This will draw out the usual cliche of “Hollywood is totally out of ideas” from most people yet I beg to differ somewhat. I’m no fan of those crappy Transformers or GI Joe attempts, the former was a chore to get through but the ‘nauts have a little more potential. For years the comic book industry often published titles based upon toy lines, a few were integrated into the core universe with Marvel: Micronauts, Rom the Spaceknight. The majority were insipid, terrible and forgettable: Shogun Warriors, Sectaurs. They didn’t help sell the toys, I think they did the opposite by pointing out the lameness of these toys.
Micronauts was a weird, amazing exception. Author Bill Mantlo created a pretty impressive storyline which borrowed somewhat from Star Wars yet it had a more mature subject matter. It was like there was no concerted effort to sell a product, just good narration.
It would be cool to see the writers assigned to this copy some of the concepts from Mantlo’s run: the Microverse, the Prometheus Pit and the Body Banks; or the Image mini-series. When I saw J J Abrams’ involvement, I figured it will be a collection of explosions, cheesy quotes and major plot holes all at the behest of Hasbro toys.
Let’s see what happens. I think it will never get past development.