3B's Toy Hive

Trying to jump back into my semi-regular posting schedule and instead of backtracking to figures I purchased over two months ago, I thought I should jump into one I just picked up last week.

WWE Legends proper may be all but extinct at retail, but it's heart still beats within Mattel's WWE Elite Collection as they've incorporated FLASHBACK figures into the line. This opens up a whole lot of possibilities for bringing retired Superstars and older versions of currect Superstars on to retail shelves. I've already reviewed the first two flashback figures (debut Kane & Papa Shango), picked up the third (Edge from series 13) and now have the first of two from series 14, the Big Boss Man. Get ready to do some hard time!

By now it's no secret that I enjoy and appreciate a lot of unlicensed, "third party" action figures and accessories and while there is a lot of shadier going-ons, you can't find too much fault in the more accessory-driven companies like Spy Monkey and Dr. Wu. In fact, the former has been so successful that they've expanded their operation beyond it's initial format of "home-based", small-scale manufacturing, to full blown factory production. The latter organization, Dr. Wu, has been crafting lots of smaller items that wouldn't immediately standout as being "lucrative" products, yet fill a void nonetheless. Let's take a look at the first weapon-based release created for Transformers Universe Hound and Ravage.

Okay, so I've been kind of busy working on my classics Cliffjumper custom and haven't had time to photograph a lot of the newer toys I've picked up in past couple of months, let alone write up posts about the older stuff. I'm jumping back in with a review that is LONG overdue, but I feel is important to get posted because it's one of the last figures from the seminal WWE Defining Moments line by Mattel. Let's see if this version of John Cena achieves the awesomeness displayed by his wavemate, the Hitman.

Depending on how you look at it, I either picked the perfect time (last Summer) to jump into collecting Transformers "Classics", or arrived to the party to late. I'll admit it's been quite the expensive journey trying to catch-up with all my "must-have" figures, while keeping up with new releases. To make matters worse, there have been a lot of excellent unlicensed (i.e. pricey), third party releases I simply had to have. While I've been able to buy official versions of most of my favorite characters, some requisite robots have been harder to come by.

At the top of that list is Soundwave, Megatron's right-hand bot. I found the Generations "Cybertronian" Soundwave rather easily at a Walmart not too far from home, and he's a fun figure, but I wanted a more traditional (and bigger) version for the classics display. The only real "classic" Soundwave released so far was the Takara Music Label figure, but he's no longer sold through retailers and the after-market asking price was above what I'm willing to pay for it. Then a glimmer of hope... BTS Toys released their take on a modernized Soundwave figure and he would cost less than $100!