Abrams has Micronauts?

JJ Abrams loves big sci-fi and mysteries, but apparently he also digs little toys.

Buried in a Wall Street Journal article about studios scrambling for “toyetic” (sorry, their term) properties to transform (ahem) into movies is this brief statement: J.J. Abrams, who created the TV show “Lost” and directed this summer’s STAR TREK film, is in discussions to produce a movie about Japanese toy line Micronauts, which Hasbro just acquired.

For those who don’t remember action figures before Zoids, Crystar or even Rom the Spaceknight, the MICRONAUTS (the American variant of Japan’s Micromen) were a series of cool toys with interchangeable body parts and accessories. They also fired spring-loaded projectiles (before some asswipe kid shot one into his mouth and choked, and toy companies ceased including such tiny weapons to avoid lawsuits).

The toys — including hero Acroyear and villan Baron Karza (whose torso could be plunked on a horse body to make a space centaur) — also became a reasonably successful intermittent Marvel Comic series, which added several humanoid characters. Comics of the property has since been published at Image Comics and Devil’s Due.