John Abbott, Managing Director of Airfix Ltd stood in front of his corporate stand at the British Toy Fair, the annual event where companies show off their wares to potential buyers from all over the country. The year is 1978 and the futuristic looking toy held in his grasp is a Micronauts Battle Cruiser. The priorities for Airfix this year, he explains to an eager reporter are "kits (naturally), Micronauts and Eagles" - in order to combat the growing threat from the skate board craze and lift the prospects of Airfix in general. One and a half million skateboards worth 25m had been sold the previous year, leaving many traditional toy producers reeling. Airfix, under the stewardship of John Abbott had chosen to fight back with a new venture into the action figure market, with high hopes for the Micronauts in particular. The toy had been released by Mego in the U.S.A the previous year to great success and had been produced in Japan by Takara since 1972, where it had been equally successful.

The Micronauts had begun life as a 12" action figure, named Henshin Cyborg - which was basically a Hasbro Action Man given the sci-fi touch by leading Japanese toy company Takara. Cast in transparent plastic, Henshin Cyborg was quite literally the Japanese equivalent of Action Man, only with sci-fi orientated costumes and accessories. Children in the U.K would be introduced to this character by Denys Fisher, as a shrunken down 8" version named Cyborg - along with enemies Muton and Android. Realising the lack of potential for vehicles and playsets for Henshin Cyborg, Takara eventually shrunk the toy down yet further to 3.8", inventing a new action figure scale in the process. Microman had arrived! In order to distribute the toys in the U.S.A, Takara struck a deal with Mego, who in turn came to an arrangement with Airfix for the U.K and German market.

After the first year of sales, John Abbott certainly wouldn't be disappointed in the performance of the Micronauts. The 1979 Airfix trade catalogue was able to boast of an excess of £2,000,000 worth of Micronauts sales. Airfix products racked up the best part of £20,000,000 of sales for all their products in 1977, including their range of 450 kits, so you can see how £2,000,000 from one product in its debut year went down very nicely. Facing falling profits, Airfix had been absolutely right to wade into the growing "pocket money" action figure market. Another successful product for Airfix, the Wheebles was also an action figure of sorts, designed for the pre-school age group.

Everything was going well in 1979 for Airfix's newest action figure. The television commercial for Micronauts had won an industry award and at that time, there seemed to be no shortage of new Micronauts products being churned out by manufacturer Mego in the U.S.A. Airfix would go on to distribute virtually every Micronauts toy available in America, identical except for an Airfix logo on the packaging and instructions, which were printed both in English and in German (German Airfix packaging has also turned up). Quite often the toys ended up in the U.K with the Mego logo on the box, sometimes covered by an Airfix logo sticker. Only the large "Micropolis" playsets were distributed by Airfix, solely in Mego packaging.

A notable exception from the U.K range was the bulk of the Micronauts action figures, with only the Time Traveller and Pharoid selected for release by Airfix. Peculiarly, Aifix did not produce it's own catalogue for inclusion with it's products, relying solely on Mego leaflets. A great many children, myself included, pined for exotic looking action figures which were never destined to grace our shores. Perhaps the Time Traveller and Pharoid were deemed to be more than enough to accompany the U.K Micronauts range, especially as Airfix was still very new to the action figure market.

Airfix certainly had a run of good fortune in the launch of the Micronauts. The February 1978 release of the of the new Marvel comic title "Star Wars Weekly" couldn't have been better timed for Airfix, who wasted no time in taking out colour back page adverts in the first two issues. The "Star Wars Collectors Edition" from also included an identical colour Micronauts Back page. It would be hard to imagine a Star Wars publication today advertising a rival science fiction toy line! Airfix's Micronauts were riding the Star Wars sci-fi wave and were selling bucket loads along the way. Airfix had a hit!

A strong emphasis was put on the value for money aspect of the Micronauts range, with the larger vehicles able to create more than one toy. The range was marketed as a variation of the Lego theme, where children could expand their creative skills. Instead of forking out £20.00 for a Star Wars X-Wing Fighter with seemingly little play value, an adult could have bought for a child, a motorised Micronauts Battle Cruiser with hundreds of parts. Many children were willing recipients (I expect just as many would have been disappointed not to unwrap something from Star Wars), because the Micronauts were part of one big 3.8" action figure universe, where they would rub shoulders with characters from Star Wars, Eagles, Battlestar Galactica, The Black Hole, Star Trek and Fisher Price Adventure.

As successful as Airfix's new product was, the problem remained that the company was totally dependant on Mego, via the American giant's foreign markets subsidiary Lion Rock for the supply of existing and new toys. Airfix had it's own home grown range of 3.8" figures, the Eagles which were moulded very much on Action Man - long predating Action Force. When the unthinkable happened and Mego (Lion Rock with it) went out of business, an obvious solution would to have been to go sci-fi with the Eagles, but 1980 saw the end of both of Airfix's action figure products. The 3.5" Market was left open for the all-conquering march of Kenner's Star Wars range (Not that they would have considered any rival range of similar sized figures as any great threat). The still running 3.5" Fisher Price range flirted with a sci-fi theme but could not have registered even a small hit against the Star Wars onslaught. Such was the scale of the victory, that Kenner can now claim to have invented the 3.8" action figure scale themselves. Who can blame them, as who remembers the Micronauts, Eagles or Fisher Price Adventure today?

It wasn't quite the end for Micronauts in the U.K. Takara, the Japanese company who had leased the Micronauts product to Mego, had continued with its own Microman range unabated. Finding themselves short of a distributor for its products in the U.K, Takara struck a deal with Grandstand Toys. The "Convertors" were born - a mismatch of Takara products all combined into one range. The only Microman item from the Convertors that I am aware of is the Deltarian Fighter, a marvellous toy which could be configured into several equally nice looking vehicles. It was motorised and came complete with a Pharoid style 3.8" action figure in blue. Deltarian fighters are not particularly rare and I'd certainly recommend it to any Micro-fan reading this. There may also be a second Convertors Microman vehicle waiting to be discovered, as I have managed to unearth a black suited figure identical to the one supplied with the Deltarian Fighter. It sports a "C" on its chest in the same font as the "Convertors" logo, so is definitely from the same range. Another strange item to turn up second hand in my collection is a Jet Heli vehicle from Microman, or a very good knock off from a dubious source. Either way it seems as if it was available to buy at one time it the U.K. One of my favourite items, the Jet-Heli is a mock full sized cassette which transforms into a helicopter for a Microman figure.

It has been very well documented how Hasbro struck a deal with Takara to re-brand the Microman Micro Change and Diaclone ranges as the "Transformers"; my own 1998 article for "Area 51" magazine was one of the first to explain the full connection.
What is much less known is that whilst designing new Transformers for the range, Takara seems to have intentionally scaled some of them to fit with Microman. The two Light Cycle characters Road Pig and Road Rocket are perfectly sized to Microman figures (Something I noticed straight off and consequently bought a pair). It is no surprise to see both items re-released recently, re-branded as Microman each one complete with a Microman rider. The Transformers Action Master Optimus Prime truck has also been released as a Microman toy - leading to the possibility that the entire Transformers Action Master may be Microman compatible.