The post-credit scene of Masters of the Universe is not well known. The brief clip was included at the very end of the film before such a thing became common: instead of a gag joke or a funny outtake, the film’s villain pops his out of the water at the bottom of the pits of Castle Grayskull and tells the viewers to expect a sequel. That sort of snippet would become very common in decades to come, in the era of “shared cinematic universes,” but not in 1987. At that point, most viewers didn’t know better than to walk out of the theater during the credits, or to press “stop” on their VHS player’s remote.
“I’ll be back!” Skeletor promises. Such a boast is certainly something his character would say; Skeletor had already cheated death on plenty of occasions on television and in children’s imaginations, always returning with a bigger scheme and more outlandish henchmen. You just can’t keep a good villain down.
However, a sequel was far from an inevitability. Much depended on the film’s reception from fans, critics, and the theatergoers-at-large, along with the grosses from the international territories and video rental stores Cannon Films had already pre-sold. Still, without contracts in place and before the numbers on any possible profit could be crunched, Golan and Globus were already talking up the next installment. Advertisements for Masters of the Universe Part II were posted in various newspapers and trade magazines. This came as a surprise to everyone involved in the making of Masters of the Universe Part I.
During the production of the film, Goddard had flirted with the ideal of a sequel story. If the first was received well enough, he figured, perhaps they’d be allowed to set the follow-up entirely on Eternia and eschew any human point-of-view characters. The director envisioned Skeletor escaping from the pit at the bottom of Grayskull and encountering either the evil Horde, or the Snake Men characters Goddard had been forced to discard in the first movie. “Armies would have been raised,” he speculated, “and I had hoped to create something that fused Eternia into a kind of ‘Middle Earth’ world—with He-Man going on a journey into Skeletor’s dark empire.”1
His ideas were not fully formed, and no scripts or treatments were written. No actual plans were made. After Masters wrapped, Goddard had quickly moved on to create and produce the toy line and TV series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. It was another endeavor with Mattel, and this time he was allowed to create the characters from whole cloth instead of working to adapt a zealously guarded brand name.
Despite his difficulties with Cannon and the out-of-pocket expense the first film required, Goddard still considered returning. “I would have welcomed working on the sequel,” he said, “but another director had convinced them HE could make a He-Man movie for $6,000,000 or less.”2 This price tag, instead of the $22 million the first film had cost, was much more in the wheelhouse of Cannon Films. After Masters of the Universe, it seemed, the company had given up on big budget blockbusters. But not on He-Man.
Golan and Globus’ plans to make another, cheaper He-Man movie involved one of their go-to directors, Albert Pyun.
Pyun had made a name for himself in low budget B-movies throughout the 1980s, and he’d made a few for Cannon by the time the studio started to get the ball rolling on Masters II. He’d been the director of Cannon’s Down Twisted (1987), which also featured Courtney Cox, along with 1988’s Alien from L.A., which gained notoriety for starring model Kathy Ireland. He’d become so trusted by this point that the producers put him in charge of salvaging their over-budget, half-completed mess of a Journey to the Center of the Earth remake.
The proposed sequel was in progress by the end of 1987, as Masters was still opening across parts Europe. While the Cannon producers worried over the paltry domestic box office receipts, they could still convince themselves the money from the foreign territories would make up for it. As always, the company forged ahead to make their next movie. It was, however, in trouble almost immediately.
At their appearance at Cannes that year, Golan and Globus had talked up their Masters plans to anyone who’d listen. Not only would there be two more He-Man films, the cousins said, but they would both star Dolph Lundgren. This was news to Lundgren, who was in South-West Africa at the time, filming Red Scorpion (1988). The star publicly corrected the Israeli moguls in interviews, stating he had not signed a contract, and had no interest in reprising his role.
So Pyun’s production replaced Lundgren with big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton. The professional athlete had the prerequisite tan skin, fit physique, and bright blonde hair to play He-Man. Hamilton looked the part as good as, if not even better than, Lundgren did, and he had no pesky foreign accent to throw off filmgoers. He was also no stranger to cameras as a fashion model, and he’d just made his film debut that year in North Shore, a movie about surfers, starring surfers.
By the beginning of 1988, talk of the sequel was making its way into the trade papers. The Los Angeles Times reported: “Laird Hamilton takes over Dolph Lundgren’s He-Man role in Cannon’s ‘Masters of the Universe II.’ Albert Pyun directs the sequel, which takes the superhero to Earth disguised as a football quarterback.”3
And so, heading in the opposite direction of Goddard’s story ideas, Masters II would take the Eternians back to Earth. Nearly the entire film would take place there.
Working from the director’s treatment, Stephen Tolkin, who did uncredited work on the first Masters script, fleshed out the full screenplay. Both Tolkin and Pyun have since confirmed the basics: After surviving his fall into the pits beneath Castle Grayskull, Skeletor was somehow able to return to Earth to be either disguised as, or reincarnated in the form of, billionaire industrialist Aaron Dark. Learning of this, He-Man has Gwildor teleport him back to Earth to thwart his nemesis. To do so, he embraces the Flash Gordon elements of his archetype and takes the form of/is disguised as a football star. As far as is known, neither character would appear in their traditional, recognizable forms for at least most of the movie.
Many He-Man fans had been disappointed with Masters of the Universe Part I for how much time the story spent on Earth. Masters II all but guaranteed those fans still would not have been happy.
With a set budget of $4.5 million, Pyun began preproduction. The costumes were being sewn and the sets were under construction in North Carolina. But as Cannon Films struggled to find the resources to keep afloat amid a collapsing junk bond market, the fate of Masters of the Universe II would be tied very closely to another tie-in film: the first big screen adaptation of the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man.
Much can, and has, been written about Cannon’s aborted Spidey flick. The company had leased the rights from Marvel for a good time as their script went through various changes. The producers were not familiar with the character, and at first commissioned scripts that depicted him as a literal spider-man, a monstrous and murderous mutant with eight legs who yearned for his own death. Marvel executive and Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee reportedly balked at the early drafts.
According to Cannon Film’s advertisements, Masters of the Universe Part 2 was an inevitability. Likely for the best, this never came to be.
According to the project’s assigned director, Joseph Zito, “Golan and Globus didn’t really know what Spider-Man was…. They thought it was like the Wolfman.”4 While Zito and the various hired gun screenwriters tried to steer the project back toward a more comics faithful storyline, Cannon began to undergo their now formalized SEC investigation and other sorted money issues. The budget was asked to be scaled back, and then scaled back again. Way back.
Zito left the project, and was also replaced by Pyun. He agreed to direct Spider-Man and Masters II simultaneously, staggering the productions to his advantage. “The concept was to shoot 2 weeks of Spider-Man first,” the director explained. “The section of Peter Parker’s story before he was bitten. Then we would shoot 6 weeks of Masters 2.”5 While filming Hamilton as He-Man, the actor portraying Peter Parker would undergo a very intense muscle-building workout routine until Pyun’s cameras could return to him, making him appear to have gained superhuman strength overnight from that radioactive spider’s bite.
However, this was just as Cannon’s money problems finally caught up with them. A check they’d sent to Marvel bounced, and the rights to their world-famous wall-crawler were rescinded. The deal with Mattel fell through at the same time, but the reasons for it vary depending on who you ask. According to Albert Pyun, Cannon owed money for the rights to He-Man but simply couldn’t afford to pay it. Others insist that check bounced as well. Gary Goddard claims the sequel’s vast departure from the source material was enough to scare away the toy company. “Mattel saw the script, or perhaps the storyboards, and pulled the license,” he has said.6
Masters of the Universe Part II was no more, and yet according to Pyun, cash-strapped Cannon Films had already sunk $2 million into the sets and costumes.7 The director also stated that both productions were mere days away from filming when the two deals fell through. However, there had been no one formally cast to play Peter Parker in Spider-Man, or Skeletor/Aaron Dark in Masters II. It’s not believed that scripts were finished, though shooting without an actual script was not beyond the norm for the studio. Whatever phase of production the two films were actually in, and however much had been spent, it had all progressed too far for Golan and Globus to not get a movie out of it.
In what has become an infamous story in B-movie history, Albert Pyun and fledgling screenwriter Don Michael Paul took a mere weekend to draft an all new, original screenplay to incorporate the completed sets and costumes. Pyun had promised Cannon he’d keep the rest of the budget as low as conceivably possible. What resulted from this frenzied, penny-pinching scramble was Cyborg (1989), the post-apocalyptic karate picture starring a young Jean Claude Van Damme. It was shot in 24 days and, with a minuscule budget of $500,000, it even managed to turn a nice profit for the troubled studio.
The origin of Cyborg was a poorly guarded secret. Since it debuted, it’s been connected to He-Man both in fan speculation and release titles; due to its unique production, certain wires were crossed and newspaper listings of Cyborg would occasionally be labeled Masters of the Universe II: Cyborg.
He-Man fans have long wondered how much of Pyun’s intended Masters II script ended up in the Van Damme vehicle. There’s been talk of the titular cyborg being the evil He-Man clone Faker, or the young woman Van Damme’s character protects turning out to be an amnesiac She-Ra, in a spin on the Secret of the Sword story. As the actual film takes place in a violent, grim post-apocalyptic world, there has also been discussion if that was present in Pyun’s original vision. If He-Man was sent to Earth to stop an evil industrialist, what if he arrived too late? As a director, Albert Pyun is noted for being drawn to post-apocalyptic and dystopian projects, so it would not be out of character.
The finished Cyborg film itself bears no ostensible resemblance to our Eternian heroes and villains. The characters and motivations are clearly distinct, and the tone is much too bleak and hard-edged to be mistaken for Masters of the Universe. It does, however, make for a fun footnote in He-Man’s history. The two films are occasionally shown together as a double-feature.
Despite all the ups and downs of Cannon’s sequel attempts, it’s unknown if Mattel was even interested in taking He-Man back to the big screen. The hero had fallen on hard times back home. Although the franchise had made an estimated $2 billion on the sales of all the toys, playsets, and other collectables, they weren’t flying off the shelves like they’d used to. The fad was dying.
The sixth wave of Masters of the Universe figures were released in 1987, in conjunction with the live-action film. This wave included movie characters Blade, Saurod, and Gwildor, along with Filmation characters like King Randor, and Snake Men like Sssqueeze, who hadn’t appeared anywhere but the minicomics. Mattel, like Cannon, were disappointed in the box office grosses. The toymakers also did not see a bump in sales from the movie. For all the advertising Goddard’s film had done for the characters, it hadn’t sold more figures. The toy line managed to lose nearly $400 million that year, and the decision was made to bring the franchise to an end.
The ’87 wave of figures would be the last Masters of the Universe toys officially released for a long time. There were a few stragglers from the next wave whose prototypes had been completed before the line folded. These figures, like Laser Power He-Man and Laser Light Skeletor, were released in non-domestic markets where the line was still in demand.
Other figures had been in the works when Mattel brought the axe down on the brand. Sensing the public’s waning interest, the company was all set to shift the line in a different direction. Masters of the Universe would become The Powers of Grayskull, and it would focus on Eternia’s distant past, called Preternia. The origins of many characters and concepts, such as the formation of Castle Grayskull and the rise of King Hiss and the villainous Snake Men, were due to be explored. Along with the new, imaginative characters would be a series of cyborg dinosaurs and giants.
The Powers of Grayskull would be headlined by He-Man’s ancestor, He-Ro of Grayskull, the Most Powerful Wizard in the Universe. The new line had been set up in an issue of the minicomics titled “The Powers of Grayskull: The Legend Begins.” Its story saw He-Man venturing back in time to visit Preternia, and He-Ro made a cameo, though veiled completely in shadow. The audience’s interest was stoked, but nothing more would come of it. When Mattel canceled Masters of the Universe, the production on The Powers of Grayskull was also shut down.
A few figures did manage to escape, though. The line’s three dinosaur figures, Tyrantisaurus Rex, Bionatops, and Turbodactyl, were sold domestically, but its two 12" giant figures, the heroic Tytus and villainous Megator, were only released in Italy. There was a prototype of He-Ro completed, and its image was included on various packaging, but it was never released.
It was all a bit sudden, but He-Man was no more.
With the public exhausted and retailers still frustrated, many at Mattel felt it best to let the franchise lay dormant for a few years. John Amerman, the company’s new chairman and CEO, felt differently. The Marketing and Design departments were ordered to begin work on He-Man’s rebranding immediately after the collapse of the Masters of the Universe line. The new figures would need to be released as soon as possible, and it would need to start making those massive profits all over again.8
New designs and illustrations were presented to retailers to gauge their interest, but none seemed to go over well. Many toy stores continued to suffer from Mattel’s volume-driven strategy; they still had unsold product they were continually lowering the price on, taking a loss just to clear the space for toys that would be bought. No matter the quality of the pitch or the prospective new He-Man, they wanted nothing to do with it. Designers like Roger Sweet and Mark Taylor worked for a year, finding approaches that skewed more toward sci-fi and enhanced military themes. It took about a year for the retailers to agree to look into another Masters of the Universe line.
A space-fantasy theme was decided upon, and the usual process of focus testing and numbers crunching began. The name “Masters of the Universe” was dropped from marketing. The toys’ packaging was all simply branded as “He-Man.” It hit the shelves in 1989, only two years after the last line had bottomed out.
This new He-Man line would prove to be quite different in many ways. Physically, the musculature of every character was toned down to something more realistic, and they were made to stand up straight, instead of crouching. They all stood a uniform 5" tall. Sweet expressed his intense displeasure with the changes, but he also understood the rationale: “The result required less plastic, which meant it could be produced more cheaply.”9 On Eternia or even in deep space, the economics had to be considered.
Mattel also strove to distance the New He-Man from the old one. In addition to slimming down, the hero was given a haircut and had taken to wearing pants. The Power Sword went through a redesign to include a green laser blade.
Skeletor was the only other character who made the jump into the new line. His redesign was less drastic than the hero’s, so while he became more slender, he maintained his blue skin, skull head, and the armor-and-briefs look. He was also given a new helmet and a cloak.
Orko, Man-At-Arms, and the other regular supporting Heroic Warriors disappeared, replaced with “Galactic Guardians,” more sci-fi inspired and superheroic characters like Hydron and Tuskador. The Evil Mutants, like Slush Head and Staghorn, took the place of Skeletor’s bumbling henchmen. As gimmicky as the new characters all turned out to be, they would’ve fit right in on Eternia.
The figures were again packaged with minicomics. The first of the four produced worked to bridge the continuities between the familiar Masters of the Universe line and this new space-faring one.
Titled “New Adventure,” it introduces Galactic Warriors Flipshot and Hydron as their ship travels to the past, and to the planet Eternia. They are looking to recruit the legendary He-Man to resolve their long-standing war with the Mutants, but they’ve also been tricked by Skeletor into stealing the powers of Castle Grayskull. Their spaceship hovers over the castle and begins to funnel up the structure’s magic.
Alerted by the Sorceress, Prince Adam attempts to transform into He-Man, but the weakening power of Grayskull fails him. Stuck in his normal, mortal form, he still rushes after Skeletor, who is about to be beamed up to the empowered spaceship. Through his usual treachery, he is finally about to take possession of the Castle’s power.
Both are beamed onto the futuristic ship, and Adam convinces the new characters they’ve been tricked. He draws his sword and says, “By the power of Grayskull!” It works this time, and in the dramatic lightning crash and explosion of his transformation, Skeletor is badly injured. Scarring and mutilation from this are the stated excuse for the variation in his appearance. He-Man’s new duds, however, are a gift from the Sorceress. She sends him into the future alongside the Galactic Guardians to defeat the Evil Mutants.
This New He-Man and his new allies watch as Skeletor flees in the ships’ escape pod, screaming, “Evil’s face is mine!”
As had become the trend with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe years earlier, no new toy line could be complete without its matching animated series. At first, Mattel turned back to Lou Scheimer and the Filmation company.
The writers and animators were brought on board fairly early, to attempt to build a cohesive story-world around the concepts before the toys were finished. This way, they could be much more involved with the new He-Man stories, the way they had been with the She-Ra spin-off.
In 1988, Filmation had their first ideas for a more space-oriented Masters of the Universe cartoon. It would be called He-Ro, Son of He-Man. Their proposal set the story as a direct sequel to the original series, with He-Man ruling Eternia in place of his father, with Teela by his side as his queen. After the birth of their son, the planet faces a catastrophe similar to Superman’s homeworld of Krypton, and the young parents decide to send their son away in a rocket ship. Before it takes off, though, Skeletor sneaks his own infant son, born of the She-Ra character Shadow Weaver, onto the ship as well.
The ship reaches the Tri-Solar system, where the babies are taken in by the new good and evil characters, respectively. He-Man’s son is named He-Ro, and Skeletor’s is Skeleteen, as both characters would be teenagers in the show. Both young adults would be able to call to their parents for guidance, in segments which are rumored to have been shot in live-action.
Mattel did not sign off on the Son of He-Man pitch, as they were not likely interested in tossing out He-Man and Skeletor, the only previously existing characters their new He-Man line contained. Filmation went back to the drawing board.
The next pitch came in very early 1989 and was titled He-Man and the Masters of Space. He-Man, and his persona of Adam, would still be the star in this iteration, and he would also bring along Orko as he battled Skeletor across the stars. Much more is known about Filmation’s Masters of Space proposal, including the great deal of thought the company put into fleshing out the various planets in the Tri-Solar system and new, original characters. This included Ephon Deveraux, a space-pirate queen who occupied a more morally gray area than the black-and-white He-Man and Skeletor, and new comedic villains like Skeletor’s sister Skeletrix, his pet dog-alien Barque, and twin nephew and niece Funnybone and Hunnybone.
This show was also not meant to be. Less than a month after it was proposed to Mattel, Filmation went out of business.
The animation house had gone through some rough times at the end of the 1980s. The airwaves were flooded with toy-based cartoons in the years following He-Man’s release, each one mimicking the straight-to-syndication strategy Lou Scheimer’s company had pioneered. Also, these competitors were made by animation studios who did not share Filmation’s dedication to employing American animators. Most rival series, like Transformers, were imported and utilized cheaper Japanese animation. Economic realities caught up with them, and they were called upon to make fewer shows each year.
Looking for a way to avoid layoffs, Scheimer agreed to sell Filmation to the Paravision International, a company owned by L’Oreal cosmetics. Only after the ink was dry did he realize the French conglomerate had no interest in producing new cartoons, or even keeping the company intact. L’Oreal only wanted their back catalogue of completed films and television series. Scheimer’s company was dismantled by 1989 and all its employees were let go.
Without Filmation, whom Mattel had worked with on other toy-based series like Bravestarr, the toymakers had to look elsewhere. For a new series, Mattel signed a deal with the young American-Japanese studio Jetlag Productions, which had partnered with the established international DIC Entertainment company. A new 65-episode season was commissioned for syndication and set to air in fall 1990.
Titled The New Adventures of He-Man, the new series took advantage of how much animation had evolved since the first He-Man cartoon aired. New He-Man’s animation was smoother and less reliant on the versatile, yet repetitive, stock footage Filmation had leaned upon. This allowed the character to have more varied interactions and fights, and for the action to take place in more exotic locales, planets, moons, and spaceships. The regular cast was larger, with more varied heights and body shapes as well.
The animation style and character designs were influenced by the Japanese anime style that was popular in other cartoons of the time. This gave the characters larger eyes and made the violence more stylized. This approach also impacted the storytelling, infusing the show with a manic sense of humor. The Evil Mutants were impossibly doltish and inept, even compared to Skeletor’s old minions on Eternia. The heroic Galactic Guardians weren’t much better most of the time, with major characters like Flipshot depicted as panicky and easily frightened. The great scientists of the planet Primus, presented as the four greatest minds on the planet, were played for laughs as stupid, childish old men.
The jumps in both style and tone were jarring to seasoned He-Man fans. This was only intensified by the Jetlag/DIC series insisting on its connection to the old Filmation one. The hero’s old friend Man-At-Arms had a brief cameo, as the Mutant Flogg shapeshifted to resemble the hero, and Teela appeared in the mid-season episode “Once Upon a Time.” These two characters, along with He-Man’s secret identity of Prince Adam, had been drastically redesigned.
Another change that had occurred in the realm of animation was the possibility of long-form storytelling instead of one-offs like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe had been. While each episode of the original cartoon could function as an introduction to He-Man, Skeletor, Orko and all the rest, The New Adventures allowed the stories to build and characters to develop to a greater extent while largely remaining generally episodic.
This meant the first episode of the series, “A New Beginning,” could be a proper first chapter and actually set the new show in motion. It provided an explanation for He-Man to move from his home on Eternia into the future, and introduced his new allies and enemies. Like the original cartoon, the story would contradict the minicomic that had been packaged with the toy some months before. It both was, and was not, a reboot.
In the show’s continuity, the planet Primus is protected by an energy shield which protects it from the Mutants’ attacks. As the shield is slowly weakening, the planet’s ruler, Master Sebrian, sends Flipshot and Hydron off in a time machine to find a mythic hero from the past who possesses “the power of the good and the way of the magic.”
When the two arrive on Eternia, they are taken captive by a tribe of giants loyal to Skeletor and marched to Snake Mountain. Recognizing the duo’s superior technology and utter naiveté, he tells them he’s the hero they are searching for and happily agrees to accompany them back to the future.
The Sorceress of Grayskull alerts He-Man who, like Skeletor, is already in his revised New Adventures appearance. The hero is told he is needed in the future and must leave Eternia behind. Saddened, he changes back into the form of Prince Adam to say goodbye to his parents, King Randor and Queen Marlena, who have similarly been redesigned. As Skeletor is on his way back to the time machine with the two Galactic Guardians, the Sorceress telepathically contacts Adam to say he must leave now. Adam raises his sword and says the magic words, transforming into He-Man in front of his amazed parents. After they say how proud they are of him, he departs.
The transformation sequence is a holdover from Filmation; though Mattel’s first minicomics alluded to the fact the hero would stay as He-Man full-time, but the new animators recognized the popularity of this aspect of the old show. The New Adventures transformation is less dramatic than the original, though. Now, Adam just raises his sword and says, “By the power of Eternia,” and changes in a flash of light over a backdrop of flames. There’s no Castle Grayskull in words or image, and no Cringer to change into Battle Cat. Prince Adam is, however, much more visually distinct from He-Man in this version.
He-Man catches up with Skeletor just before he boards the time machine, and the two begin to fight. Flipshot and Hydron are unsure which of the two has “the power of the good and the way of the magic,” or think that maybe He-Man is good but Skeletor is magic. With their window to the future closing, they duo simply push them both inside their machine and take them both to Primus.
In the future, the adversaries tumble out of the machine and continue their fight. He-Man’s heroics and feats of power convince the onlooking Sebrian he is the one they were searching for. Just then, the planet’s safety shield cracks and a small group of Mutants invade. He-Man easily defeats them, and Skeletor hitches a ride with the retreating villains.
The first five episodes work as a long, loose story, but by this episode’s end, the new status quo has been established: Skeletor is among the Mutants, claiming allegiance to Flogg but scheming and pulling the strings the same way he’d been manipulated by Evil-Lyn; He-Man is accepted as the protector of Primus and the leader of the Galactic Guardians; and his dual identity of Adam is taken in by Master Sebrian, who knows his secret, to pose as his nephew.
The New Adventures of He-Man aired its one 65-episode season in 1990–1991, and it was not picked up for a second. The He-Man toy line lasted significantly longer, from the first wave in 1989 to the fourth in 1992. But instead of aggressively expanding the way Masters of the Universe had, even after its cartoon ended, the New He-Man’s releases became more and more conservative.
The first wave had three heroes and three villains, with each side getting their separate accessories and two sets of vehicles. The one big playset was the Starship Eternia, the heroes’ main vehicle and base of operations. The next wave included four heroes, including a variant of He-Man, and five villains, including another Skeletor. There were no vehicles or accessories, just the playset the Evil Mutant’s hideout, the skull-shaped Denebrian moon Nordor. Wave number three had four Galactic Guardians and three Mutants, with no He-Man or Skeletor in sight. The heroes had one vehicle and the villains had two. The final wave in ’92 contained no vehicles or playsets, and all the figures were gimmicky variants of characters who had other figures earlier in the line.
The revamped He-Man made some money for Mattel, but was nowhere near the success its predecessor was. The new cartoon, and the new toys, were too drastic a change to be accepted by the more hardcore original fans. The casual fans were already outgrowing their interest in the franchise, and the new, younger crowds had so many more options for their TV adventure and action figure needs. He-Man couldn’t grab them the way he had their older brothers. By 1990, the animation airwaves were dominated by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and GI Joe: A Real American Hero, along with comedic, non-toy based Fox Kids shows like Bobby’s World and Tiny Toon Adventures.
Despite the fresh air New Adventures breathed into the character, the new incarnation lacked the same power and novelty of the original. The line died quietly and the characters were finally laid to rest by the toy company.
For the next decade or so, He-Man was gone but not forgotten. The Filmation series and action figures crystalized in the minds of fans as they grew up. A whole generation looked back fondly on He-Man, Skeletor, She-Ra and the rest. As they grew up and gained disposable income, the books, games, comics, and toys became sought-after collectibles. All the hallmarks of the franchise, from the characters to the catchphrase “By the power of Grayskull,” remained in the cultural lexicon. Even those who didn’t grow up with He-Man knew who he was.
But there was no new Masters of the Universe material. There were clamorings from the more intense fan base, and also from another unexpected source.
After the dissolution of Filmation, Lou Scheimer had formed his own animation company to try to get back into the cartoon business. Lou Scheimer Productions did some minor work throughout the ’90s and its founder was constantly pitching new projects. In 1996 he took one such series proposal to DIC, who had worked on the New Adventures cartoon.
It was called He-Ro, Son of He-Man, and the Masters of the Universe, and it was intended to be a direct sequel to his original Filmation series.
In He-Ro, Prince Adam has grown up to become king, and he’s made Teela his queen. At least ten years have passed, and Skeletor has long been magically imprisoned in the Frozen Lands by He-Man and the Sorceress. Peace has finally come to Eternia. Meanwhile, in a forest outside of the kingdom, an abandoned child is found by a “she-bearcat” creature and raised as her own. He grows up to commune with the animals, unaware of his true family and unsuspecting of his destiny. His only other friend is a talking black crow, Craven.
King Adam is contacted by the Sorceress, who says, “It is time now for you to share the Power of the Sword.”10 She tells him to quest for the nameless boy in the dark valley across the Mountains of Fire, so that he may inherit the Power Sword. As Adam sets off with Man-At-Arms, Orko, and Cringer, Skeletor and his minions break free of their enchantments. The villains learn of this nameless boy as well, and they rush off to the dark valley to turn him evil before he can take hold of the magic sword.
Beast Man uses his control of animals to track down the boy, and the she-bearcat is killed trying to protect her adopted cub. Skeletor convinces the boy it was all Adam’s fault, and he swears vengeance. The heroes arrive, and Adam transforms into He-Man, handily defeating the henchmen. Skeletor has escaped with the boy into the Mountains of Fire, laying traps behind him. He-Man catches up with them and tries to convince the boy of his error in judgment. As he waffles, uncertain, Skeletor runs out of patience and blasts Craven. With it gravely wounded, the boy makes his choice and sides with He-Man.
Adam and Teela adopt the boy, naming him Dare, and the king gives up the Power Sword. Dare raises it over his head and says, “I am He-Ro, son of He-Man…. I have the Power!” He transforms into a muscular, heroic identity, and changes the recovered Craven into Battle-Bird.
Scheimer’s He-Ro pitch enthusiastically embraced the history of the Filmation series and strove to appeal to the original fans. He promised King Adam could still transform into He-Man on occasion, and that it would feature most of the reoccurring characters from He-Man in a more mature form. While moving the franchise forward, with a new generation of Heroic Warriors, the show would keep one foot very firmly planted in the past.
His pitch also showed a weakness concerning the elements of Masters of the Universe lore that didn’t immediately impact his previous TV show. In 1996, many fervent fans would’ve recognized the name He-Ro as He-Man’s powerful wizard ancestor from the aborted The Powers of Grayskull toy line, though this new He-Ro would bear no relation and the series made no mention of him. Other “new” characters for the series, like Tongue-Lasher and Odar bore a great deal of resemblance to Mattel characters Tung Lashor and Stinkor.
It was envisioned as a way to reinvigorate the franchise, but also to tell stories about growing up. The proposal and story bible Scheimer presented included breakdowns of characters and sketches of their updated appearances, and even a handful of episode storylines. As he remembered his meetings about the sequel series, Scheimer said, “I don’t know why He-Ro never went anywhere, but DIC eventually let the project go.”11
And just like that, He-Man was put back to sleep for a few more years.
Within a few more years, ’80s nostalgia was in full bloom. As Mattel watched the prices climb for the original Masters of the Universe figures, an idea was hatched. Now that a collector’s market existed for these weathered, 15 year old toys, there might be enough interest to sell some new ones.
In 2000, the company released a special commemorative edition of the classic action figures. They utilized the original molds and painted them just the way they’d looked before. Even the packaging was the perfect reproduction. The first wave contained ten figures, all of characters who had appeared in the first year or two of the classic toy line. It consisted of He-Man, Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Teela, Evil-Lyn, Beast Man, Mer-Man, Faker, Tri-Klops, and Trap Jaw. There were two-packs of He-Man with Battle Cat and Skeletor with Panthor, and the collected set of ten in the impressive “Legends of Eternia” pack.
Mattel did a second wave of commemorative figures, but they were more limited in number and print run. Re-released in 2001 were Buzz-Off, Clawful, Stratos, Zodac, and the Battle Armor versions of both He-Man and Skeletor.
To say the re-release “did well” would be a massive understatement. Fans and collectors gobbled these new old toys up. As they were produced in very limited numbers, they quickly became hard to come by. In many cases, the brand new figures were more expensive than the toys they’d been molded after.
Even more rare and expensive were the five-packs sold. There was one for each wave, including four regular figures and another one only available in that pack. The first contained He-Man, Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Beast Man, and the special figure of Prince Adam. The second packaged Battle Armor He-Man and Battle Armor Skeletor, Zodac, and Clawful with the fuzzy green Moss Man figure.
The re-release was cut short as Mattel began to rethink their strategy. With so many excited fans eager to spend their money, maybe the time was finally right. Maybe the world was ready for more He-Man.
In 2002, Mattel partnered with a toy design studio called Four Horsemen to make a new series of Masters of the Universe figures. The founders of Four Horsemen had all cut their teeth at the well-regarded McFarlane Toys, and their independent company became known for producing hyper-stylized figures with loads of minute details. They brought this same approach to their He-Man figures. Mattel was no longer interested in simply reproducing the past; they wanted something bold and modern.
While a new toy line promised a new vision of the beloved characters, this would not be a drastic redesign the way the New Adventures figures had been. All of the familiar heroes and villains from the ’80s toy line and Filmation cartoon were made available. Even more, they were all recognizably the same characters, just tweaked and exaggerated to fit into the early 2000s toy market.
One thing missing from the newest toy line was the in-pack minicomics. After sorting through some rights issues regarding the comic book license to the characters, there was not enough time to commission the comics, let alone investigate how it may have effected each figure’s price point. One full-sized comic was created and packaged with a two-pack of He-Man and Skeletor exclusively released at Target stores. It featured artwork inspired by the new character designs, and the cover was provided by comic book legend Neal Adams.
A second issue was in the works, set to be packaged with a proposed Smash Blade He-Man and Spin Blade Skeletor two-pack. The script was provided by Robert Kirkman, creator of popular zombie comic The Walking Dead. Despite some tight deadlines, the comic was finished and submitted, but this was just as the two-pack was canceled. The second comic was not released with the action figures. It wouldn’t see print until years later.
With a new toy line in the works, there needed to be a new cartoon. Mattel turned to Mike Young Productions to bring the new designs to the small screen. This new series, also called He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, remained as faithful to the ’80s property as the Four Horseman designs did. The show brought back several key writers from the Filmation series, such as Larry DiTillio, to maintain the same spirit as the original.
This time around, characters were allowed to develop more over the course of a season, and there was a great deal of time spent on the backstory of each character, and of Eternia itself. The mythology of a world full of monsters, magic, and sci-fi technology was taken very seriously, though episodes still allowed for the moments of lightness from Orko, Cringer, and the other more comedic characters.
While the new He-Man series had plenty of old fashioned things to make the original fans happy, it had also been updated in many ways. The quality of animation was a big leap forward, but the biggest change came in the storytelling. This new show had a focus on tighter continuity from episode to episode, allowing for cliffhangers and multi-part story arcs. The show would also give the fans something the Filmation series never had: a definitive origin story for He-Man.
The three-episode arc titled “The Beginning” kicked off the first season in August of 2002. It opens with an extended flashback of soon-to-be king Randor warning Eternia’s ruling Council of Elders that a warlord named Keldor will be coming to attack them and conquer the planet. But the council is not concerned. They say a great hero will be rising to defend Eternia.
Randor leads a group called The Defenders, comprised of Man-At-Arms, Stratos, Mekaneck, and Ram Man, as they defend the Elders from attack by Keldor, a blue-skinned man wearing familiar purple armor. As the Defenders battle with Keldor’s forces, which includes recognizable faces like Beast Man, Randor duels with the warlord. Bested, Keldor attempts to throw a vial of acid. Randor blocks it with his shield, and it splashes back into Keldor’s face. Screaming in pain, he and his forces retreat.
Years later, Keldor’s forces have been sealed behind a mystic wall on the planet’s dark hemisphere, separating them from the rest of Eternia. Randor has become king and his son, Prince Adam, is a fun-loving teenager. Man-At-Arm’s daughter Teela, is shown to be about the same age as Adam but much more serious in her combat training.
One of the biggest design changes in the new He-Man series was the visual of these two characters. Adam and Teela were always intended to be younger, but they were typically drawn to look like adults. They were now very much young people in look and action, which made Adam’s transformation into his heroic persona so much more convincing. He-Man may look the way Adam would as an adult, but it’s not a very overwhelming similarity. As Scheimer’s company had originally based the change on the young Billy Batson’s transformation into the adult Captain Marvel, this would be a much better representation.
Keldor, now shown wearing a hood to hide his face, has discovered a way to break through the mystic wall. As he and his henchmen work on this, Man-At-Arms is telepathically contacted by The Sorceress. He escorts Prince Adam away from a party at the palace to Castle Grayskull, where he is told the power of Eternia’s Elders are contained. The Sorceress tells him he must become the protector of the planet, and of the secrets of Grayskull. Adam declines.
On his way back to the palace, Adam is stunned to see plumes of smoke and signs of destruction. The origin story embraces the elements of Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth to a T, leading to sequences like this which may appear familiar. Young, uncertain Adam turning down an exciting future to return home echoes Luke Skywalker’s leaving Obi-Wan Kenobi behind to discover his murdered aunt and uncle in Star Wars.
The body count is lower in “The Beginning,” however. Adam finds his mother alive in the palace, and she tells him Keldor’s forces have attacked. His father and the rest of the Defenders are battling with them in the nearby Evergreen Forest. Adam rushes off to join them. His friends, the court magician Orko and his pet Cringer, who cannot speak this time, watch with concern. They sneak after him, wanting to help.
In the forest, Teela has joined the other heroes as they defend the palace from the villains. What follows is a fairly self-indulgent fight scene, introducing each redesigned character and what sorts of violence they are capable of. Once-bumbling henchmen like Whiplash and Clawful are now seen to be fearsome opponents, and the teenaged Teela holds her own alongside very capable warriors like Man-E-Faces. The battle is pitched, and the two sides are evenly matched.
All the while, the hooded Keldor duels King Randor once again. This time Keldor gets the upper hand, and then pulls back his hood to reveal what the acid has done to his face: all that now remains is a skull. His name, he says, is now Skeletor. “Not a pretty sight, is it?” he sneers at the King. “You did this.” The villain now looks the way he had in the ’80s cartoon, and the voice work by Brian Dobson resembles that of the first voice of Skeletor, as done by Alan Oppenheimer.
Prince Adam arrives and doesn’t fare too well against the assembled villains. He watches Skeletor take Randor away for interrogation about where the Elders’ power has gone, and recognizes just how powerless he is. He runs away in the midst of the fight, which astonishes Teela. What she thinks is cowardice is something else entirely: he is returning to Castle Grayskull to become the hero The Sorceress told him about.
He is taken into the depth of the castle and presented with a massive, magical sword. By raising it over his head and saying the right words, he is transformed into He-Man for the first time. The Sorceress uncovers Orko and Cringer, who have seen the whole thing. When he’s told he needs a warrior-creature as a loyal companion, He-Man transforms Cringer into Battle Cat, and the two take off. Amazed and confused, Orko sees himself out.
On the battlefield, Skeletor’s henchmen have taken the high ground. Evil-Lyn uses her considerable magical powers to call down a meteor storm, bombarding the heroes with chunks of flaming rocks from space. The biggest one is headed right for Teela, but He-Man arrives and steps in front of her. With one super-powered punch, he destroys the meteor and saves the group by lifting a gigantic rock to block the rest. He then throws the rock, scattering Evil-Lyn and the other villains.
He-Man rushes off after Skeletor, leaving his new allies to mop up the henchmen. Man-At-Arms is swallowed by one of Mer-Man’s gigantic, flying fish, and Teela works to free him. Elsewhere, Skeletor realizes King Randor doesn’t know the secret location of the Elders’ powers, but he still continues to torture him for the sake of revenge. This is interrupted by He-Man. The two battle, and Skeletor proves himself as a more-than-capable swordsman, but even with his magical attacks, it’s not enough to stop Grayskull’s champion.
Sensing a weakness in He-Man’s desire to save the king, Skeletor says he will push him down a nearby bottomless chasm unless He-Man allows him to leave unmolested. The hero obliges, and Skeletor sends the king falling to his death anyways.
He-Man dives after his father, and the two manage to stop their decent by jamming the Power Sword into the rock wall. They are then fished out by Stratos and the rest of the Defenders. Back topside, He-Man declares them all “masters of the universe,” and tells the king he will be available to save Eternia again whenever he is needed.
The third episode ends with the newly established status quo: Prince Adam is back at the palace, unable to share his secret with Teela or his parents; the uptight Man-At-Arms quarrels with the playful Orko; and Skeletor is back at Snake Mountain, scheming new ways to eliminate He-Man while his underlings, namely Evil-Lyn, look for ways to replace him at the top of the villain’s chain of command.
As the new cartoon aired, Mattel cast a wide net to recapture the expansive range of cross-media saturation they’d enjoyed some 15 years earlier. Video games were released, along with all the t-shirts and other goodies fans expected. Comic books were created by MVCreations to tie into the new continuity. They were released by Image Comics, and then by CrossGen.
The new figures were released in waves, as before, but the waves would come much more frequently this time. Instead of one new group of toys, vehicles, and plays sets every year, these were released seasonally, with four new waves every year. This new toy line also leaned more heavily on variants and different versions of the same characters. Every wave included a new outfit for the hero and villain, such as Jungle Attack He-Man or Fire Armor Skeletor.
There were several issues with the toys’ release and distribution. Shipments of the new Masters of the Universe figures were subject to “shortpacking,” an error where certain toys are not made in the same numbers as others. Boxes sent to retailers contained an uneven number of figures of each character. Shelves ended up full of Samurai He-Mans, but collectors were unable to track down Teela or Ram Man.
The new He-Man and the Masters of the Universe aired for 26 episodes on Cartoon Network, which had become the new industry standard for a season of an animated series. In fall of 2003, the show returned in a slightly rebranded form. It was now called Masters of the Universe vs. The Snake Men. This second season would shift the focus away from Skeletor as the main villain, and introduce King Hiss and the Snake Men as an ancient, evil army that had plagued Eternia in the Preternia days. They had been imprisoned in a parallel universe by the planet’s Council of Elders, but in the modern day, they escape to do battle with He-Man, Skeletor, and anyone else who stands in their way.
This second season was cut short in January of 2004 with its 12th episode, the 39th overall, titled “Awaken the Serpent.” Canceled due to its underperforming toy line, the cartoon was unable to resolve its numerous plot threads. The second season had also been laying the groundwork for Hordak and the evil Horde, intending them to be the villains of season three. These plans too, never came to fruition. The completed script for episode 40, “Captured,” was adapted into a comic book and released with the series’ last DVD set in 2008.
The last toy wave was released in winter 2004. Unlike the others, it did not contain any vehicles or play sets. The figures were primarily new versions or repaints of previously released characters.
Though the latest incarnation of He-Man and his friends did not prove capable of succeeding in the modern toy market, there were still as many hardcore Masters of the Universe fans as there had ever been.
To fill this need, the National Entertainment Collectibles Association, or NECA, stepped in. The figurines they released were not articulated like standard action figures, but made to the same scale as the 2002 relaunch figures, and in the same Mike Young Productions/Four Horsemen style. The new “staction figures” were made for characters who had not yet had new toys made in the relaunch, such as Clamp Champ and Hordak. They were released for a collector’s market, in much smaller print runs and often as exclusives at conventions like the San Diego Comic Con between 2005 and 2007.
After the collapse of the 2002 relaunch, Masters of the Universe returned to its previous spot in pop culture, as a once-ubiquitous property that was now known to all and loved by many. Its followers were not as many as some other cross-media brands, but just as dedicated and passionate.
Since 1987, He-Man had remained in the periphery of the public consciousness as Mattel staged various comebacks. As more time passed and there were more varied interpretations of the character, fans were able to look back at the different incarnations to decide which one they liked best. The general public, too, could look back on the things they saw as children and reevaluate their merit with a more adult mindset.
And just like that, people began to talk about the Lundgren/Langella Masters of the Universe film again.