Mondo Creative Director Talks ThunderCats, X-Men ’97, and Marvel and DC Plans

Mondo has ruled the collectible landscape since its launch in 2004, honoring a number of beloved franchises with its posters, vinyl, and figures. The company’s impact has only grown since they were acquired by Funko in 2022, including offering exclusive collectibles at events such as the recent Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo. While at C2E2, the company also unveiled some major details for some projects they have on the horizon, including a collaboration with ThunderCats, which will begin with a Lion-O 1/6 Scale figure later this year. 

ComicBook.com recently spoke with Peter Santa Maria, Mondo’s Senior Director of Art and Posters, about the ThunderCats line, as well as how the company has grown in its partnership with Funko. Plus, we covered the future of Mondo’s X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men ’97 figures, as well as potential plans for upcoming Marvel and DC movies.

ComicBook.com: Welcome to C2E2! Having been to your in-person presence at San Diego, it’s really cool to see it here. What is it like to bring this to Chicago?

Peter Santa Maria: I mean, the idea is to be able to visit as many cities as possible over time, and we have never been here. I’ve attended when it was Wizard World over 20 years ago, so I knew the energy was here. I’m excited to come and meet the fans here. We have a lot of people writing us saying ‘We’re in Chicago, we’re going to come see you guys!’ So of course, any time you get to come and show stuff in-person and reveal things, it’s awesome.

Do you have a favorite of the exclusives that are available this weekend?

It’s hard to pick, but I’m a huge fan of our reproductions that we do, and our posters and comic repros. We brought Amazing Fantasy #15 by Jack Kirby and a beautiful Batman foil by Dave Johnson, so being able to show those to people in-person. Normally, when you see a Mondo poster, it’s on a screen. You don’t get it until you get it. Once people have bought a Mondo poster, they get it and they’re in.

And then from the collectible side, we got the Ninja Turtles back in soft vinyl. I’ve been telling people: if you remember what the original toys felt like in your hand, now that you’re an adult, these fit your hand the same way. It’s such a strange, tactile, nostalgic feeling, even though they look updated and they’re more detailed and all that. It’s just something about holding those that blows my mind. So yeah, showing those is great.

It’s been almost two years since the acquisition with Funko. How do you think that partnership has kind of evolved so far?

Let me put it this way: it’s like gasoline on in an engine. We completely do our own thing and they say, “What do you need?” Obviously being able to show up at a show with Funko is awesome. They have a huge audience presence. But they never try to encroach on what we’re doing. They know that we have our own thing. Hector Arce and myself are the Senior Creative Directors at Mondo. They don’t tell us what to do. They say, “What are you doing? It looks awesome. Cool. How can we help?” It’s been awesome, honestly. Everybody who works at Funko is incredibly kind, enthusiastic, and that’s rare. And then also we love Loungefly, so getting to hang out with those people is great.

How excited are you for the ThunderCats collaboration?

I can’t wait for people to see that. It’s something that people have asked for, time and time again. Masters of the Universe and ThunderCats are kind of like peanut butter and jelly, they just work together. Masters of the Universe fans, who have supported our one six line in a huge way, have been saying, “When are you doing ThunderCats? When are you doing ThunderCats?” 

We’ve been holding the secret for so long, and trying to design what we think is the ultimate lineup. With our Masters of the Universe line, there are so many nods and references to the cartoons, the comics, the original toys, but it’s still an original Mondo design. And with ThunderCats, we’re doing the exact same thing. So it should feel like Lion-O in every way, and the ThunderCats in every way, but it should just feel like it’s turned up to eleven in terms of detail. We’ve taken a few liberties that we think, as fans, are for the best, and I can’t wait to hear the feedback from the people.

Is the collaboration going to just include the figures, or is it going to span into other formats?

In our panel today, we’re announcing a beautiful ThunderCats poster from Sanford Green. As much as the fans are enthusiastic, that’s how much we want to do with it. We’re huge ThunderCats fans. I hope to be able to grow the line.

X-Men ’97 is massive right now, and I know you’re revealing more information about your next figure at C2E2. Can we expect more collectibles from the show?

100%. In fact, Cyclops, who’s our next figure that we’ll be showing at the panel, we’ve revealed him in the past, but he’s coming very soon. He takes a little bit more influence from the design in X-Men. But funny enough, there are a lot of parity. There’s a lot of parity between the original shows. I think part of what people love, it just feels like the old show reduxed. And so yeah, that figure is going to be perfect way to seamlessly tie them together. People went nuts for Rogue and of course, after Cyclops, we have big plans for the rest of that line. So yeah, all your favorites are coming.

I’m a huge Marvel and DC fan. There are a lot of projects on the horizon that seem to be tailor-made for Mondo, and are very stylistically interesting. I know you can’t talk about specifics, but is that collaboration still going to continue?

What do you want to see?

I mean, Fantastic Four. There’s the new Superman movie next year.

I can tell you right now that, this year, there’ll be something from both. I’m a massive Fantastic Four fan. The second that we can, we’re going to be developing. We’ve done great repros in the past from the comic covers, which, to me, is the best thing you can do. That work is so iconic. If you have those comics, they’re [only] this big, they’re small. So if we can give the 24″ by 36″ treatment… 

More Dr. Doom stuff, you know what I mean? We did a great Mobius Galactus and Silver Surfer piece. We’re huge fans. And then, of course, anything with James Gunn. We’re huge fans, so we are all in. We can’t wait. We’re having talks now and hopefully we get to do some killer stuff for that.

What is your shoot-for-the-moon license, the collaboration you would still like to do?

Oh my goodness. It’s crazy, we’ve done so many of my dream licenses. I love Hellboy, personally. We’d love to do some Ghostbusters one day. And, of course, anything horror. So we’re just always chasing… doing the perfect universal launch or collaboration for the fans. Those fans span everything. But yeah, I tell you that we’re diehard Ghostbusters fans.