Masters of the Universe

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BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL!

Masters of the Universe refers to three things. Firstly, it refers to a universe created by action figure company Mattel to cover two related toylines; He-Man and She-Ra, both of which were popularized by series of comics and cartoons. Secondly, it refers to the lesser heroes who assist He-Man in his battle against his archnemesis, Skeletor. Finally, it refers to an upcoming tabletop RPG set in said universe, officially presented in the 2020 Power-Con.

The MotU-verse is classic 80s Sword & Sorcery, revolving around super-powered magical barbarians armed with blatantly anachronistic super-tech seeking to defend their respective worlds, Eternia and Etheria, from different would-be world conquerors. They are generally regarded as stupid yet awesome by old-school fans. A lot of the vehicles and concepts were just a room full of toy designers thinking up goofy ideas they thought were cool and seeing what stuck.

Of note is the 2002 reboot, which manages to be a cartoon reboot done right. The storytelling is a bit more serious than the super goofy original, several toy-only characters promoted to speaking roles, and a few small tweaks are made to improve the overall product (He-Man is no longer just Adam in less clothing, leaving a question how nobody can tell they’re the same person, but a much buffer guy with slightly different hair), but it’s still recognizable as a successor and clearly done by people who gave a damn about the franchise. Naturally, it only lasted two seasons.

Eternia

The first half of the combined MotU-verse, Eternia was originally presented as a Sword & Sorcery world of the "magical Post-Apocalyptic remnants of a hyper-advanced civilization", leading to the Conan-esque tiger-riding barbarian He-Man facing off against tanks and cyborgs. The first cartoon in 1983 presented as slightly closer to a standard fantasy world, in that there were functional governments beyond tribes, but still left it with that iconic 80s S&S style mixture of magic and tech with no explanation given whatsoever. Also, it's an alien world - Prince Adam's mom is actually a human astronaut who visited the place and decided to stay and marry a local king.

Eternia is home to the legendary Castle Greyskull, a mystical fortress which is shaped so its front looks like a giant, slightly demonic skull and which houses ancient sources of magical knowledge and power that would elevate anyone who could gain control of it to basically the role of a living god. Naturally, this means the evil warlock Skeletor wants it for himself. Since the nameless sorceress who currently acts as Greyskull's glorified housekeeper suffers a curse that prevents her from using her power or even leaving Greyskull without being stuck in the form of a telepathic falcon, it relies on a guardian. That guardian is Prince Adam, who discovered the enchanted Sword of Power. By holding it into the air and speaking the magic phrase, "By the power of Greyskull", he is transformed into He-Man, who can draw upon the magical energies of Castle Greyskull to gain superhuman physical abilities. To protect his family and limit the amount of people who know about Castle Greyskull, Prince Adam treats He-Man as a secret identity, using a very Batman-esque routine of pretending to be a cowardly, klutzy fop to disguise the connection between them.

Etheria

After the success of the He-Man cartoon, Mattel decided to snort a bunch of cocaine and came up with the craziest idea of the 80s: what if we tried making a He-Man-style show, but aimed at girls?

The result was an animated movie "Secrets of the Sword", which introduced the planet Etheria; a magical world being invaded and all but conquered by the Horde; an army of space-faring mutants, aliens, cyborgs, robots and wizards, led by the shapeshifting cyborg sorcerer, Hordak (who was later established as Skeletor's former teacher). Hordak's right-hand woman is Adora, who over the course of the movie is revealed to be Adam's twin sister (she was kidnapped as a baby and raised by Horde Prime) and gets the Sword of Protection, a twin version of Adam's own Sword of Power that lets her become a super-powered barbarian in her own right by chanting the phrase, "For the honor of Greyskull". Having learned the truth of her origins, She-Ra (as she calls herself) turns against the Horde and becomes the champion of Etheria's resistance against the invaders.

Legends of Grayskull

An RPG based on the franchise, to be filled in once the game actually comes out in 2021 and /tg/ gets their hands on it. It's based on the Cortex Prime system.

There was also a "simple" MotU RPG released in 1985 by FASA, but it was basically a glorified boardgame with some RPG elements, ala Warhammer Quest, so it flopped badly.

Cartoons

The basic idea behind Eternia and Etheria first evolved in mini-comics distributed with the action figures into the Filmation cartoons of the 80s; He-Man & The Masters of the Universe in 1983, and spin-off series She-Ra: Princess of Power in 1985. The basic concept of is outlined above. They were then followed by a couple of other cartoons as the years rolled by and Matel tried to rekindle the magic of the early 80s.

The New Adventures of He-Man

The first attempt to revive the Masters of the Universe cartoon universe came in 1990, with this single-season, 65 episode series. It abandoned the Sword & Sorcery aesthetic for a purely science fiction one, with the backstory being that the Galactic Guardians, the defenders of the far-off planet Primus, come to Eternia seeking aid against their enemies; the evil mutants of Denebria. The evil Commander Flogg, ruler of Denebria, follows the Guardians, and forms an alliance with Skeletor, whilst at the same time He-Man agrees to aid the Galactic Guardians in the fight against Denebria. This results in the two archenemies being taken from Eternia to the far-off star system of Primus and Denebria.

Unusually for an 80s/90s cartoon, this show actually had at least a semblance of a concluded story arc, ending with the seeming triumph of He-Man and the Guardians over the Mutant Armada and Skeletor alike.

At the time, the show was widely panned amongst MotU fans for the changes in setting, new art style and tweaked characters, even though it was supposed to be a continuation of the original 80s cartoon. Ironically, after seeing how Mattel revived the series in the post-2010s, fans are willing to concede that maybe they were a little too harsh about this show.

He-Man & The Masters of the Universe 2002

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." Jean Luc Picard

The second attempt at rebooting the series. Toned down the camp and the humor, turned up the action, improved the animation, and generally gave the classic He-Man show a more serious look without going full grimdark overload. If there was anything to complain on, it took the original campy Science Fantasy setting and played down the fantasy, but still retained all sort of magic bullshit. Was beloved by the fans of MotU who actually watched it, but was marketed absolutely terribly, so it got canned after only two seasons due to resulting poor ratings.

She-Ra & The Princesses of Power

2018 reboot of the original She-Ra. Immediately put fans on edge for its artstyle, which took the already contentious "CalArts Style" and deliberately cranked up the androgyny meter for all the cast. The actual show itself was initially not received too much better, with many decrying it as "She-Ra: The Tumblr Version". Instantly accused for being choke-full of SJW stuff, with people ignoring entirely what the original 80s cartoon was: bunch of half-naked, beefy men physically wrestling each other in an intense passion for domination. To much surprise, the series ended up holding its ground quite well despite the blunder of the first few episodes, with multiple seasons and even a movie in production, all while keeping reasonably high ratings. Guess to never judge a book by its cover. That and the fact bitching about a kids show aimed for little girls in the first place is bound to make anyone participating in it look fucking pathetic. Though it is straight out gay (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Masters of the Universe: Revelation

2021 series advertising itself as a continuation of either the original '83 He-Man or the '02 He-Man. Fans were initially cautiously optimistic when they saw it was going to be done in gloriously well-defined animation all the 2002 He-Man instead of in the CalArts Style like She-Ra or Thundercats Roar. But alarm bells started ringing when character design was presented, including Teela looking literally like a guy if you remove the makeup. The alarmists sadly turned out to be right when the show aired and it immediately turned into an SJW dumpsterfire, with He-Man getting killed off in the first episode, the iconic Masters of the Universe team being disbanded and instead being replaced by Teela, Evil-Lyn and Andra (a previously white now black engineer woman ported over from the old Marvel He-Man comics), with Beast-Man and Orko as sidekicks, and Teela turning into a self-centered unlikable bitch.

Fans are split... on whether this series is as bad as what happened to Star Wars and Star Trek, or if it's worse. Though He-Man does return to being main character mid-season and Skeletor and Evil-Lyn becoming He-Skeletor and He-Evil-Lyn and Beast-Man becoming Battle Beast-Man.

He-Man & The Masters of the Universe 2021

Another remake, except in cgi, that takes a more sci-fi edge. And while there is a lot of difference to the original, it is ironically more faithful to the original. With great characters and plot.

Board Games

Due to licensing shenanigans, there were two Masters of the Universe board games released around the same time: CoolMiniOrNot's Clash for Eternia for the North American market (crowdfunded on Kickstarter), and Archon Studios's Fields of Eternia for the EU market (crowdfunded on Gamefound). Fields is more card- and narrative-based than Clash, which is more dice-based.

Trivia

• One of the original He-Man toys was called Stinkor, a skunk dude who's power was (surprise surprise) being really malodorous. To achieve this, they had added Patchouli oil to the plastics before moulding. This stunk up the factory so bad that it basically made the factory unbearable to work in.