Some of my favorite childhood memories surround the fantasy of being a super hero.  Spinning webs from your wrist as Spiderman, flying and x-ray vision of Superman.  So I jumped at the chance to get my hands on a few toys from Mattel connected to June’s release Green Lantern.

My daughter, the Harry Potter-loving, dress-up princess, though, didn’t want much to do with it though.  So I enlisted the help of a pair of twin 5th grade boys, two houses down from ours, to be the official product testers.

When I walked into my neighbor’s house and saw the green discs strewn about the living room floor, it was clear that the project had gotten off to a solid start.

The Colossal Cannon ($29.99 at Toys R Us online), as I was told, was a bit more age appropriate for these 11-year-olds and “awesome.  REALLY AWESOME!”  You wear the cannon on your hand/wrist, grip a trigger which then fires up to 10 round, plastic green discs with the appropriate lights and sounds (never at someone’s face, I reminded them in front of their parents).

The Kilowog action figure ($8.99 at Toys R Us online, with accompanying Green Lantern ring) got a lukewarm review. “The ring was really cool but it took us a while to figure out how to put the piece on the arm of the action figure.  But we kinda got bored with that and just went back to playing with the gun.”

“We REALLY liked the gun,” they said in near unison.  “It was fun to make up games with our friends and pretend like we were in a comic book. We loved how far the pieces shoot.  And when you stick your hand in it, it feels like it’s a real part of your arm, not like other guns where you just pull the trigger.”

Their only criticism of the cannon: “Sometimes it jams and the shooting pieces are small and easy to lose, like under the couch.”

In brightest day,
In blackest night,
No Evil shall escape my sight,
Let those who worship evil’s might,
Beware my power,
Green Lantern’s Light!

Disclosure: This review is a sponsored post.  Mattel provided bothGreen Lantern toys to facilitate this review and a promotional item to compensate me for the time to participate.