Micronauts Issue #1 by Marvel Comics, 1979
And what's to stop Hollywood from doing it? They've been making movies based on crummy properties for years. We're getting The Land of the Lost and GI Joe this summer, and rumor has it that Stretch Armstrong ain't far behind. There you go.
They made a legitimate film with a serious tone out of toy cars and trucks that turn into robots, for god's sake. If they can do that, imagine what they could do with Micronauts. It is true that back in the day when Micronauts toys and comics were hot (late seventies), they got out of control with some questionable characters (i.e; Baron Karza was pretty much a dollar store rip-off of Darth Vader), but for the most part, Micronauts kicked ass!
Micronauts by Mego
The 3 and 1/2 inch action figures were based on a Japanese toy line called Microman. American toy company Mego imported them from Takara Japan and repackaged them as Micronauts. The figures and play sets really caught on in the U.S. -- for the first time ever, you didn't have to live in Japan to have cool, bizarre action figures!
Many of the toy parts had little holes in various places where you could insert little plastic pegs which connected to attachments and whatnot. This gave a kid all sorts of creative freedom. Kind of like Lego meets action figures, I suppose. I remember having a blast building backpack rocket launchers and crazy armed assault vehicles for my little Micronauts.
So if you're by some chance a studio suit looking for an untapped, kick-ass license to rape... er, turn into a motion picture and you are reading this, go after Micronauts, I say. You could do worse (cough, He-Man, cough...)
Michael Golden was one of my favorite artists! Mirconauts movie FTW!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteOh they're quite aware. Gale-Anne Hurd optioned it a few years back. The problem is the whole thing is caught in licensing hell. The toys originally came from Takara (now Tomy)'s Microman toyline in Japan and were licensed to Mego Corporation, which in turn licensed the comic to Marvel. Marvel gave up the rights to it all except their original characters that weren't part of the toyline (such as "Bug"). A more recent comic loosely inspired by the old one was licensed to Devil's Due that ran for a year or two a few years back. But Tomy (formerly Takara) and AGE (formerly Mego) have been squabbling over the Micronauts trademark viciously over the last couple of decades with no end in sight. The more recent comic and a brief attempt to revive the toys was the result of a temporary arrangement which has since collapsed. So until one side wins, loses, or settles, its probably not going to happen. :(
ReplyDeleteMicro, thanks for the info... this makes sense, what you're saying. It took 20+ years of Cameron/Sony/Marvel red tape before we got a Spider-Man film. You never know what might happen with Micronauts though, maybe the greedy corporate suits will come to some kind of agreement.
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