[The Toy Chest] The Micronauts: Japan's Shock Troops in the '70s

It looks like it's another blast from the past, as Hasbro announced during their 2009 Fall Investor Day event, the resumption of a very old toy line: The Micronauts. 

Now, to be honest, it's no surprise that they've chosen Micronauts -- as it stands, they can now use the whole Japanese line from Takara, and this toy line has everything: action figures, transforming vehicles and mecha, all in bright Technicolor.  It dalso had a rather successful Marvel comic book series that far outlasted the toyline's run in the 'States.

But that's not all. The Micronauts/Microman series is also a related line to Transformers/Diaclone -- Soundwave and the cassettes, and some of the other smaller vehicles (like Bumblebee) were from a Microman line called Microchange.

Now, the Micronauts also had some "translated" characters. The most famous of these would be the big bad guy, Baron Karza, and the good guy (who actually turned out to be…not so important in the comic book series), Force Commander. Here's the fun part: They’re essentially the same toy, just different colors and heads. It gets even better, they're both recolors of of the action figure toy from Jeeg.

Now, that looked great, right...?

...The toy wasn't exactly as cool-looking.

Force Commander didn't look to good either...

I actually liked the original Jeeg...though it was a bit too colorful.

Now, if they'd design the new Baron Karza from the Soul of Chogokin figure for the NEW Jeeg, Baron Karza would gain new levels of bad-assery.

But it's not just ancient history that's on the line here: The Microman line, in recent times, has had action figures from Batman, Superman, AVP (the Predators are awesome) and even Street Fighter and Evangelion. Given the history, it seems that this is one figure line that can work well with franchising.

I think the Batgirl version is based on one of the final designs for the original Batgirl - before the unfortunate incident in "The Killing Joke."

Up to now, I still hope to finally own one of these...

Uhm. I don't know. Oh, Japan.

So, as a guy who owns a Batgirl, Batman and Catwoman aside from having formerly owned a Biotron, among other things, I eagerly await more developments on this piece of toy news.
 

*Supposedly, there will either be a movie or a TV series to go with this re-launch; I'm betting more on the TV series, as Microman has had an anime series.

This is the Micronauts BattleCruiser, in its original form as the Transfer Fortress. This sort of combining system would be an integral part of the line...

...as shown with the recent Road Spartan set. I bet they're going to use this in the 'States, if they can.