He-Man and the Masters of the Multiverse #4

[superboyprime]

"There were lots of partial ideas, and maybe some crossover thoughts, and then I had pitched this idea of, 'Let's do Anti-Eternia.' Because that's just such a cool concept and it's never been used. And then they came back with, 'Well, we want to do a thing that's playing with all the different iterations of Masters of the Universe. Sort of like a Crisis in Masters of the Universe.' So they asked me pitch it and I combined ideas and came up with this weird idea where a bad He-Man tracks the others across the universe and tries to absorb them all." - Tim Seeley

Comments

[coldfury]

Man, this comic is way better than it has any right to be. Thank you for bringing it to my attention!

[jlbarnett]

why do writers who look back at this stuff always at to pick at the tropes

[coldfury]

With a series like this, you're doing a distilled look at each of these little segments. Movie!He-Man is war weary because look at his Eternia in the movie. Cartoon!He-Man is cheerfully optimistic because that's what the cartoon *was*.

We're not visiting these set-pieces to evolve them, we're here to cherry pick the best elements that suit the story, pay homage to them, and advance the master story. It's no coincidence that our protagonists are an OC Skeletor character, a mobile game He-Man, and the movie He-Man. They have the least inertia to being developed.

The more you try to evolve or change the 80's He-Man, for example the higher chance the fans will reject it or you stumble too far away from his core concepts.

That's why they go for the easy references. Partially because it's what everyone remembers, and because it lets them use storytelling shorthand to establish these characters quickly and move onto the juicy bits of the story. And frankly, because it's what most of us want to see when we're looking at a nostalgia project like this.

[icon_uk]

And they had experience of trying to change He-Man already, with Space Mullet He-Man, whose movie was a critical and commercial flop, and not liked by fans of the cartoon, who saw little of it in any aspect of the movie: No Prince Adam, no Battle Cat, no Orko etc etc, but we did have random humans and Gwildor, who in fairness looked like he COULD have been a cartoon adaption, but wasn't.

[coldfury]

I thought Space Mullet He-Man was referring to 90s Space Reboot He-Man, and Movie He-Man is 'Looking-Down' He-Man.

[jlbarnett]

and so it needed to be mocked?

[thezmage]

In a way, yeah, movie He-Man and Keldor need to mock the cartoon He-Man because character conflict when different styles butt up against eachother is also central to a story like this. We even see in the end that, though Movie He-Man mocked the cartoon’s lessons he needed that lesson to find the strength to resist the starseed.

[coldfury]

I don't think it really is being 'mocked' here, it's being playfully teased here to highlight the contrast between itself and the movie He-Man, but it looks like 80s He-Man is coming off VERY strongly here. Despite the cartoon sensibilities of his day he's coming off as very competent here. And he didn't even use the power of He-Man (in the scans at least) until the very last page!

[jlbarnett]

later on he is, I was more talking the initial reaction

[shakalooloo]

He-Man's moral lesson saves the day. Hardly mockery. Gentle ribbing, at best.

The art is also superb, I must say.

[mazway_75]

The idea of Skeletor refusing ultimate power because it would mean having to serve it is just perfect.

[owlbrigade1]

"Everyone in this world spends their days teaching each other how to be better people".

And that is why OG He-Man is the best He-Man.

[shakalooloo]

Has Skeletor broken his own spine trying to be Hawkeye as he falls over after throwing the orb away?