A line can be drawn down the center of the history of all media franchises, and that line can be labeled Star Wars. When the film, retroactively titled Episode IV: A New Hope, debuted in 1977, the rules of moviemaking changed, but so did the world of tie-ins. The film was a shocking success, so much so that the action figures line being produced by Kenner were not even ready for sale yet. Toy-hungry film fans had to settle for a coupon promising them the plastic replicas one year later.
As caught off guard as Kenner was, they were still the smart ones. George Lucas had approached toy companies before the premiere and got a fair number of doors slammed in his face. The price tag for the rights to the characters, reportedly upward of $750,000, scared away some prospects. More so, at the time, Star Wars was more than an untested product; it was downright risky. Many insiders were skeptical about the film’s chances.
The film’s success left several toy companies smarting. Some never recovered. In addition to the terrific name recognition factor, the better-late-than-never Kenner figures also revolutionized the industry for their smaller scale, each one measuring only 3?" tall. The Mego Corporation, best known for their 8" World’s Greatest Super Heroes line, passed on the license and were later unable to compete with the newer, smaller, cheaper action figures. They were bankrupt by 1982.
Mattel was another established toy company kicking themselves. The company, best known for the profitable and beloved Barbie line, had been unable to make a successful action figure toy line for boys. Not only did they not buy the rights to make Star Wars figures, they also had nothing in place to compete with the evil Darth Vader or the blonde, sword-wielding Luke Skywalker.
In the market for a strong brand name to create toys for, Mattel was approached by CPI, or Conan Properties, Inc. This was in early 1980, while production was still underway for the live-action Conan the Barbarian film, based on the character by Robert E. Howard. The movie’s producers were interested in an action figure tie-in.
With the film set for release in 1982, there was not much time to put a new toy line together. Mattel was considering redressing a male action figure called Big Jim, a 9½" toy that had failed to catch on before this, in barbarian attire to make the deadline. Jim’s slim build was not going to match the big screen Conan, played by the former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it was the best they could do on such short notice.
These plans changed when executives were given a sneak peek at the Conan film. Mattel’s marketing department was reportedly “appalled at its violence and dropped the license” quickly.1 Action figures were, after all, a market for children, who were clearly not the key demographic for Conan the Barbarian. If they were going to have a successful male action figure line, it would need to be approached from a more family-friendly angle.
By December of 1981, Mattel had had enough. They issued a memo to their development teams, lamenting that once the company is hired to make the tie-in toys for a soon-to-be hit film, “its [sic] too late for us to tool up an entirely new line. If we had a generic male action figure license tooled up the lead times and expenses involved in getting into licenses would be a lot less.”2 By creating a “generic” action figure line, something to keep on hand for alteration once the right film’s producers came along, they wouldn’t be caught behind the eight ball like Kenner had been with Star Wars.
This mindset changed quickly, though. The toy company decided not to wait for the Hollywood producers to come to them. Why pay for the rights to a hit brand name when they could build one themselves?
The company began focus testing, a process of interviewing kids and their parents about their reactions to the vaguest concepts for proposed new toy lines. “What would you want to play with,” they asked, or “What would you consider buying for your children?” Two of the ideas bandied about were “Space Military à la Star Wars” and “Barbarian Monster Fantasy.” In the end, though, the toy Mattel would decide on would be a unique combination of the two.
As with many successful and profitable ideas, there is not an easy answer to the question of who created it. Despite the occasional CEO who would take credit, there are two people believed to be responsible for the first He-Man action figure: Roger Sweet, one of Mattel’s toy designers, and graphic artist Mark Taylor. The two of them, however, are not interested in sharing the honor.
Sweet was working as a lead designer for Mattel’s preliminary design department in 1980, when the call for a “generic” male action figure went out. Calling on his interest in bodybuilding and the overly muscular fantasy artwork of Frank Frazetta, he wanted to make a toy of outlandish proportions, grimacing and crouched for action, instead of the Mego and Star Wars toys who stood straight and looked out blandly from the toy aisle shelves. He took Big Jim figures and accentuated the musculature beyond human limitations. In his book Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion-Dollar Idea, Sweet explains the focus on making a toy that made the competition look “wimpy” in his singularly eccentric voice: “My thought was that an unbelievably ripped hombre like that would be compelling for boys, since every boy—or man, for that matter—would love to have the kind of anacondas hanging from his shoulders that make people draw back in awe.”3
Although Mattel was now looking for an original concept, there was still a focus on keeping it “generic.” Anything too specific would pigeon-hole a concept and potentially limit marketing. To combat this, Sweet picked a perfectly open-ended name for his creation.
He would be called He-Man.
As the top ranking concepts from the company’s focus testing were “Space Military à la Star Wars,” “Current Military à la G.I. Joe,” and “Barbarian Monster Fantasy,” Sweet costumed his new muscle-bound figure in a costume representative of each. He-Man, he wanted to prove, was a unique character who was generic enough to be dropped into any genre. The space figure he created came with a jetpack and a helmet which resembled, more than a little, that of the Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett. The military figure came with an assault rifle and wore the turret of a Panzer tank over his head. For the barbarian figure, Sweet turned to Mark Taylor.
Taylor was working as an artist and designer for the company’s Visual Design department. In addition to his artwork on the boxes of various Barbie toys, he provided illustrations for other Mattel employee’s product pitches. He agreed to make a template for Sweet to use. When he got it, Sweet stated it wasn’t what he had in mind. The character’s physique was too “average,” for starters.
“I discarded Mark’s designs for a helmet, shin guards, wrist bracelets, and weapon,” he later wrote. “I used only his designs for a chest halter, cape, and fur loincloth.” In the next line Sweet stresses, “these elements were Mark’s only contributions to the origination of He-Man and the general concept for Masters of the Universe.”4
Though it’s not clear which exact Taylor sketch Sweet used to create his prototype, his claims to have created the majority of the character is not easy to accept. Wrist bracelets from a Taylor sketch labeled “Torak: Hero of Pre-History,” dated 1979, match the barbarian figure’s almost precisely. In addition, much changed from that original prototype to the finished product. The character’s darker skin was lightened to a more “all-American” shade of tan, and his long, black hair turned into a blond Prince Valiant bob. The colors of the costume, as well, were brightened to appeal to children. Beyond the muscles, crouch and grimace, the only elements that remained from the prototype was the chest harness with the iron cross symbol, which Sweet had stated came from Taylor’s illustration.
Because of the numerous, and often undated, sketches Taylor had created over the years, the credit for who originated the character of He-Man is complicated. According to Taylor, he was also a fan of Frank Frazetta artwork and had been tinkering with a barbarian character since he was young. Fueled by the conviction of both Sweet and Taylor’s arguments, the debate over who created the characters and concepts have become a bit of a controversy.
In the early 2010s, filmmakers Corey Landis and Roger Lay, Jr., began interviewing the former Mattel employees who were present in the early days of the Masters of the Universe franchise. When they asked who originated the ideas, they heard many different stories. Even after years of interviews and editing their footage into a documentary titled Toy Masters, Landis still felt uncertain who had the legitimate claim. “I will say that memory is tricky,” he said, “and people do tend to pick things from the ether at the same time. Conan, Frazetta, etc., was all bubbling at the same time and it’s not surprising that two people both claim they originated [Masters of the Universe] with all of those references in the air.”5
Any concrete evidence to back Sweet’s claim was literally tossed out years ago. In his book, the toymaker recalled that after his time with Mattel, he threw away a manila envelope of documents and work orders that would have proved his sole ownership of the idea. Also supposedly chucked out were the three original He-Man prototypes.6
The story of who did what, and when, were relegated to hazy memories.
The first line of Masters of the Universe figures was released on 1982 with the full backing of Mattel. Despite the multiple reasons to play it safe with an untested, original brand, the company invested $19 million in advertising, a figure far above the norm.
The initial line contained He-Man and arch-nemesis Skeletor, along with the heroic Man-At-Arms, Teela, and Stratos, and the villainous Beast Man and Mer-Man. Mattel had considered including a character named The Goddess, but executives were unsure a boys’ toy line could support a second female figure. At the last minute, she was replaced with the more ambiguous “cosmic enforcer” Zodac.7
He-Man’s companion, pet, and transportation, the mighty Battle Cat, was released separately. The other vehicles included the Wind Raider, Battle Ram, and the iconic Castle Grayskull was the line’s big playset.
These first action figures had barely scratched the surface of the Masters of the Universe concept’s potential, as Roger Sweet saw it. “I do feel like 1982 line was a bare-bones collection with little in the way of product variety, creativity, and styling,” he complained.8 He described the figures as “low-tech” and blamed Taylor for skewing the characters designs more toward the sword and sorcery aspect of Eternia. For a world that encompassed both magic and sci-fi elements, he worried the Masters were underutilizing what made them so special.
The heroic He-Man rides his handy transportation/sidekick, Battle Cat. Each sold separately. (Photograph by Rachael Layne.)
While the initial figures didn’t dig too deep into space fantasy, their vehicles certainly did. The Wind Raider was a sleek and colorful hovercraft, and the blocky Battle Ram introduced the MOTU visual of animal motifs, something that would appear more and more often in future vehicles and playsets. Unlike the ominous Castle Grayskull, they were both clearly made from science and not magic.
The character of Man-At-Arms was also utterly sci-fi. While his fellow figures were monsters and barbarians, Taylor designed him with a high-tech version of a Spanish conquistador’s breastplate and helmet. At this nascent stage of the MOTU mythology, Taylor was inspired by Piers Anthony’s novel Sos the Rope and envisioned Eternia as a once advanced planet who had sunk into a post-apocalyptic, medieval society. Powerful technology still existed in the ruins of the previous culture. Man-At-Arms would not use magic like Skeletor, but instead, Taylor said, “he digs down and brings out their technology, which gives him a huge advantage over everyone else!”9
As the toys continued to expand into the realm of science-fiction with the successive waves of Masters of the Universe, they were still limited by the realities of production. In order to keep costs down, Mattel relied on a small number of reusable parts. All male characters were limited to either a muscular human torso or a furry one, which also doubled as scales. Arms and legs were either human, furry, or more reptilian. Only the heads were personalized. As such, the bird-like Stratos was virtually identical to the mammalian Beast Man from the neck down. Everyone but Teela, the token female character, came with the same uniform set of furry barbarian shorts. It didn’t matter if they were highly advanced like Man-At-Arms, or lived underwater like Mer-Man; furry shorts for all.
Other corners were cut as well. Designers returned to the premade molds for the failed Big Jim line once more, turning an ordinary jungle cat into the ferocious Battle Cat. While the new paint job and accessories went a long way, this was largely possible due to the difference in scale. A cat designed for a 9?" figure could be fitted with a saddle for the 5?" He-Man. This was repeated in 1984’s wave, with a repaint to create Battle Cat’s evil foil, Panthor. Big Jim’s falcon also made the transformation into the heroic Zoar and the villainous Screeech.
It wasn’t just the animals. Teela was repainted to create Skeletor’s companion Evil-Lyn. Even He-Man would be repainted to be sold as an evil robotic doppelgänger called Faker. Twice.
The evil Skeletor atop Panthor, who was released in the third wave of Masters of the Universe figures, in 1984. (Photograph by Rachael Layne.)
Still, the limitations of the figures did not impede the toys’ ability to inspire imaginations and fuel Good vs. Evil playtime for a generation. They were a hit. That initial line of Masters of the Universe figures did an impressive $38 million worth of business in 1982. The next year, business more than doubled to $80 million. The year after, sales were over $110 million.
Masters of the Universe rode into 1983 under pressure to keep the line as successful as before. The figures for this second wave pushed further into the sci-fi territory championed by Roger Sweet, with clever action features like Ram-Man’s spring-loaded charge. It contained no He-Man, and was heavier on the side of the villainous “Evil Warriors.” In additional to Teela’s counterpart, Evil-Lyn, and the evil He-Man duplicate Faker, the line introduced Skeletor’s new henchmen, the three-eyed Tri-Klops, and the Frankensteinian cyborg Trap Jaw.
The second year’s playset, Point Dread, was modest compared to Castle Grayskull. It was a small, windowed structure which appeared to be made of the same roughhewn green rock as the castle, so it could be set on top of a turret to expand the original set. Inside were sci-fi computer consoles, and the top was fitted with a massive perch for the Talon Fighter, a bird-shaped jet it came packaged with. The Talon Fighter was large enough to fit two figures, and came with a handle for its owner to hold while maneuvering it through a make-believe battle against evil.
Left to right: Man-At-Arms, Beast Man, Teela, Stratos, Zodac, and Mer-Man made up the rest of the first wave from 1982. (Photograph by Rachael Layne.)
Early on, Mattel realized the storytelling potential of the franchise. Eternia was a world made richer by its contradictions. He-Man was a barbarian superhero in a world of monsters and castles and animal-shaped sci-fi vehicles. There could be a story behind every ray gun, a myth behind every magic sword. Why did Skeletor have blue skin? What, exactly, was a “cosmic protector”? What made He-Man the most powerful man in the universe?
These ideas were explored through a series of minicomics packaged with each action figure or vehicle. Each comic worked to introduce the characters and their world to the toy’s new owner. They could read about the heroic He-Man and the importance of defending Castle Grayskull from Skeletor to better inform their playtime. It also worked as an incentive to buy the other figures, to read more about their favorite characters and their adventures.
Likely not anticipating the dizzying heights of success, continuity was not a major focus in the earliest minicomics stories. It is likely that Mattel had not even decided to take the Masters of the Universe property to television at the point the comics were created. When that leap was taken, quite a bit was changed.
He-Man is introduced as a great warrior from a primitive jungle tribe who ventures out into the greater realms of Eternia. He has no secret identity, but he does still have a great destiny ahead of him as the protector of Grayskull. After rescuing a green-skinned Goddess, who was later changed into the character of the Sorceress, he is gifted with a set of weapons and other enchanted tools. He has two chest harnesses, which are confusingly identical in appearance. One grants superhuman strength and another which gives him an impenetrable force field.
Man-At-Arms appears as Taylor envisioned him, a scavenger after the “Great Wars” from a tribe identified as the “Masters of All Weapons.” Teela is a blond-haired “Warrior Goddess,” seen as formidable in combat but also subject to periodic kidnappings by the villains.
The Skeletor of these early minicomics is a being from another dimension, one where the inhabitants seemingly all look like he does. During the Great Wars, a supernatural breach was opened and he became trapped on Eternia. All of his attempts to steal the power held within Castle Grayskull is to reopen that interdimensional passageway to bring his people through to conquer.
Another element brought about early on was the Power Sword, though it would evolve over the next two years, as well. It was introduced as a “key” to Castle Grayskull, needed to open the great drawbridge of the skull’s mouth and access the great powers inside. To protect the castle, the Goddess split the Power Sword in two and scattered those pieces across Eternia. Only when they were united could someone gain entrance and become a master of the universal power kept within.
By the time the first minicomic begins, Skeletor has already obtained one of those halves. Though He-Man comes into possession of the other, he is not the one commonly depicted with it in those early stories. Instead, Skeletor is often seen waving it around and using it to cast spells or shoot energy bolts. Before the Power Sword is given more prominence in the Filmation cartoons, He-Man was nearly always drawn with his large, two-bladed battle axe.
The multiple versions of the Power Sword are easily explainable by the realities of these first action figures: the swords that most characters were packaged with all looked like that. The tiny swords were made to fit together like in the stories. The thinness of each one’s plastic led them to curve from heat and regular play.
The early stories were appropriately thin to let the focus rest of the characters’ visuals and the action features of their vehicles. Those first few comics leaned more on the Robert E. Howard style of fantasy, with more emphasis on damsels in distress and the muscular men defeating magical villain to save them. Those were the issues released with the first wave of Masters of the Universe figures in 1982. The sci-fi concepts were introduced in the comics for the next wave.
With the next group of figures released in 1983, Mattel brought in noted comics artist Mark Texeira. The visuals changed from storybook format, with one image per page, to a more traditional comic book format. The scripting was transferred to Gary Cohn, who began incorporating more sci-fi elements and hammering out more precise mythos for Eternia. Despite saddling He-Man and the other characters with overly-formal and stilted sword-and-sorcery dialogue, the writing began to nudge into some more substantive territory. Cohn also introduced some wonderful, if unexplored, sci-fi and fantasy concepts to Eternia, such as Teela being a clone of the Goddess given life by one of Skeletor’s schemes, and Procrustus, a giant stone god who holds the core of the planet together with his four arms.
Creating compelling storylines and believable characters from a line of action figures is not, strictly speaking, the easiest job in the world. The minicomics’ creators had a certain amount of flexibility in the first two years of the MOTU franchise, as they were not beholden to any previous incarnations of those characters. To some extent, their imaginations could run free, as long as the good guys were good and everyone looked enough like their toy.
The creators were still bound by the page count and the target age range, but the biggest difficulty would lie in creating a story that showcased a new character or vehicle without the entire story feeling like mere advertising. In addition, the early creators weren’t exactly fans of the source material.
Artist Mark Texeira has since confessed it was a mere paycheck gig for him. Gary Cohn, who wrote the scripts for Texeira, felt more strongly. After agreeing to write the comics for a friend working as the editor, he was shown the MOTU action figures he’d be writing about. “I looked at them and pronounced them among the ugliest and most ridiculous toys I’d ever seen,” Cohn recalled years later. “I thought ‘He-Man’ was the silliest name for a character I’d ever heard.”10
Still, the two of them worked together to create the seven minicomics that were packaged with the second wave of Masters of the Universe figures and vehicles. They found a common ground, their interests in mythology and pulpy Conan the Barbarian stories, and funneled that into the world of Eternia. “He-Man’s universe was similar to Robert E. Howard’s world,” Texeira said, citing the novella Red Nails as a particular influence.11 Texeira, who later became well-known for his work on characters like the Incredible Hulk for Marvel Comics, said he is still presented those same minicomics to be signed at conventions.
Despite having no attachment to the characters of their stories, Cohn recalled having fun writing the stories as “throwaway fluff.” He was pleasantly surprised, years later, to hear from the fans who remembered their minicomics fondly.12
Cohn’s stories are recognized for the free-wheeling imagination, and for the charmingly awkward way he handled the necessary product placement. In the story “The Magic Stealer,” for example, a weakened Goddess collapses into He-Man’s arms when he asks for her to teleport him to battle Skeletor. “I cannot,” she says, “I no longer have enough power. You must take … The Attak-Trak!” Cut to He-Man climbing into one of the brand new vehicle, each sold separately.
Mattel stepped up production for 1984’s third wave, as the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe animated series was at the peak of its popularity. There were nearly double the number of figures released, along with all the trimmings of vehicles, accessories, animal sidekicks, and playsets.
Both He-Man and Skeletor received new figures, these ones with “Battle Armor” chest plates which could show damage from their epic conflicts. The new recruits to He-Man’s Heroic Warriors were Fisto, the bee-man Buzz-Off, and a colorful cyborg named Mekaneck, whose neck extended to giraffe-like proportions. Also released were two characters introduced by the cartoon show: the magician Orko, unable to levitate in his plastic form, and He-Man’s pink-clad alter ego, Prince Adam. For transportation, our heroes had the battery powered Dragon Walker and a robotic horse called Stridor.
Battle Armor Skeletor was joined by some new Evil Warriors: Fisto’s counterpart, Jitsu, the crab-man Clawful, alligator-man Whiplash, spider-man Webstor, and Kobra Khan, a lizard-man who also functioned as a squirt gun.
The playset for this wave was Skeletor’s base of operations, Snake Mountain, which acted as an evil counterpoint to the first wave’s Castle Grayskull. It was shaped like a big, purple mountain, complete with giant snake heads and a built-in voice changing microphone feature, to make a kid’s voice sound deep, dark, and evil. By moving one of the snake faces’ mouths, it could look like mountain itself was speaking.
Although Snake Mountain first appeared in the animated series, there was some miscommunication between Filmation and Mattel. The cartoon version, possibly based on an early design for the playset, was stark and nearly pitch black. It had one snake wrapped up the mountain’s jagged peak, with a waterfall of lava pouring over one side. The toy itself had something similar in a bright green snake’s head stretching above the mountaintop, but it was also decorated with other ghoulish faces for the voice-changing feature. Its colors were more vibrant, and it came with platforms and bridges built in for a more changes for the heroes and villains to battle across the mountainside.
That one discrepancy aside, the toy line began to mirror He-Man’s animated adventures very closely beginning with wave three. Recognizing the power of synchronizing the narrative of the Masters of the Universe brand, Mattel swept aside previous approaches and backstories to the characters. The descriptions given in advertisements and on the back of their toy’s packaging were updated to reflect the new, better known continuity of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The amount of changes required varied from character to character, but the core conceits remained the same. In this sort of mutability of storytelling possibilities, He-Man showed his true strength.
The toy series continued on, with the next two years introducing new villains like Hordak and his evil Horde, and King Hiss and the villainous Snake Men. While these later characters would occasionally appear in the cartoons, they were primarily introduced to the toy-buying public through the minicomics. While these pack-in stories were initially created with little thought to continuity for the brand’s burgeoning mythos, they became one of the most important ways of telling the stories of He-Man.
After Texeira and Cohn’s comics for the second wave of figures, they were replaced by a rotating band of creators including Alfredo Alcala, the artist for the first four comics, and Michael Halperin, who had written the story bible for the Filmation cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which had debuted at this point. The characters and tone began to match that of the popular animated incarnation, and several TV episodes were adapted into the comics altogether.
Many of the later creators tasked with Mattel’s minicomics took the material more seriously. The main goal, as writer Michael Halperin described it, was keeping things consistent. He worked as a liaison between the animators and the toy creators, ironing out the looks and behaviors of the characters, while also establishing their motivations and backstories. Uniting these different branches of the fledgling media empire under one head writer, he said, produced “three solutions at once: consistency, the basis for a series, and a sales tool.”13
The minicomics and animated series began to fall into step under Halperin’s watch. Several minicomics were based on episodes of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, as adapted by Halperin, though they were not exact duplicates. As tied together as the different writers were, there were different lags in production time for the animators, comic artists, and toy makers. When the character of Prince Adam was folded into the Filmation cartoon, his color scheme had not been finalized before the first minicomic featuring him was released. Similar discolorings happened with Teela and King Randor. When there was confusion over the look of Skeletor’s Snake Mountain, the comic artists sided with toy, so their version also looks nothing like what the toy buyers saw in the syndicated show.
All told, there were 49 minicomics released between 1981 and 1987. Beyond that were the full-sized issues released by DC Comics, a read-along record, children’s storybooks from Golden Books in the U.S. and Ladybird Books in the UK, the official He-Man and the Masters of the Universe magazine, a newspaper comic strip beginning on 1986, and many others.
There are several standouts throughout the various stages of the minicomics. They are remarkable for either the art or story quality, the lasting impacts on characters or their story universe, or general memorability for a generation of fans who grew up reading them.
Contained below are explorations and explanations of three of these stories. It is not intended to be comprehensive.
The last of the initial Don Glut and Alfredo Alcala minicomics from the first wave of MOTU figures, this story sees Skeletor organize his minions Beast Man and Mer-Man into a direct assault on He-Man and his allies for control of Castle Grayskull. The previous three minicomics had displayed the skull-faced villain’s trickery and scheming, with only one of his henchmen at a time.
Skeletor sends the two out to ambush He-Man, saying: “before he can use one his super-weapons against you, you will destroy him.” The two take him by surprise, and from beyond a ridge, Teela sees Mer-Man dragging the hero away.
Chucked into the ocean, He-Man awakens to struggle against a large creature which resembles a fanged octopus. He reaches the surface, but the unnamed monster is still squeezing the life out of him. Spotting the battle from above, Stratos swoops in for the rescue.
Realizing Skeletor must be counting on his death, He-Man tells his friend they must hurry to press their advantage. They find Teela, who thanks “the Universal Powers” for his safety, and says she saw Beast Man loping off toward Castle Grayskull.
The castle is described as an “ancient place of wonders that was built by unknown hands sometime before the Great Wars.” It is inhabited by the wispy, ephemeral spirit of Grayskull, who has charged He-Man and his friends with its protection. Skeletor had already gained entrance to it in the minicomics by this point; he briefly usurped the great power inside, though only using it to animate suits of armor and levitate weapons. So far, there had been nothing on the scale of the intergalactic domination he promised.
He-Man, Stratos, and Teela attack the villains outside of Castle Grayskull, tricking Skeletor’s henchmen into firing their weapons at one another. Incensed, Skeletor turns on his own failing minions, shocking Mer-Man with a magic bolt from his half of the Power Sword. He-Man interrupts to stop this torture, running Skeletor over with the Battle Ram. The narration explains that as much as he hates Skeletor, “he hated more to see a master do harm to a slave.”
The early stories, especially before the moral-loaded Filmation cartoons, had more of an edge to them. Though He-Man is always portrayed as a good guy, this is one of the earliest instances of his true nobility shining through.
As the second of the minicomics from Cohn and Texeira, this story was laid out in traditional comic book style and allowed the reader into the mind of Skeletor via thought balloons. It is especially noteworthy for being the first to shine a light on the broader Eternia society outside of the wastelands surrounding Castle Grayskull. The first page’s caption tells us as much, by announcing the action is taking place within “the Royal Palace of Eternia.”
He-Man and Teela are standing in a small crowd, watching a performance on a small Commedia dell’arte-style stage. The sole performer is Man-E-Faces, a character in a blue space suit and helmet covered in sci-fi wires and cable. In true Eternian fashion, of course, he is also shirtless.
Man-E-Faces was a figure introduced in the second wave of Masters of the Universe. His action feature was all in his head: by turning a knob, the face inside his helmet would change from a normal human to a vicious monster. This minicomic is used as an origin story for the character, as Skeletor forces him to drink a magic potion which creates the monster persona and places the multi-faced character under his evil control. Man-E-Faces memory of this is wiped, giving Skeletor a sleeper agent within the Palace.
The actor is giving a performance for the King and Queen of Eternia, in their first appearances as well, when Skeletor magically appears. As He-Man attacks, Man-E-Faces is activated. His monster identity takes control, and he easily swats away Man-At-Arms and abducts Teela. As he teleports them away, Skeletor gloats he will sacrifice her to a demon to gain entrance to Castle Grayskull.
The Goddess, now called the Sorceress, arrives to transport He-Man to Teela’s rescue. As he battles the demon, the Sorceress reverts Man-E-Faces to his normal state so he can free Skeletor’s captive. The unlucky actor is caught between the two magic-users, switching back and forth between man and monster, until a third face appears. No longer good or evil, simply a blank-faced robot. Skeletor flees, and the Sorceress worries that he may once again take control of Man-E-Faces.
“The Ordeal of Man-E-Faces” is a prime example of the strengths of the Cohn and Texeira stage of the minicomics. Along with expanding the narrative scope and providing important insight into the day-to-day life, and the system of government, of Eternians, they also introduce an element of moral complexity into the good vs. evil dynamic. Following his introduction in this story, owners of a Man-E-Faces action figure could portray him as a hero, a villain, or an innocent stuck in the middle, just as the comics and cartoons would do.
This minicomic from the fourth wave of Masters of the Universe worked to introduce the character of Grizzlor, a villainous figure from the evil Horde, a new group of bad guys intended to mix up the power struggle of Eternia. By not focusing on He-Man only fighting Skeletor and his minions, the story options widened. In addition, an influx of new characters meant even more toys to sell: there were 13 figures in wave four, and five of them were from the Horde.
By this point the minicomics, and the Masters of the Universe brand as a whole, had really hit its stride. The character designs were all but flawlessly matched between animation, action figure, and comic pages. The tone and characterizations had become ironed out, as well. Even the minicomics’ artwork had jumped up a notch.
“Grizzlor: The Legend Comes Alive!” is most notable for that artwork, as provided by animator Bruce Timm. This is some of Timm’s earliest comics work, and the Grizzlor story is his first solo penciling gig. His signature style is already apparent in these pages, a bold and expressive take on characters that would later be deemed as iconic in his work on DC Comics cartoons. Along with writer Paul Dini, he would be responsible for Batman: The Animated Series (1992–1995), Superman: The Animated Series (1996–2000), and the one-two punch of Justice League (2001–2004) and Justice League Unlimited (2004–2006).
This minicomic, not attributed to any writer, concerns a group of Eternian heroes: Teela, Man-At-Arms, Fisto, and Buzz-Off. The four are on a trek across the desert for unexplained reasons, and as they camp for the night, Buzz-Off tells the legend of Grizzlor. Teela is spooked by the tall tale, but Man-At-Arms tells her not to worry: Buzz-Off tells scary stories around the camp fire on every trip.
The next day, however, Buzz-Off comes across some footprints which can only belong to the fabled Grizzlor. No one believes him, but someone watching through a magic portal from the evil dimension, the Fright Zone. It is Hordak, the leader of the evil Horde, and he just happens to control the Grizzlor.
He sends the monster through the portal to abduct Teela, wanting to use her connection to the Sorceress to, what else, steal the power of Castle Grayskull. Try as the heroes may, they can’t stop Grizzlor without sending Buzz-Off back to the castle to bring He-Man. Once he shows up, Hordak and his minion are sent packing.
By 1984, He-Man was already cemented as a success in toy stores, book shops, and television. That’s when the lawyers showed up.
Conan Properties, Inc., the people who held the copyright for the character of Conan the Barbarian, saw the impressive trajectory of Mattel’s own muscular barbarian character and cried foul. Spotting some visual similarities between the two characters, and they noted that before He-Man’s debut, Mattel had been supplied with a lot of pre-production material about the look of the cinematic Conan, before he was played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1982. He-Man, CPI claimed, was nothing more than “Conan disguised with a blond wig.”14
CPI brought suit against Mattel for all number of infringements, including copyright and trademark, along with fraud, breach of contract, and unfair competition. Mattel countered with a claim of fraud against CPI, insisting He-Man and the Masters of the Universe characters were all original, and nothing had been borrowed or repurposed from their brief flirtation with a Conan toy line. The two companies went to court in lieu of their fictional warriors drawing their swords.
Due to the long, winding road of Conan’s life as an intellectual property, CPI could only claim control of the character from 1977 on. In the court documents, it is not clarified where they obtained these rights from, and they could only claim that He-Man was infringing on the eight copyrights they had, consisting of the Marvel Comics Conan stories from the late 1970s. Anything more conceptual than that fairly recent incarnation was not able to be used in the case. CPI could make no claim to the original Howard stories.
The court mulled the case over for five years, not delivering a verdict until 1989. They determined that Conan the Barbarian, as a character, existed in the public domain. CPI owned the rights to the Marvel comic books, but there was no way to prove that if He-Man did borrow from the appearance of Conan, they were taking from a public domain version instead of the one CPI had the copyright for. But the official judgment went further than that.
“One of the first rudiments of intellectual property,” the court’s statement read, “is that no one may copyright an idea.”15 A character like Conan, they posit, is not original enough in the legal sense to accuse another of infringing. Any creator naturally brings his or her own inspirations to the table, meaning nothing is wholly original. Howard, many believe, was inspired by Viking tales and characters like Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but that does not mean Conan was infringing on these concepts.
The court agreed that He-Man was likely influenced by Conan, visually if nothing else, but not to any extent that would constitute an infringement. Sweet agrees just as much in Mastering the Universe, claiming, “Conan was a minor source of inspiration for He-Man, but the physically powerful paintings of Frank Frazetta’s barbarians played a much greater role in my mind.”16 The fantasy artwork of Frazetta had depicted Conan on many occasions, but also other warrior, barbarian, and sci-fi characters in the same trademark style.
In the end, all of CPI’s claims relating to trademarks were thrown out. Though some contractual issues were likely settled behind the scenes, He-Man emerged unscathed.
Whatever elements of the Conan look or mythos were appropriated were likely not responsible for the surging popularity of the Masters of the Universe franchise in those early years. Instead, Mattel’s focus on keeping the property “generic” saved it from being pigeon-holed as just a “Barbarian Monster Fantasy” toy or just a “Space Military” toy.
The inherent flexibility of the characters and the scope of the world of Eternia kept possibilities excitingly broad. While this was expressed in the varieties of character types and genre stories to be explored, it also opened Masters of the Universe up to be molded into different shapes to make it perfect for different types of media. While He-Man started out as a toy, that is not where he would remain.
Mattel’s executives had grand plans of exploiting the recent relaxation of FCC regulations. They were going to bring their action figure to animation, no matter how strange such an idea may seem to both audiences and television networks in 1983. The next step would be to find an animation company willing to take such a risk.