Suffice to say that people love Wonder Woman right now — and what’s not to love? She’s one of the best superheroes ever! — so I’m here to show what’s currently available for the Wonder Woman fan in all of us!

Mattel Wonder Woman Fashion Doll Assortment — £14.99 each. Age 6+
The most powerful Amazon Warrior returns to protect mankind! These stunning, highly detailed 12″ fashion figures celebrate her new movie and feature iconic clothing, weapon accessories, and poseable arms and legs for action battles and dynamic display. You can choose Wonder Woman™ in her eagle-adorned battle suit with headdress, Lasso of Truth and golden armament, or her alter ego Diana Prince in an elegant blue evening gown with classic boots and pulled back hair – concealing her infamous sword.

Mattel Wonder Woman Deluxe Fashion Doll Assortment — £19.99. Age 6+
Bow-Wielding Wonder Woman Doll features Princess Diana wearing her beach training outfit wielding an authentic working bow and arrow. Simply press the button on her back to launch the arrow. Prepare for battle, practice your aim and defeat the world’s enemies like the Super Hero herself! Shield Block Wonder Woman Doll features Wonder Woman in her iconic eagle encrusted outfit with shield, tiara, golden armbands, and kneeling defence action. When the doll’s body is pushed downward, she raises her arms in a shield block!

Funko Wonder Woman Movie Pop! Vinyl Figure — £12.99
The Amazon warrior princess known as Wonder Woman is about to take your collection by storm! From 2017’s Wonder Woman movie, comes this Pop! Vinyl Figure of our hero, Wonder Woman armed with her sword and a removable shield. The Wonder Woman Movie Pop! Vinyl Figure measures approximately 3 3/4-inches tall.

Funko Rock Candy Amazon Wonder Woman — £14.99
The warrior princess known as Wonder Woman is about to take your collection by storm! From 2017’s Wonder Woman movie, comes this Rock Candy version of the superhero in her Amazon outfit. The Wonder Woman Movie Version Rock Candy Vinyl Figure measures approximately 5-inches tall.

It’s fantastic that Mattel has jumped on board to create some truly stunning dolls for kids and collectors to enjoy and Funko’s dedication to the more adult market brings out a cutesy-yet-iconic pair of figurines that I’m sure people will love. These, along with more amazing official merchandise for the Wonder Woman can be find right now in most good retailers and online!

With a wealth of bow-wielding female protagonists dominating media, with the likes of The Hunger Games, Brave and Tomb Raider, it was only a matter of time before someone capitalised on that and Nerf is leading the charge with this new line aimed squarely at that demographic and is on course for a bullseye in my opinion.

“Hit me with your best shot!”

The aesthetic is refreshing and the design of each blaster is certainly unique, rather than simply painting a Maverick pink and calling it a day. Each blaster is curvaceous, with eye-popping pinks, purples and white paint apps and apparently some decal customisation option as well!

The focus is not only on empowering female Nerfers with a line of blasters that rival the boys (Matching the N-Strike Elite blasters’ range of 75ft ) but also encouraging social interaction and expanded play features. Let’s take a look at some of the products that are going to be on offer.

Heartbreaker Bow

Heartbreaker Bow

Taking the mechanics of the classic Big Bad Bow and giving it a stylish make-over, the Heartbreaker is the quintessential bow weapon but if I’m honest, it looks a little goofy, especially given its size. It’s less Katniss Everdeen and more Baby Cupid in terms of scale. The Heartbreaker Bow will retails for around £19.99.

Crossbow

“Smile, you sonuva–!”

No quaint little title for this hefty beast, it’s a mo’fuggin’ CROSSBOW and isn’t afraid to say it. It’s no doubt going to be one of the best blasters of the line on looks alone, I mean, look at it. It’s awesome! The tactical rail is useful for the Smartphone Cradle, which will help with the App-based gaming experience they’re so quick to peddle towards you, which is cool but I think this blaster stands on its own merits. The Cradle will be £14.99 and the Crossbow itself will retail for £24.99.

Alpha Girl Mission Kit

“Shiny, let’s be bad girls!”

If bows aren’t your forte, you can always go cowgirl. NOT LIKE THAT! The Alpha Girl Mission Kit features a pretty cool looking Revolver pistol, with a cocking mechanism that favours holding it one handed so these would be really fun to dual-wield. Not only do you get a kick-ass pistol but you also get protective eyewear and holster. This is looking to be a fun rival to other sidearms like the Maverick and Strongarm.

Mission Control App

Other products include a mini crossbow pistol, a two pack for “BFFs” and a variety of accessories to compliment the line. All-in-all, it’s shaping up to be an incredibly successful line, much like LEGO Friends has been, not conforming to the typical “Girls like dresses and horses and being subservient and nothing but pink“ stereotype. As the older brother to a 7 year-old girl, I’m thankful that more and more companies are realising that the old girl archetypes don’t hold anymore. I’ll be glad to pick up some of these for my little sister and she can have some kick-ass Nerf all her own (so she isn’t bugging me for MY Nerf guns).

The Nerf Rebelle line will be launched worldwide this coming Autumn.

First off, a little info dump; From what I can gather, Spy Monkey Creations started out as a third-party garage company producing weapons for the likes of Masters of the Universe figures and the vinyl figure system Glyos. Now they’re breaking out as a company with their own series of figures. Behold!

Enter the world of the Weaponeers of Monkaa!

Witness the eternal battle between the heroic Gearo and the evil Vilhain as it rages across space and time!  Empyreus, Palidar and their Gearo defenders protect the cosmos from Umbreus, Brutok and the ravening Vilhain hordes!  Discover the secrets of the mysterious Gohlem;  will they follow the path of good or evil?

Join the battle and decide the fate of The Weaponeers of Monkaa!

From the synopsis alone, I’m already awash with nostalgia. It brings to mind so many different toylines from the 70’s and 80’s. Obvious comparisons will be drawn to the likes of Transformers, Battle Beasts, and Masters of The Universe. These little guys are utterly delightful. They’re brand new characters but evoke feelings in you like they’ve been with us for years.

The first series of Weaponeers consists of 4 Characters and 2 Gohlems, the grunt forces of the respective factions. The 4 characters are:

• Empyreus – Heroic Leader of the Gearo
• Palidar – Fearless Commander of the Gearo Forces
• Umbreus – Evil Overlord of the Vilhain
• Brutok – Ruthless General of the Vilhain Hordes

Each character figure features painted accents, detail lines, and a removable tampographed faction symbol. Each figure is made up of 25-28 interchangeable parts including a sword and a sickle weapon and interchangeable head/hand/weapon accessories.  Each figure comes with a trading card featuring fully painted artwork, bios and details on each character.

The Crystal and Magma Gohlems also feature painted accents and two interchangeable faction symbols to allow you to choose a side for your Gohlem.  Each Gohlem figure is made up of 29 interchangeable parts including a sword and a sickle weapon and interchangeable head/hand/weapon accessories. Gohlems also include alternate translucent Empyreus and Umbreus heads. Each figure comes with a trading card featuring fully painted artwork, bios and details on each character. Both the Character figures and Gohlems cost $12.00 each.

There’s tons of playability in each of the standalone figures and that only grows as you introduce more and more figures and accessory sets. The accessory sets are: Close Combat Armory Weapon Set in six different colours. Each set includes 14 interchangeable parts including 2 pistol builds, sword blade, sickle blade, 2 re-designed Dominar handles, and 4 bonus mini blades. And the Extra Head Pack is available which includes 6 character heads in colours available nowhere else! Each pack includes 10 interchangeable parts. Both accessory packs cost $5.00

The Weaponeers of Monkaa toyline is an impressive first outing into the arena of third-party figures for SMC and with some very creative minds behind it, I can see this series taking off.  The Weaponeers of Monkaa are available to order from Spy Monkey Creations’ website.

Lord of the Rings is one of the biggest franchises based on a series of books and much like Harry Potter, now the fantastical world of Middle Earth is venturing into a whole new arena: LEGO.
By time of reading, I’m sure you’ve already seen the LEGO Lord of the Rings sets hitting stores but I thought I’d weigh in with my thoughts on some of the initial sets (because I’m sure there will be more to follow) of the line. Something to note about this line is that there are very few “small” sets, all re-enacting major scenes from the movies in tiny plastic form so I’ll take a look at some of the bigger sets to see how much bang you can get for your buck!

The first, and smallest, of our three sets is 9470 Shelob Attacks. Depicting the scene in Return of The King where Gollum leads the two Hobbits into a trap. Featuring minifigures for Frodo, Samwise and Gollum and the main build being the giant spider Shelob, the latter three characters being exclusive to this set. Shelob is constructed very well, looking very organic for something made out of bricks. The string hook “web” can be retracted using a cleverly hidden spool in her thorax. The Frodo minifigure features a double-sided face, one standard and one horrified. Gollum has an action feature in the shape of a little set of ruins that has a catapult to launch him. It’s a solid little set with a fun creature build as the main attraction plus three characters unavailable in any other set. Shelob Attacks retails for £19.99 RRP.

Next up is 9473 The Mines of Moria, one of the highlights of the first movie for me. This is the biggest set for The Fellowship of The Ring and the second largest of the entire theme. Despite being the big fight for the Fellowship, only four of them are included in this set (Boromir, Legolas, Gimli and Pippin) along with two Orcs, two skeletons and a Cave troll in a pear tree. It’s an impressive set, with tombs, gates and all sorts of weapons (Dwarven weapons represented by weapons from the Heroica game sets). The set is a mostly grey and brown affair, mostly because of the stone gates and wooden furniture but it represents the scene fairly faithfully (Apart from the comically large Dwarf skeletons which are just the standard skeleton minifigures)
Two interesting notes for this set are that the runes on the tombs are accurate to the Fellowship book and the runes over the door read “Djordje was here”, one of the lead designers of the LOTR theme. The Mines of Moria set retails for £69.99 RRP

And finally we come to the largest set of the entire theme, 9474 The Battle of Helmsdeep. It’s the largest in terms of scale and the amount of pieces but it can also be expanded upon by combining with the 9471 Uruk-hai Army set. For your money, you get 8 minifigures, a fortress made up of outer ring, tower with horn, opening main gate, exploding wall, side door attack function, and catapult. Not to mention some of the other accessories like siege ladder, bomb, horse and an armoury of weapons. You get plenty of heroes and Uruak-Hai to play with but just like the Mines of Moria set, you won’t get all of the characters who were present for the scene. This is the big ticket item for the entire range, retailing at £99.99 which could put some people off but I’m sure that die-hard fans (of both LEGO and LOTR) will be willing to throw down the cash for this set for its sheer size and playability.

From looking at these sets, I can see this theme expanding far past its tie-in nature, in much the same way as the Star Wars theme has, and include lesser known scenes in the future and I look forward to seeing it. Just a little side note: In doing research for this article, I also found out that The Sun newspaper will be doing another of it’s LEGO giveaways soon and the first set is 30211 Uruk-hai with Ballista on October 6th.

The LEGO Lord of The Rings theme is available in all good retailers now, with more sets to follow after the release of LEGO The Lord of the Rings: The Video Game on October 30th. More information can be found at www.thelordoftherings.lego.com