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In my experience every single figure looks better in hand than through these promo shots, particularly on a blurry slide. So I think we're jumping the gun here on criticizing the execution of Darkhawk in particular when we don't really have a good idea about how he looks. And it's good to see you on here!

So am I correct that the only Minimate news out of this is a new wave of Marvel Animated and Marvel wave 79?

Very happy to see it's a cosmic wave. It's really hard to tell about the execution of these figures from that slide, but the only one that I'm really disappointed about is Adam Warlock, mainly because I don't like that cape in general. I also would have liked Star-Lord to be in his Annihilation-era outfit, but I'll take what I can get. Darkhawk is definitely a long-overdue character and I'm sure he will look great once he's in hand, even with a tampo instead of a removable helmet. The only real headscratcher to me is Angela, since nothing about the character suggests that she deserves a second Minimate, and I would have rather seen that spot go to another unmade character like Quasar or Phyla-Vell (or many, many other characters).

It's nice that Marvel Minimates at least appear to be stable, if not exactly what I would call healthy (for example, it's been years now since we saw a comics-themed box set), but that has little to do with the status of Minimates overall. In the past few years DST has been unable to sustain would-be popular properties beyond a series or two; has failed to garner enough orders to deliver on announced sets multiple times; and stopped even displaying prototypes for Minimates among their new products. It's just clear that Minimates isn't a priority anymore. I don't believe that Minimates will ever fully go away, at least not while Chuck is there, because DST owns it and have invested a lot into them. But I think we are definitely at the point that DST needs to start fresh. And we've already talked about this a ton and we all already know this, but it does suck that, at the biggest show of the year, we've seen one new wave of (frankly underwhelming) Marvel animated Minimates. And hey, maybe DST does have a strategy and will announce some new figures at the DST panel, and Zach will follow up by putting out prototypes for Pennywise and Westworld and (oh please oh please oh please) the Rocketeer. I'd love to be provel wrong. Also, it's just downright annoying to see other companies doing cool things with their (IMHO) inferior products. Like, Mezco is making 5 POA figures from the Fleischer Superman cartoon! That's so cool! I'll buy those even though I don't like that style of figure! I miss the days that Minimates was one of those toy lines. Oh, and I have to say that Mattel's WWE/Ghostbusters and Masters of the Universe toys are the dumbest things I've seen in a long, long time.

They just don't have any buyers without TRU around. The comic shop market basically dried up, with most of us moving to buying from a few online retailers and shops dropping Minimates (opinions certainly vary as to what order that happened).

I wish that Chuck would just come out and say that they're not planning to make Minimates for any new licenses anymore, and that it's basically just a Marvel exclusive toy line at this point. They don't have the John Wick Minimates on display, which sure isn't a good sign.

Toyark has DST galleries up. They include products for the Rocketeer, Westworld, the Black Hole, It, and Castlevania, plus holdovers like Sonic, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Godzilla. Know what all those have in common? No Minimates.

Toyark has a DST Marvel gallery up, but the Minimates photos aren't any better. You can see Shuri in it, so I guess that's an improvement.

I think that's true; even with the new movies, Star Trek has slipped pretty far down the pop culture hivemind ladder, and I'm not sure most Trekkies quite understand that yet (at least not the ones that write into AskDST). That doesn't mean I don't think a Next Generation box set wouldn't be a good idea. I think that Chuck's one of those guys that thinks the original show is the center of Trek fandom, and doesn't understand that, for a whole lot of people, TNG is the definitive Star Trek show.

Hopefully Toyark will have a DST gallery up soon. Usually they get overlooked on Preview Night, so it's actually pretty cool that we are seeing anything this early.

There's also this: https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-war-for-cybertron-unicron

Nice!

Plus you can never know how one of those series will be received by the fanbase. A Secret Empire wave might have seemed like a good idea at the time, for example. The smartest thing to do, I think, is to use a crossover series as an umbrella for new characters and updates; the recent Infinity Wars book would let DST make lots of characters that haven't been done yet.

No, I think it's specifically a licensing thing. I distinctly remember that Funko said they weren't allowed to make a wide release Indiana Jones, and that he could only be released as a park exclusive (and somehow they were able to fudge that to also be an SDCC exclusive). It could be something in whatever deal they have with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

It could be more broadly cosmic Marvel, meaning that it wouldn't be limited to just the Guardians (though I imagine Star-Lord is a lock). In that case you could get Quasar, Nova, Gladiator, Mar-Vell, Adam Warlock, Monark Starstalker... lots of possibilities.

Sounds like the Guardians of the Galaxy (maybe via an Annihilation theme) to me. That would be cool.

There's something weird going on with Disney and Indy. Funko was able to make a Pop, but only as a park and con exclusive (at least that's what they said at the time). And if Funko can't get an Indiana Jones into every store in America, then DST doesn't have much of a chance.

I think you both waaaaaaay overestimate the interest in Indiana Jones toys that are not him in his traditional hat and jacket.

I wish I had $300 extra dollars to blow on this: https://hasbropulse.com/collections/haslab/products/cookie-monster

Got these figures the other day, and I echo everyone else by being really happy with this wave. I know Chuck's a Spider-Man fan, and it always seems like they go the extra mile with Spidey waves. Some thoughts: -the original Mysterio is one of my all-time favorites, and still holds up well today. This one doesn't really improve on that one, or the second one, whose color scheme it matches. But still, a great figure. I'm surprised DST decided to make a new cape/helmet piece rather than reusing the old one, since it doesn't seem to me like they will have much cause to use it again. Makes me wonder if DST originally had planned to make Far From Home Minimates, and they were scrapped somewhere along the way after the new cape piece was tooled. -Vulture is very nice. My one quibble: I wish they'd made him Blackie Drago, or at least included a second head. -Kraven is perfect. Again I'm surprised at the new lionmane chestpiece, but wow is it amazing. Stellar work by the whole design team. My one quibble: in the story they are referencing with this set, Kraven doesn't wear pants! So I grabbed some bare legs and an extra loin cloth to make him more comics accurate. -The Spider-Man rising from the grave figure is so clever; I love when DST does stuff like this. Really shows how versatile the Minimate figure is. -Molten Man is a fine version of a rather dull character. Paint apps are great (presumably thanks to Boyd or Lobsterman). -I may be the only one, but now that I have him in hand I think I actually like the Miles figure? Don't get me wrong, he's no Spider-Ham, but he's not a complete disaster either. -Prowler is cool. I finished a Prowler custom (I think) the day before they announced this one, so I'm a little salty about it. But he's cool. -Finally, I think my favorite figure is the BAF. The Spider-Slayer turned out great, and is I think a perfect use of the BAF (much better choice then the first two). I love the little JJJ screen head. In fact, I like him so much I'll probably throw together a Spencer Smythe quick custom to accompany him.

I think an Indiana Jones set would be a big seller, but I don't think the property would have any legs after one or two sets. Let's face it, the vast majority of collectors (both of Minimates and Indiana Jones stuff in general) are only really going to want Indy, and since there's little variation in his look from film to film I doubt casual collectors would buy more than one set. I think you could maybe get three box sets out of it, for the first three movies, if enough people want a Sean Connery Minimate. Anything beyond that is a stretch.

Basically they just replaced the variant figure with the build a figure. Which they probably should have done years ago.

Operation Galactic Storm is a great guess; I can think of three characters off the top of my head (Quasar, Sersi, and Crystal) that have never been made, and several redos (most notably Hercules) that would be welcome. Under Siege is another good guess, and there's plenty of never-made villains in that story (plus, again, Herc) that would make people happy.

Nice to see you! Your work was always so unique. I do own one of your customs (Mongul) and would certainly be interested in others.