Mastodawn

A Retrospective, an Unhinged Rant, and a Goodbye to Masters of the Universe

I’ve grown old enough to see a lot of things I used to love either die out or get turned into a shadow of themselves. It comes with the territory of being a fan of something. Fans and creators, often the companies themselves, don’t really meet eye to eye on a lot of things. Even more rarely when there’s forty years of history and someone new comes into the scene thinking they can take the material and revitalize it by leaning on the cultural history of the thing rather than what the thing really was.

This’ll be a frontloaded post, but do hang with me a little bit.

Masters of the Universe, or MOTU for short, was about He-Man, strongest of his tribe, wandering out into the larger world and finding himself amidst battle against a demon from another dimension wanting to claim the power of Castle Grayskull to bring more like him into Eternia. He-Man would find alliance with the Goddess, who would give him powerful equipment that would give him a force field, making him even more powerful. Different harnesses and other equipment were scattered around Eternia after a great war in the past, which both the Heroic Warriors and Evil Warriors have access to. In the middle of this battle over Castle Grayskull is the Power Sword, which is split into two. When the two halves are brought together, the holder has the literal key to the Castle and thus to the power it holds within.

In the toy comics, Teela also represented the Goddess, if she put her snake armour on. Two characters at the price of one

This is a descriptor of the original toyline, told within the three original minicomics that came with the toys themselves, written by Donald Glut and illustrated by Alfredo Alcala (who is a master of his craft). The setting would be revised a few times over.

First, there is the unpublished Whitman origin story, where “He-Man” is a shepherd’s son of no notable attribute other than his love for Shalda, and a nickname others pity him with. Skeletor would attack in search of a missing half of the Power Sword, kill Shalda, and gravely wound He-Man. He refuses to give in to the demon even when dying. Man-At-Arms finds the dying He-Man just before wolves make him their meal, taking him to the capital of Eternia, Monarch. Moonspinner, an old healer, thinks He-Man might be the one told in a prophecy about “a king who wields the key.” The two take the dying young man into ancient catacombs, where he is set into Lifemold, a machine that Moonspinner fails to operate properly. It goes haywire and truly remolds He-Man into his namesake, the most powerful man in the universe.

The origin of Adam-He-Man transformation

These are the more obscure origin stories for He-Man, even if the first one is straight from the minicomics. DC would release their own take on the setting later in 1982, where we see the first introduction of He-Man being an alter ego of the crown prince, Adam. Adam would not transform with a sword, though, but with a Batman-like motif: Adam would transform into He-Man by entering a magical cave. Other notable changes would be Man-At-Arms gaining the name Duncan and being in the service of the King and Queen. Cringer was introduced as a scaredy cat, while Zoar was a messenger of the Goddess.

As DC would produce the minicomics after the initial three, they’d be somewhat removed from the original setting and incorporate DC’s own elements. From 1984 onward, the minicomics would mirror the Filmation series.

Filmation would finally remove the Power Sword being halved into two, but otherwise take much of DC’s world building and mold it into something that’d fit 1980s Saturday morning cartoons. The cartoon would, for better or worse, enter popular culture as the de facto presentation of what Masters of the Universe, or rather He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, would be. Throughout the years, that He-Man portion would take over, and in many countries that’s what the IP was known as among kids and adults.

Stout’s Skeletor is a personal favourite out of all the designs the character has

I have a fond spot for the 1987 MOTU movie. I never minded that it was so different from the Filmation series, because I could accept it to be something else, something that stemmed from the same source. Cannon may have produced it cheaply and saved everywhere they could, but the designs on the costumes and props are still my favourite out of the entire franchise.

Unlike all these, I don’t have any real connection with The New Adventures of He-Man, which has now completely dropped the MOTU naming. I think it had a good thing going on in terms of design, where Adam wore something like an updated toga from Ancient Rome or Greece. Transforming into He-Man gave him more bulk and an appropriate updated design, which doesn’t really do it for me. The show didn’t keep the series as relevant into the 1990s. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had already been kicking its butt for a good few years, and home video games were taking over the center of kids’ main form of play slowly but surely.

The 2002 reboot series was great, but it had significant flaws. It trying to be anime, according to the series creators, was the first misstep. This led to harsh visual opposites banging against each other. Mainly these big sword and sorcery characters jumping around and fighting like stereotypical ninjas, swirling their swords and posing like it was a cheap Korean knock-off cartoon. However, the series lifted elements from the later minicomics and expanded what was found in the Filmation series with a more mature tone. The series was cut off before its third season, leaving many plotlines dangling and open.

I agree with many fans that the 2002 series is probably the best animated entry in the franchise, but I also agree that the Filmation series is superior in some ways. I can’t really describe it properly other than the 2002 series wasn’t as sincere as the Filmation series was. As a third significant update to the setting, it does its job well, but the whole wannabe-anime thing is very heavy on it. It suffocates the show in places where it should’ve been a fully American cartoon, and sadly the toys also suffer from this. Massive, oversized weapons everywhere, beautifully sculpted and masterfully realized, but just so damn unfitting for the Planet and Magic setting MOTU is.

The Ghost of King Grayskull without his cape, standing in front of the vintage 1982 Castle Grayskull

It made some new additions. The most notable I’d cite is the creation of King Grayskull, the namesake of the Castle. I’ve had some fan discussions about whether the Power of Grayskull taps into the power that dwells inside the Castle, or if it taps into the power of King Grayskull. Riveting stuff, I know. Nevertheless, this is one example where the 2002 series expanded the existing lore in a manner some call Shakespearean. That’s fitting, as Shakespeare also made plays for the masses to enjoy, but it seems like the only lasting thing of He-Man is memes from the Filmation series. The 2002 series has become a reboot fans love, but mainstream culture puts aside.

The MOTU Classics toyline would effectively continue the 2002 series in story, but goddamn it would’ve been expensive to collect. I recall making some calculations that each figure would’ve cost me around 150€ back in the day, if not more. It was… a thing I don’t really want to talk about if I’m honest, because there’s a lot of drama I really don’t care about. Toys were great, but sadly online- and event-only.

Then you got another silent period. Another MOTU had been in production hell for a long-ass time by the time Netflix rolled their Revelation abomination onto the scene. Yet another sequel to the Filmation series, banking on nostalgia. I say yet another, because the 2002 series was intended to be a sequel but got turned into a reboot (for the better). Much like so many sequelboots we’ve seen in the last decade and a half, Revelation split opinions while pissing on the characters and franchise in general. I wish it to be a single entry that can be shoved into obscurity.

However, I will say that the other Netflix take on the IP, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021), was pretty good. I don’t want IPs to retell the same story with every new series. While we do have more duds than hits, the 2021 series gets a good rap from me by taking the different core elements across the franchise and making a new whole. I consider MOTU to be a children’s franchise first and foremost. That doesn’t exclude it from being quality entertainment adults could enjoy as well. However, the kind of entertainment made for kids has changed, and certain kinds of harsh reality are lacking nowadays. All the main characters are kids rather than adults the kid audience could look up to and perhaps one day become. It’s the Batman dilemma; Robin exists for kids to identify with, but kids often want to see role models they could become. Not other snotty brats.

Didn’t really hit my taste, but man there were some enjoyable parts here. Unlike with Revelation

And so, we get to the new movie. If you’re a fan of MOTU and have read thus far, you probably disagree with me on some of the points I’ve made. Some of you probably wonder why I haven’t mentioned some of the other comics, like DC’s miniseries where they had a crossover with the Justice League (in which Superman gets stabbed by the Power Sword). I don’t give a damn about She-Ra or her shows, not even as part of the franchise whole. I thought it was a misstep as a lad; I think it was a gross misstep as an old man.

The reason for all this, in relation to the upcoming movie, is that there is no one fan consensus about what the future of Masters of the Universe should be. As a fan from the early days, I’d like to see something that follows the Alcala visuals closely, something that’d take the unrealized potential of the unpublished Whitman origin and mold it into something new and original.

I don’t want a grim and serious take on MOTU. The DC miniseries was that, and while there is certainly room for a fully adult take on the material, it should be something on the side. The main piece should always be family friendly. The 1987 movie may not have been the best adaptation of the source material to the silver screen, but goddamn it nails how to be somewhere between children and adults. The 1980s in general had great children’s action and adventure movies, whose making is now a lost art.

Similarly, an early cassette drama had an absolutely terrifying Skeletor voice compared to the Filmation one, with a setting more adhering to the toys’ minicomics or the DC original. Absolutely terrific stuff.

There also exists a sect of fans that would like to have all the adult elements removed and consider the 2002 series too edgy, considering the Filmation series the peak example of the franchise being at its best.

That seems to be the mind of general popular culture as well. The 2026 movie has the glam and glitter, visual cues, and theming taken from the Filmation cartoon. It saves money by setting itself on Earth in parts once again. If we go by the trailer, the story is how Adam was sent to Earth to protect him from evil forces, dreaming his whole life about getting back with the lost Power Sword, finally arriving on Eternia and reclaiming his position there.

I’d like to give the director and scriptwriters some credit and think they didn’t make Adam an expy of the adult fans. Sitting at a dull job, thinking about the fantastic creatures and marvelous technology this other world has to offer, only to be reminded Kate from HR wants a meeting.

No, thank you.

You can feel the development hell the movie had gone through, and the scar of He-Man vs. Barbie is visible. Sony ex-exec Amy Pascal believed the only way a modern He-Man product could be made was through parody and mockery, which I honestly think has coloured how Hollywood and Mattel view the franchise’s visual media side. Pascal couldn’t see past her own hubris and what Masters of the Universe is: a product basing itself on the sword and sorcery books from earlier decades and combining existing concepts for bust toy lines. Thus, MOTU becomes this amalgamation of all kinds of sources put together where all these abandoned and unused concepts meet, creating a world of high technology combined with arcade sorcery.

It’s a very frugal way of reusing resources, common in the toy industry. However, the tone of MOTU was never what we see in Revelation and the 2026 movie. It always took itself seriously, mature but not adult, so even children could enjoy it. The tone was akin to Star Wars, where this fantastical world of space travel and aliens, galaxy-spanning empires, and swords and guns of light were taken seriously and at face value. There was no winking or nudging. He-Man being the strongest man in the universe was bound to be a muscular hero, much like the big stars of the 1980s and the gym boom that was going on. You too could become strong and big as He-Man if you ate well and exercised. Nobody was winking at the steroid bodies the toys had, because it was sincere and honest about itself. Those dinky, lanky Star Wars toys were nothing next to big and robust Masters of the Universe!

Much like Star Wars, MOTU took its sources and made a new whole, something that could stand apart from them as a unique entry in the pantheon of legendary toys and cartoons.

It’s only with time and new generations that MOTU began to be seen as camp. After the emo generation gave way to the hipsters and ironic enjoyment of media, these kitsch-souled poor bastards could never see He-Man and the Masters of the Universe in any other light but their own context and view. Thus, sincerity and honesty turn into camp. The morality lessons the Filmation series has get turned into jokes and get complained about as hamfisted, and in doing that they lose the whole point of why these exist. Corporate reasons aside for why these exist, I can testify from seeing firsthand how parents discussed whether or not He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was a harmful children’s show and decided it wasn’t, because it was a traditional story about good fighting against evil and the moral dilemmas any person can face in their lives, set in a fantastical world we can relate to.

In a movie like this, this should be earned and not given. It lacks oomph, its to blue, it… it’s just the same but not in any original or new way. It’s directly lifting from the Filmation series and making it worse

Setting your movie on Earth, to any extent, is an absolutely moronic decision. Playing for nostalgia, and to the memetic culture that first mocked, and then mocked lovingly, the show that aimed to be wholesome Saturday morning television is something I want to kick the balls of everyone who was involved in making the 2026 movie. That’s a hyperbolic way of me saying Hollywood probably thinks I’m the target audience, but as a deep fan of many iterations of MOTU, I abhor nearly everything the trailer is showing. It’s not building anything new or original; it’s the same shit in glitterier pants Hollywood wants you to take off and prepare yourself without any lube.

I have a Masters of the Universe Origins diorama on my shelf. I have the Classics Ghost of King Grayskull posing on an original Castle Grayskull. I’ve kept the few original MOTU toys that survived from my brothers selling them on a flea market (they were bought second hand to begin with). I’ve still got a tape from the original local run of the Filmation series, with ads and all in between. I’ve got the 1987 movie on a cassette tape, recorded from an airing in the early 1990s. I’ve had the 2002 show on tape before the cassettes were thrown out. I’ve got both DC and Marvel comics as well as newer hardcover collections. I’m not a hardcore fan by any means; I’ve got too many rods of steel in the fire to concentrate on one thing wholesale. The fire is not too hot; it’s just at the right temperature for me to slowly hammer each one of them, one at a time. The heat’s just right; the forge won’t burn through the rods I am shaping into new wonderful shapes as I explore each of the things I am a fan of.

However, much like with so many other things I love, I must finish hammering this rod and admire what it has become. The rod is an old thing already. Masters of the Universe was something truly special, and here I am letting it go because it hasn’t been for me for a good while now. It has been turned into its own parody. I can always pick up the old rod, polish it up here and there, and give it a new groove, but much like with Star Wars and Star Trek, it’ll never be in the forge again.

#heMan #HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse #MastersOfTheUniverse