JENNY GABS ON: Time Traveler (yellow), Micronauts Reaction+, Super7, 2026

Genealogy lesson--Hasbro licensed GI Joe to Takara to make Combat Joe. Combat Joe evolved into Henshin Cyborg, which got shrunk down during the 70s oil crisis to Microman, which innovated O-ring construction for small scale figures. Mego imported those back to the US as Micronauts. Microman kept going in Japan and eventually added transforming robots, some of which formed the nucleus of Transformers. MEANWHILE, GI Joe was revamped as A Real American Hero using the basic O-ring construction from Microman and improving upon it. Many years later, Hasbro ends up owning the Micronauts brand, so they sublicense it to Super7 who are working on their own revival of figures in the ARAH format. So these new Micronauts are in the style of GI Joe, which were inspired by the old Micronauts, which were descended from GI Joe, and also they're cousins with Soundwave and Bumblebee.

...so anyway, the Time Traveler was the most basic Microman/Micronauts figure. It's easiest to see the evolution from Henshin Cyborg because the basic design is the same--a translucent plastic body with a fully chromed head and some vac metal embellishments. I use the word "charming" a lot when describing Reactions and other vintage or neo-retro toys, and boy is it apt here. This is just the purest distillation of 70s Japanese sci-fi cheese, and it hits several categories of Japanese toy "fetishes" (to borrow a term from ToyboxDX). It's got clear parts! It's got chrome! It's kind of a robot! In a past life I almost exclusively collected Japanese toys, vintage and otherwise, and this is the sort of thing that you either "get" or you don't. And lemme tell you, I get it. This takes me back to browsing Yahoo Japan Auctions between classes and not having constant lower back pain.

Of course, this is an American toy, and being in the Reaction+ format means he's a little bit different from the figures Mego imported in the Carter era. He's a little bit stockier, as we tend to be, but he's also got swivel arm battle grip and a ball-jointed neck (innovations that Micronauts and other pre-ARAH o-ring figures lacked, including the early ARAHs). The neck on mine is a little loose--I'm going to guess the whole head piece was vac metal at one point in development, then revised due to scraping, and the loss of that fraction of a millimeter was enough to leave the head a mite rattly. That or it's just a quirk of mine. A quick loosening and re-tightening of his back screw seems to have done the trick. Sometimes these things need a little love to be at their best. Honestly, same.

Translucent plastic always makes me a little nervous as a Transformers collector who's had her share of snapped-off windshields to deal with (Earthrise Smokescreen, we hardly knew ye). All the clear parts seem thick and sturdy, the joints move smoothly, and other than the post for the O-ring none of the parts are under tension. I guess time will tell. The hands and feet are separately molded in white and glued into place.  The bronze armor on his lower torso is attached via a round post and removing it reveals additional cybernetic details underneath. If you have other Reaction+ Time Travelers, you can mix and match this piece to create more unique looks (as they are technically army builders and not unique characters). True to the originals, there's not a speck of paint on the Time Traveler. 

Micronauts was well before my time, but they were always held in high esteem by the older Gen X tastemakers of the early online toy fandom. Basically any Reaction that dips under $15 on Amazon is on sight for me, so it's nice to finally check out the brand at its most basic level. And yeah, this isn't *exactly* the same, but it's close, and this translucent plastic isn't already fifty years old. Can't lie, I might yet pick up the blue and orange Time Travelers too (actually, between the time I started writing this and publication, I have gotten the blue one as well!). The fourth vintage color is clear, which is...pretty boring. Make them in red and green and I'm there. Give me an opportunity to make a Super Sentai team and I will seize it!

 

JENNY GABS ON: Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael (glow in the dark SDCC exclusive) (TMNT Reaction+, Super7, 2026)

As it happens, one of the last things Playmates will do with the TMNT license is a crossover with GI Joe. And they're cool, but they're very much in the style of Playmates TMNT, meaning too big (or too small, I guess, if you're a Classified collector) to mingle with regular Joes. For the more literal minded among us, Super7's got us covered.

I love Super7 because they have a similar idea of what makes toys cool as I do. If you get it, you get it. And one of their go-to gimmicks for convention exclusives is glow in the dark variants. Hot on the heels of TMNT Reaction+ series 1, one of their exclusives for San Diego Comic-Con 2026 was a box set of all four Turtles in Reaction+ style, cast in glow in the dark green plastic. This is especially significant because, as of right now, they haven't announced single carded/non-glow versions of Leo and Mikey. They're probably still coming, but if you don't want to wait it makes sense to snag all four of the boys in one box, if you can live with the gimmick.

The Turtles are no strangers to 3 3/4" scale, as Super7 has already released a ton of figures in the 5POA Reaction format. Those figures took their design cues mainly from the vintage Playmates toys, just like the Ultimates did before Playmates decided to screw with Super7's business, like they did with NECA's before. (This is one of several reasons I won't miss them!) The Reaction+ Turtles seem to be primarily cartoon-adjacent, judging from the color schemes chosen for Shredder and the Foot. It's even more apparent here, with the glow plastic giving them a brighter shade of green than their single-carded versions, and the green shells which...actually don't match the cartoon, but do match a lot of Nickelodeon stock artwork promoting the '87 cartoon versions of the Turtles. Huh.

How does the O-ring construction work with these guys? A lot of the solicits say they have nine points of articulation, but that's just not accurate. They have the same articulation as any other Reaction+ figure, but because they're wider side to side than front to back the waist basically functions like an ab crunch. I'm not sure where that 9POA line came from. Another positive improvement from the earlier Reactions is that the Turtles are appropriately shorter in stature than an average figure, accomplished via shorter upper leg pieces. This has the humorous effect of making the older figures look like people wearing mascot costumes when compared to the new ones.

They all have unique head sculpts, with Mikey characteristically being the only Turtle with a smile, Raph mean mugging, Donnie with his jaw set in concentration, and Leo perhaps channeling his 1988 Playmates grimace. From the neck down they're all the same. The shells function like backpacks to facilitate changing the O-ring. There are all kinds of sculptural Easter eggs on the back side of the shells--a communicator, a couple of shuriken, a pair of kunai, a canister of ooze, and of course, pizza.

Their weapons are color coded, which is charmingly corny. I've seen some complaints about Mikey's club-like chucks but they follow the same design language as Ninja Force-era ARAH weaponry, so they're fine by me. Could you design them with little chains, or maybe have a set of "spinning" chucks? Sure, probably. But that's not the point of releases like this. Raph's sais are extremely thin and stiff so take care when inserting and removing them. Donnie can't really hold his bo with both hands in a convincing manner but he sure can fake it. Leo's swords are great, no notes.

Super7 really doesn't play around when it comes to glow in the dark stuff.  The glow is extremely bright and long lasting! And this was just from being in the sunlight in my living room while taking the earlier photographs. If you supercharge them with a quick dip under a UV lamp they'll emit a faint glow even in a dimly lit room. This is doing nothing to curb my desire for a whole shelf of GITD stuff, by the way.

As of this writing the fate of Super7's TMNT license is unknown but likely wrapping up. I'm glad they were able to get all four brothers out in the Reaction+ format before the end. It's bittersweet, things ending right as a new format is launching, but between both the 5POA and O-ring figures there's a pretty robust collection with all of the essential characters covered. Your mileage may vary when it comes to how distracting you find the translucent green plastic compared to the solid ones. As you can see, they scale just about perfectly with the downsized Technodrome from a couple years ago. If you've got one of those, why not have some glowing turtle boys climbing the outer shell? 

 

 

JENNY GABS ON: Frankenstein (Universal Monsters Reaction+, Super7, 2026)

The classic Universal Monsters cycle in and out of pop cultural prominence, but they always have some kind of presence. Despite living through a serious marketing push in the 90s and a consistent supply of quality product from companies like Sideshow and NECA, I've never owned any Universal Monsters toys that I can remember. Is that weird? I've had plenty of figures that were just downstream of the monsters. Most of my earliest toy memories are made up of the backwash of the 80s that was still lingering at such outlets as Children's Palace, Value City, and Kay Bee. And a big part of that was Kenner's Real Ghostbusters, which in 1989 introduced a subset of (legally distinct from Universal's) Monsters. Not strictly the bailiwick of Venkman and company, but there weren't nerds analyzing this stuff on the Internet back then. At closeout prices I managed to get all of 'em. So maybe that scratched my itch.

I've been seriously eyeing Super7's Reaction+ offerings since they came out last Halloween, but series 2 has my favorite--Boris Karloff as Frankenstein (yeah, yeah, he's Frankenstein's monster, save it).  This is the movie that solidified the popular image of Frankenstein. The neck bolts, green skin, squared off head, big stompy boots, too-short sleeves revealing the scars where the wrists were connected--none of that came from Mary Shelley. Universal's makeup department really played up the horror elements and the resulting creature terrified Depression-era audiences and changed the trajectory of Karloff's career from journeyman to icon. The film casts a long shadow over pop culture, influencing everything from Mel Brooks to Monster High. How many movies are still getting merch 95 years after their original release?

There have been countless toys and collectibles based on Frankenstein, including 3 3/4" action figures, but this is the first one in the O-ring style. The Monster--and yes, Super7 does call him "The Monster" on the back for all you sticklers--is just a little bit taller than an average Reaction+ figure, but still well short of, say, Big Lob. You don't want these things to stray too far from the mean. His sickly skin tone is cast in color (please stop painting skin on the Joes, it makes them look more like cadavers than Frank) and his face has some awesome shading that really brings out the likeness of Boris Karloff. Karloff is uncredited here, perhaps because Universal trademarked their design for Frankenstein back in the 30s and the figure is meant to represent the idea of the monster rather than the man. Regardless, it's him beneath the scars and bolts, and after January 1 it's a moot point anyway as the film enters the public domain along with the 1931 version of Dracula.

The lower part of his jacket is made of soft PVC that I think is glued to the waist piece. The color matching between the parts is spot on (my camera makes it look like the pale green plastic of his forearms is showing through the paint, but you don't get that in person). His O-ring is maybe a smidge too small, because his torso wants to slouch forward. I took him apart and pushed it all the way back on the post and it seems better now. Right to repair for collectible toys is not a pressing issue but it's still nice to be able to troubleshoot your trinkets.

 

 

I'm not the world's biggest horror fan, but I am a big fan of what Super7 is doing with Reaction+. They've gotten better and better with each series, even if you're not going to mistake this for an actual vintage figure. The Ghostbusters set Hasbro made a couple years ago has a similar marriage of modern sensibilities and classic form factor. And hey! The Ghostbusters can fight Frankenstein once again! Now I just need Super7 to make me a Beetlejuice O-ring and I'm really in business.