Walgreens Marvel 'Mates

[nandoninny]

so why all of a sudden did someone say "lets give them what they want?" all at the end?!?!?!?!?!?!?

i'm sure some jerk would have been like "Where's this character or that character?" but man, this would have made a lot of collectors happy..........

[buttheadsmate]

9 hours ago, Barry said:

X-Men TAS, originally as eight 2pks, then years later as two 10pks:

Barry , like everybody else , I think these designs are stunning .

For (my) clarification ....these were to be released via Walgreens ?  When you say 'years later', when were these designed ?

 

I have always favoured brand new characters rather than 'new versions' of old characters , that's my 'way' .  New versions like these however would have swayed me . Beautiful . 

[thereasonsy]

1 hour ago, buttheadsmate said:

Barry , like everybody else , I think these designs are stunning .

For (my) clarification ....these were to be released via Walgreens ?  When you say 'years later', when were these designed ?

 

I have always favoured brand new characters rather than 'new versions' of old characters , that's my 'way' .  New versions like these however would have swayed me . Beautiful . 

Seriously, these are epic. And it’s been so many years since we got the Blue and Gold X-Men that many fans didn’t have them. 

[Chooch]

The hoverchair is the standout, but damn that sickly Morph head is the winner.

[minifigvig]

two ten packs?! there hasn’t been a set that big since way back, that would’ve been awesome. i’m even imagining cool art for like a heroes box and then the villains. or maybe they’d have been half/half. 

they all look so good, this wave would have been a knock-out!!

[Trekker 42]

This would’ve been the definitive X-Men minimates. 

[nandoninny]

we could have recreated that ending of the x-men cartoon opening theme where the bad guys all run into the good guys by just swinging the boxes against each other.

oh what could have been

[Barry]

 

3 hours ago, buttheadsmate said:

For (my) clarification ....these were to be released via Walgreens ?  When you say 'years later', when were these designed ?

Yes, they were initially developed in late 2019 as Walgreens Wave 13 and 14, intended to be four 2-packs - eight characters - per wave.  They ended up getting broken apart into waves of two 2-packs (Waves 13 through 16), as did Wave 12 and Maximum Venom, but eventually were cancelled.

In mid-2021, we toyed with two 10-packs as exclusives.  We had 10 heroes and 6 villains (counting Morph as a villain here), so I designed another 4 villains (Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix, Emma Frost, the Sentinel) with no new parts, as the others had been tooled already, to fill in the gaps.  Unfortunately, they didn't come about either.

39 minutes ago, minifigvig said:

two ten packs?! there hasn’t been a set that big since way back, that would’ve been awesome. i’m even imagining cool art for like a heroes box and then the villains. or maybe they’d have been half/half. 

The idea would be one big collage in two parts like the Power Rangers sets, but with a Mansion backdrop on the back.  This scrappy cocktail napkin pitch was as far as I got with it.

 

[Padrino]

5 minutes ago, Barry said:

 

Yes, they were initially developed in late 2019 as Walgreens Wave 13 and 14, intended to be four 2-packs - eight characters - per wave.  They ended up getting broken apart into waves of two 2-packs (Waves 13 through 16), as did Wave 12 and Maximum Venom, but eventually were cancelled.

In mid-2021, we toyed with two 10-packs as exclusives.  We had 10 heroes and 6 villains (counting Morph as a villain here), so I designed another 4 villains (Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix, Emma Frost, the Sentinel) with no new parts, as the others had been tooled already, to fill in the gaps.  Unfortunately, they didn't come about either.

The idea would be one big collage in two parts like the Power Rangers sets, but with a Mansion backdrop on the back.  This scrappy cocktail napkin pitch was as far as I got with it.

 

this sounds incredible! I know that I've been saying this over and over (at least in my own head) but what a missed opportunity! This would have been epic!

[nandoninny]

goddamnit!  i was close with my facing each other idea....except now i can hear the theme song in my head!

[Padrino]

Hi Barry, since you are so generously sharing your designs, did you also work on the DC 'mates? Were there any unproduced designs in that run?

[Barry]

5 hours ago, Padrino said:

Hi Barry, since you are so generously sharing your designs, did you also work on the DC 'mates? Were there any unproduced designs in that run?

I did, but only at the tail end.  I designed Wave 7’s Batman, Nightwing, Starfire, and Lobo.  For Wave 8, I designed the Red Son duo, Batwoman, Question, and the two Titans.  There was never any development of a wave 9 on our end. There were some designs not used from early development that I believe you can still see on Matt Cauley’s Iron Cow website as he handled early wave designs with Uriel, but as far as I know none of them were scheduled.  They were more explorations of possibilities to slot in waves if needed.

Edited July 2, 2025 by Barry

[Padrino]

1 hour ago, Barry said:

I did, but only at the tail end.  I designed Wave 7’s Batman, Nightwing, Starfire, and Lobo.  For Wave 8, I designed the Red Son duo, Batwoman, Question, and the two Titans.  There was never any development of a wave 9 on our end. There were some designs not used from early development that I believe you can still see on Matt Cauley’s Iron Cow website as he handled early wave designs with Uriel, but as far as I know none of them were scheduled.  They were more explorations of possibilities to slot in waves if needed.

Awesome! Thank you!

[HellfireSamurai]

On 7/1/2025 at 8:04 PM, Barry said:

I did, but only at the tail end.  I designed Wave 7’s Batman, Nightwing, Starfire, and Lobo.  For Wave 8, I designed the Red Son duo, Batwoman, Question, and the two Titans.  There was never any development of a wave 9 on our end. There were some designs not used from early development that I believe you can still see on Matt Cauley’s Iron Cow website as he handled early wave designs with Uriel, but as far as I know none of them were scheduled.  They were more explorations of possibilities to slot in waves if needed.

Thank you for the best DC mate in the line imo. Lobo is my fav of that line & a constant presence on my work desk.