3B's Toy Hive

With Mattel's release of the Yellow Lion and it's pilot, Hunk, we're two fifths of the way to completing the "epic scale" 23" Voltron robot and Team Voltron. If you missed my review of the first lion/pilot set you can click here to read about Lance and his Red Lion. As far as today's review subjects go, there is some good and some bad to be found, however I can tell you right now that there isn't anything that changed my mind about the overall "meh"-ness of the line, but go ahead and take a look just for shits-and-giggles.

Ever bought an action figure where the accessories included really help sell you on the toy, even if it's a character you're not necessarily a fan of? That's what happened to me with Cody Rhodes' latest WWE Elite figure. I wasn't a fan of Rhodes when he began his "Dashing" gimmick. It was mildly entertaining at best. But then he went into a feud which resulted in him suffering a "facial injury" and a new aspect of his narcissim took over. With the help of his face shield and hoodie, he played up his (imagined) grotesqueness and then introduced the paper bag mask concept, which really helped him gain lots of heat. Needless to say, I was surprised when Mattel decided to include both of those items with Rhodes' second Elite release.

It doesn't feel like I reviewed Edge's WWE Elite series 8 figure that long ago, but it's actually been almost 10 months and now we have a new figure to look at. Well, it's new, but it's not... You see THIS Edge figure is a FLASHBACK figure, capturing the eventual "Rated-R Superstar" early in his WWE career. Being a huge fan of the then-WWF during it's Attitude-era, this was a must-have for me and given the fact that Edge is now retired, we can consider this his WWE Legends figure. But for those of you not keeping count, this is Mattel's third Elite Edge action figure, so is he worth the increasing price tag or an easy pass?

Last Summer Mattel went sub-crazy and unveiled several new subscriptions for their various collector lines. Among them was a sub for the debuting Voltron toy line featuring the five robotic lions that combine to form the mighty titular robot and their respective pilots. The club exclusive would be Sven, the original Blue Lion pilot who was injured and forced to quit the team and replaced by Princess Allura. I figured, "what the heck?" and signed up.

However, much like the Ghostbusters line's Club Ecto-1 (which I also signed up for), Mattel didn't receive the support they wanted needed for Club Lion Force to be deemed successful, they switched up the plan forcing "day of" buyers to purchase the lion AND the pilot together, eliminating the casual picking and choosing from the equation. That didn't mean anything for subscribers, but unfortunately now everyone has to suffer the cost of those crappy pilot figures if they want a complete Voltron.

When it came time for Mattel to introduce Daniel Bryan in the Elite Collection, they decided to pull a fast one on fans by releasing two of them almost simultaneously. The first as part of series 12 capturing his look while he was the United States Champion. The second, part of the Toys R Us-exclusive "Best of Pay-Per-View" series and featuring Bryan from his SummerSlam 2010 appearance. As much as I would like to be a completist, at the very least for the benefit of those who visit the Hive for WWE figure reviews, I certainly can't afford to be, but I knew I wanted a Daniel Bryan figure. "Swarm" to find out why I picked this one and whether or not he's worth it!

So you're a Transformers fan who joined the whole Classics (Universe/Henkei! Henkei!/Generations/United/Reveal the Shield) collecting a bit late in the game, but are determined to have a representation of every G1 cast member one way or another without having to resort to selling your organs or other bodily contents to afford some of the harder to find characters. Well, if scale isn't an issue, but you want to avoid the pricey 3rd Party route, you're in luck! Thanks to the introduction of the "Cyberverse" line during the release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon toys you can have an updated, mini-bot version of the G1 Autobot high-flier, Powerglide!