police what happened ....
Notes
- This issue includes a one-page poster of Baron Karza.
- Steve Coffin and Ray Coffin will both partner with Captain Universe; Ray in Micronauts #8, Steve in Marvel Spotlight (Vol. 2) #9.