I’ve heard that there’s a new script in the works for a Micronauts movie. I’ve even heard that J. J. Abrams might be attached to the project. While the Micronauts might not seem like a plausible subject for a film at first, it’s not so hard to imagine in a universe that’s produced films based on Transformers and even Angry Birds. Now, I know that there was a whole series of Marvel comics that created a complex backstory for the Micronauts, but I never saw or read those. To me, these were just some cool toys that had a certain mystery to them. My brother and I had a handful of what seem to be the first series of the Micronauts toys. I had a gold Space Glider; my brother had a blue Galactic Warrior. Pretty much these two dudes exactly.

Space Glider’s wings would fold down and then could snap back open at the push of a small button. Galactic Warrior had this cannon of a gun bolted to his chest that would shoot a small dart with a cushion on the tip. The gun was cool, but, come on, Space Glider could pop open his wings and fly. In retrospect, something that made these guys really fun and interesting to play with was that you didn’t really know who they were. I mean, the other main action figures that we had were all of our Star Wars guys. We’d seen Luke and Han and R2 and Threepio and the rest of them already, we knew what they sounded like, acted like, everything. The Micronauts, though, with their die-cast metal and plastic parts, and their generic statue-like faces, had the blank-canvas quality of a Matchbox car. We had the main bad guy, too, Acroyear:

Kind of an oddball robotic assembly, Acroyear seemed to be some kind of android, with a wing-like bar across his back, with a large disc at each end, and big chunky roller-skate feet, and his weapon was a dagger.

There were lots of vehicles for the Micronauts, and we had a few of the smaller ones. We had a Galactic Cruiser and a Hydra. Each of these shot spring-loaded “Twinsoft Missiles” and each could be built and rebuilt in multiple configurations.

I also think I had this Photon Sled (which was named a ‘sled’ but is more of a rocket on wheels), but I’m not certain. I may have just wanted it a lot and maybe that’s why I remember it.

The flagship of our little squadron was the Hydrocopter, which was battery-powered, and while it wouldn’t fly, it could motivate forward on land or on water.

I’m not sure what ever happened to my Space Glider or any other Micronauts toys. But it would be interesting to see them on film. I can’t imagine it would be any worse than a Power Rangers movie.