The Champions rumor

And for the other part of my latest rumor-busting romp, a dissection of the Champions rumor.

Basically, the crux of the rumor is that the Champions and X-Men 2 4-packs have been confirmed by Walmart SKUs.

I already discussed the Second X-Men Super Hero Squad theme pack at length in the City in Crisis post which, to summarize: the second X-Men 4-pack already came out, but because early posts with the SKUs called “City in Crisis” “the one with Emma Frost”, when the official name came out everyone assumed City in Crisis had been named changed to reflect Magneto, and then added City in Crisis back into contention when it was revealed that a 4-pack with that name came out. We got both X-Men packs, we know what “Urban Heroes”, “Winter Soldier Sa”, “Avengers”, and “City in Crisis” are now, and eventually when another X-Men pack comes out, everyone is going to assume it was the X-Men pack that we had the SKU for last year. Long story short: it has been confirmed, but it already came and went and we all have bamfing Nightcrawlers on our shelves.

As for Champions, it is not confirmed by Walmart SKUs.

The known SKUs for 4 packs are:
MVL CITY IN CRISIS 65356933020
MVL THEME PK URBAN HEROES 65356930439
MVL THEME PK X-MEN 1 65356930256
MVL THEME PK AVENGER 65356931768
MVL THEME PK X-MEN 2 65356931769
MVL WINTR SOLDIER SA 65356933021
MVL 4PK THE NEW F4 65356935071
MVL 4PK THE DEFENDERS 65356935072
4 PACK SECRET WARS 65356937551
ALIEN INVASION 6535693755

No Champions listed there. There is mention of Champions coming out of coverage of Toyfair 2008 from Marvelousnews but no SKU, and no other information.

If anything, the fact that “The Champions” are a bit of a name-problem for Marvel, as they discovered during the World War Hulk when they originally pitched “The Order” as the Champions as seen here on Newsarama and then had to change plans as seen elsewhere on Newsarama, means it's probable that if and when we do see a Champions set, it may not even be called Champions, at least not officially. It's unlikely that it would be called New F4 or Defenders though.

So yeah, X-Men 2 was a confirmed Walmart SKU, but it's already been released, and Champions was mentioned at Toyfair, and reported on Marvelousnews, BUT it's not a confirmed Walmart SKU.