Mondo on Their Approach to High-End X-Men Toys, Expanding Masters of the Universe’s Mythology and More

Senior Creative Directors Hector Arce and Peter Santa-Maria on tackling some very beloved properties via posters, figures and vinyl collectibles.

The downside of running an interview discussing Mondo Comic-Con releases after Comic-Con is that most everything you spoke about will already be sold out. And indeed, that’s the case here, as I’m posting this a couple weeks after I spoke to Mondo Senior Creative Directors Hector Arce and Peter Santa-Maria (AKA Attack Peter) near the end of SDCC 2024. 

Still though, I had a fun and interesting chat with Arce and Santa-Maria, who explained their overall approach to finding cool, Comic-Con-friendly exclusives for the likes of X-Men, Batman, Samurai Jack, RoboCop and more across toys, posters and vinyl releases. We also discussed Mondo’s reproduction of classic comic book and comic strip art in poster form and getting to interact with their own very passionate fans at an event like San Diego Comic-Con - indeed, when we were about to begin our interview, they had some Mondo faithful asking for photos. 

But we kicked off the chat talking about a pretty big deal for Mondo, both physically and in terms of significance. Masters of the Universe is one of the collectible lines the company makes where they partner with another toy company - in this case, Mattel, who own MOTU. For years, Mondo have made impressively detailed sixth scale figure versions of classic Masters characters like He-Man and Skeletor, but Mondo had never introduced a brand new, original Masters of the Universe character until now. That changed with the debut of the massive Scare Mare, a ghostly horse belonging to popular MOTU character Scare Glow. Which means Mondo now gets to take credit for creating what could turn into a memorable aspect of a notably enduring mythos…