It is the second work in what is regarded as Osamu Tezuka's early science fiction trilogy, consisting of Lost World (1948), Metropolis (1949) and Nextworld (1951).

While Duke Red orders his henchman to follow Dr. Charles Lawton, M.D., all the scientists notice that the Sun is now covered with sunspots, causing its radiation levels to rise.

So had Duke Red, who ordered Lawton to create an entire human body out of synthetic tissue, its face modeled after a marble statue and possessing several superpowers.

Revealing Lawton's death and true paternal status, Moustachio entrusted Michi to Ken'ichi's care while he consulted Superintendent General Notarlin of the Metropolis Police Department.

Exposed, Duke Red gassed Ganimarl unconscious and left him in disguise for the police to find, and threatened Emmy's sister to deliver Michi to him.

Back at Red Party headquarters, Moustachio realized the Toron Gas hadn't been released because the rats had overrun the underground base.

They used their mobile headquarters - the Atlantis, a 200,000-ton luxury liner - to hold Notarlin and Ganimarl while pursuing Michi, little knowing that girl-Michi had unknowingly stowed away onto the ship, was discovered, and recruited as a cabin girl.

Michi discovered the crew's true identities and used the ship's radio to contact the police, who sent a search plane with Ken'ichi on board to find it.

Confronting the Red Party's slave robots, Michi convinced them to destroy the food and water supply and scuttle the ship.

The Red Party attempted to abandon ship but were arrested by Notarlin and Ganimarl, who escaped their cell in the confusion, and then thrown overboard by the robots.

Notarlin and Ganimarl, having fled up the mast, watched as the robots condemned Duke Red to being incinerated in the ship's boiler, then were rescued by Ken'ichi's search plane.

As everyone, including Michi's classmates, witnessed the end of science's greatest work of art, Dr. Bell reflected, as he had at the beginning of the story, if humanity's advancement was capable of engineering its self-destruction.

Having only half a year to create a 160-page story, Tezuka assembled a basic plot from elements of unpublished work, the inspiration for the central character coming from a publicity still of the female robot from Metropolis (even though he had never seen the film or even known what it was about).

In the United States, the manga was published in English by Dark Horse Comics with translations provided by Kumar Sivasubramanian and Studio Proteus, and editing consulting by Toren Smith, but is now out of print.