Masters of the Universe Comics History

Something must be happening, something big. We

better get to Whispering Woods fast! I getcha.

By the power of Braceco! Hello, this is TFU and

Mike and welcome to the 75th chapter in our Powers

of Grayskull series. With me for this journey

into the Masters of the Universe Comics franchise

is none other than Adas Baron himself. Hello,

sir. Hello, hello, hello, hello. Yes. Adas Baron

is new to the Powers of Grayskull series podcast.

We've been doing this just to give you some background.

Optimus Solo and I have been doing this for the

last four and a half. Next year will be five

years. It's taken us that long to go through

all 130 episodes of Filmation He -Man and almost

all 90. We're getting close to the end of the

93 episodes of She -Ra. You gonna do new adventures?

Sadly, yes. That's gonna be our summer... summer

series next year in 2017 and then the 2002 series

will cap off the the podcast at the end of the

year next year because I was not gonna have this

show go on beyond five years oh my god five years

of podcasting for all this stuff holy crap but

we are here to talk about the comics what so

sprinkled in throughout some of these usually

every 25 episodes we put in like episode 50 we

talked about all the toys Kevin and I talked

about all the toys. Here's comics. I think episode

100 will be like a probably a 30th anniversary

DVD commentary of the original 1987 film, seeing

as how it's 30 years old next year. Oh my god.

Oh boy. Yeah. Oh boy. So you and I have actually

been doing the comic series over in the pull

bag for Masters from the DC stuff, starting with

the 2012 miniseries. We've been doing that for

two years now. Has it been that long? Yes. I'm

such a child chap and now I'm just old and haggard.

Yeah, June 5th, 2013 was when we first put up

the He -Man and the MOTU 2012 mini -series episode.

Oh boy. It's been a long two years, folks. It's

been fun. It's been amazing. But we are here

to talk about the overall history of the Masters

of the Universe in comics, and this year marks

35 years since the comics started. They started

in 1981, two years before the cartoon series.

I mean, it still feels kind of like yesterday.

It doesn't. Sort of. See, it doesn't to me, because

I am one of those people that... I remember seeing

the mini comics. I don't think I ever had any

of them as a kid. Well, I was born in 84, so

I don't have a lot of memories about the original

run of everything. When I would go to toy stores,

I was more focused on Ghostbusters and Turtles,

so I can't even remember paying attention to

them in the aisles. I don't know if I ever saw

them. Dark Horse recently I think it was earlier

this year or might have been last year they just

put out Dark Horse comics just put out the giant

mini comic collection so there's a giant super

book of all the mini comics collected together

which is nice and you have that. Have you looked

through that at all? Have you read through it

or? Oh, I have. I got it for Christmas last year.

Oh, did you? Okay. That came out last year. The

way they did it digitally was they did it volume

one and volume two. Volume one is like 600 pages.

There's no way they would have gotten away with

putting the whole thing in digital. Yeah, I would

agree. It's clocks in well over 1 ,100 pages.

Yeah. Yeah. So they broke it up into two parts

in the... in the... in Comixology and the digital

versions. And I gotta say, I read through just

before we started this, because like I said before,

I've never really read the mini comics. I read

through, I think, like the first seven issues

of it. The storybook ones? Yeah. I like the storybook

ones. I think they're pretty cool, it's different.

You can't go wrong with the Al -Khal artwork.

Yeah. I mean, what I liked about the storybook

ones is I just assumed that that was gonna be,

you know, what the entire run was gonna be and

then it changed and I'm like, oh. I know, there's

so many different continuities within the mini

-comics and then within the DC ones and everything

else. The thing with the mini -comics is, I read

the storybook once and I enjoyed those and I

just started skimming through the rest of it

just to kind of get a feel for the art and see

what some of the stories are and they highlight

things like Triclops and Trapjaw and Skeletor

and Grayskull and all that stuff but I'm not

a fan of old Marvel... old traditional marvel

traditional coloring style red black yellow and

blue you know you look at um the old transformers

comics and megatron is like blue and white yeah

very basic yeah i'm not a fan of that at all

because i i come from watching the cartoons and

the whole time i'm reading the storybook aspect

of the the original many comics i'm like hey

that's essentially konan which i know that was

kind of the whole play on thing, because in the

first part of the storybook comics, until he

meets the sorceress or Teela or whoever the hell

she's supposed to be, he's pretty much half -naked

with a loincloth on until he gets the armor from

her. And I'm like, wow, that's pretty interesting

art. And I thought the storybook stuff was interesting

because, as you said, it's storybook, so it's

a picture, words, a picture, words, and... doing

that in the guided view on comxology was really

interesting. It looks really good, at least to

me it does. It's one of those things where I

almost would prefer reading comics like that

now. Like sometimes in any comic today, it doesn't

matter what series it is, what kind of layout

it has. Sometimes I get confused with Where certain

things start and end sometimes not all the time

But just every now and then I do and this storybook

style. I really dug it. I thought it was great

Basically in the guided view what they do is

they start you off with a part of the story They

show you an image for the next panel, and then

they you know Show you another part of you know

part of the story to read in book so That was

interesting Well, I like going through the guided

view because even when you're looking at a whole

page there can be Surprise story twists, but

your eyes kind of gonna be Diverted towards that

even before you get to it. Mm -hmm, or least

with me Yeah, so by going with the guided view

it just kind of cuts all that out and I wind

up surprised Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's that's

one of the reasons why I've always been a champion

of that guided view on comicsology because it's

just like you said it's just like oh wow because

sometimes the guided view will give you a really

cool splash page where you really kinda can't

get I mean there are splash pages in comics and

it's nice if you're you know you have a physical

copy of a comic and you can open it up and see

it but the guided view as you said is pretty

much you hit the right arrow or the right button

or whatever else and oh hey I was not expecting

that at all so Yeah, I that there has not been

I don't think I'm looking here It doesn't seem

like there's been a too much of a break in the

comics here I mean just from what I'm seeing

here the original run was from 81 to 83 DC had

a limited series in 82 There were later minute

cut many comics from 85 to 87 And then the Princess

of Power mini comics were 84 to 86. Marvel Star

Comics series was 86 to 87. The UK magazines,

which those would be interesting to look at,

I think. I've never, I don't think I've ever

seen those. That ran from 86 to 90. And then

another He -Man mini comic started in 89. And

then the Dark Horse mini comics in 2011. And

obviously DC's been doing it since 2012. I'm

more of the modern person for this type stuff.

Like I said, I don't really remember too much

of the original mini -comics or even the Princess

of Power stuff. And to be honest, even though

we're going through all of She -Ra and reviewing

every single episode, I maybe remember outside

of Secret of the Sword, because I always say

that that's kind of separate. I maybe remember

10 episodes from She -Ra and not just the 10

that are on the best of DVD, but like... Until

we started doing this podcast. I did not remember

half of the stuff in Chira because by 85 I was

so engrossed with Optimus Prime and Megatron

and Giant robots who knows what Skeletor will

do to Adora if he sees all your soldiers coming

listen to them King Randor Hey, man, I had a

funny feeling he might show up. So they had Very

so the mini comics came out with the original

toys through all of them. And it's interesting

here how they take various characters and work

it into a mini -comic. Like, you know, the first

one was He -Man and the Power Swords. You got

a story based on that. You got King of Castle

Grayskull. You got Battle in the Clouds. The

Vengeance of Skeletor. So that's the first arc.

And then the second series had stuff like, you

know, He -Man Meets Ram -Man, The Ordeal of Manifaces,

The Terror of Triclops, The Menace of Trapjaw.

And these stories, from what I was able to read

through before we did this, they're actually

really, really good. The stories are. The art,

on the other hand, when the art styles behind

it. Yeah. Again, for me, I think it's more so

I'm so used to pot Mahan and all the current

artists than I am the classic ones Do you have

a favorite story from the original storybook

run or? Any of the other runs? I mean you can't

go wrong with the storybook ones as I'm looking

at the book itself it's easy to find it because

there's big colorful streak on the side of the

pages, but i think a lot of people know bruce

tim did a couple of the issues however he did

one i think it was a storybook yeah it was a

storybook and he did the art and he painted it

so it doesn't have i said oh wow yeah so it doesn't

have that comic book coloring feel it really

pops and it looks more like painted artwork and

it's it's just absolutely spectacular It really

they really do look amazing What I find interesting

is as they're going through that some of these

after the second series the third series ended

up being Filmation Motu and they basically Adapted

the cartoon series into comic form Yeah, I think

what was it slave city, but they changed some

of the characters out mm -hmm and They did Slave

City, Siege of Avalon or Avion, Double -Edged

Sword, He -Man and the Insect People, The Secret

Liquid of Life. Oh my god, Valley of Power, that

was a horrible episode of He -Man. The one thing

I'm noticing with the initial run of the mini

-comics, or at least before you get into She

-Ra, you're kind of broken up in waves. Right.

So you have your 81 to 83, and then the ones

that are based on the cartoon. And every bunch

of those, Tila is depicted different in each

one of them. Yeah, she is. They don't seem to

be able to lock down a ready look for her. Yeah,

no, they don't at all. So through the fourth

fifth and sixth series we had various stories

like Skeletor's Dragon and Leech the master of

power suction unleashed. Oh my god I have to

go back and read that one because wow I've never

really been a leech fan because of more so the

voice than anything else because it's so hard

to understand a daffy duck Yeah. Automation to

do it. Yeah. There's so many things behind Leech's

voice, not the voice actor, just what they put

behind the voice to give it that classic suction

cuppy sound. And it just sounds like a really,

really bad daffy duck impression. Well, was it

Lou Scheimer? Because I think the man only has

just his normal voice and then they just distort

it to hell. Yeah. I don't know off the top of

my head, I don't have the list pulled up of who

was what character voice. I know Lou did Orko,

Lou did Cowell, Lou did a whole bunch of other

voices. So there's that. In the fifth and sixth

series we get stories like Between a Rock and

a Hard Place. the ultimate battleground, the

search for Keldor. So even back in 86, they had

the whole Keldor Skeletor thing. Like I knew

that wasn't like a new thing. It's just the series,

the toy line died before they could get into

it more. Right, yeah. Yeah. Well, like, you know

after seeing the whole 2002 series I knew that

Keldor was not just in 2002 he was obviously

in this before And then I think they did this

one leading up to the movie the cosmic key in

1986 Yeah, that's where things start to get a

little zany Because after that, we go back two

years to 1984 and we have the Princess of Power

mini -comics. And then there's the New Adventure

mini -comics. Oh my god, New Adventures. Hey,

wait. There's a story in here for the She -Ra

comics. Fantastic fashions in 1985. So does that

mean She -Ra and Jim teamed up? It's possible.

They gotta listen to music other than Bo, I'm

sure. Let's hope because both kind of a bad musician

Yeah, what are you gonna say earlier? No, you

mentioned the concept cosmic key and I'm flipping

through this and oh good. God is the artwork

atrocious Yeah But with the the Shira one if

you notice, I don't know how much of it you've

read but at the end of each one they have to

Give you a life lesson and they have to highlight

it in red Yeah, see I Understand why the cartoons

themselves had to have the PSA's with he man

You had various characters coming in at the end

whether it's he man or go man -at -arms whomever

in Shira I don't know why the hell they tried

to have some stalker kid hiding in the bushes

waiting to jump out at people I have no like

I have never really cared for Lukey at all and

on top of that that high -pitched Shimer voice

that they used just yeah yeah I think it was

just their attempt to try to pull in girls with

bright colorful happy plush characters I guess

And then we had the Motu Classics series, Mini

Comics. This was in 2011. And then after that,

we got the DC stuff. And you and I, as I said,

have been doing the DC stuff for two or three

years now. And at the end, we have not had a

chance yet, folks, because the holidays and it's

the end of the year, and just too much going

on. We have not had a chance yet to finish up

our Eternity War coverage. We still have... two

episodes to go, two pullback episodes to go for

that. So we are still gonna be doing that. We're

gonna do one podcast with issues 11 to 13 from

Attorney War, and then the final one for Attorney

War will be 14 and 15. But after Attorney War

ended, I was like, so what's next? And then a

few months ago, a story popped up, He -Man and

Thundercats. So that's the next big thing. With

the whole Maddie Collector thing going under,

they might just be trying to just be the last

hurrah for a while. See, I thought Eternity War

was going to be the last hurrah for a while.

But who knows? As long as I get my Thundercats.

Exactly. I mean, who knows? I mean, it's DC and

it's Mattel. I don't really see... Mean, I know

Maddie collector is a part of Mattel, but I don't

really see Mattel not allowing DC to do more

stuff After the Thundercats series after the

human Thundercats series Maybe DC will strike

up a deal with super 7 since super 7 took over

the toys now. Yeah, so who knows Was there was

there a comic either recently in the last you

know three four five years or back in the old

days that you like going back to a lot to read

of the ones i have in front of me of the one

yeah i guess i mean definitely any of the bruce

tim stuff um it's almost when i'm flipping through

it oh what if you just fit batman in those panels

how would the artwork sync up with one another

Because it's not exactly on par with his traditional

style There it's a little more rounded, but it's

you can definitely tell like in the eyes and

whatnot, right? Yeah Yeah Yeah, I mean and the

Bruce Tim stuff. I mean both I think he had a

slight hand in the cartoon I know Paul Dini had

a hand in the cartoon for a while and then they

had gone over to various other projects before

starting Batman in 92 Oh man, that show's 25

years old next year. I know, we're old. So yeah,

I mean, this is kind of a short discussion here,

folks, because I, you know, I tried getting certain,

you know, other people in on this and no one

was really available. And surprisingly, and I'm

going to call him out here because, you know,

I just love... transformers generation one Dan

so there's that nobody will get that joke but

no good old pixel Dan I actually asked him if

he wanted to be on this and he said you know

surprisingly I don't really know all that much

about the comics and I'm like but your pixel

Dan you make Masters of the Universe your life

in plastic form and the video form It's time

to form those blazing comics there, Dan. Oopsies.

Alright. The busy, busy man. Yeah, I know. He's

super busy. Yeah, I wonder what's on the horizon

for the stuff, because I think the He -Man Thundercats

thing, that's not an ongoing. That's gonna end

up a miniseries, isn't it? Yeah, I'd imagine

it would be. Yeah. And they had the DC vs. Mo

-2 miniseries. the DC Universe versus Motive

series, which we covered. So they kind of have

already done He -Man and Batman and Superman

and all that, but you're right. That would be

awesome to see BTIS Batman Bruce Tim style going

up against Filmation Bruce Tim style He -Man.

That would be kind of cool. He's Batman. He'll

always win. Of course. Anything else you want

to say about the comics overall in general? I

was surprised with, you know, being in my 30s

now, how fun it still is to read these things,

and it doesn't feel necessarily like, you know,

you're reading a little kid's book. I mean, essentially

you are, but the mini comics themselves, while

they're a little dumbed down, they're not pandering

to the audience. Right, yeah. With the exception

of the, here's the lesson of the day, kids. Yeah,

who is giving the lesson of the day um it's usually

any of Not one specific character, so it's not

like it's Cal every issue or lukey at every issue

I Think it changes That's good, that's good Yeah,

and I remember you know when we When we eventually

when we when we got around to doing the DC universe

mo to crossover thing I remember a lot of people,

everybody has always bitched about Orko. People

love to bitch about the little, like, side...

I know, I mean, I'm one of them. I bitch about

Lukie all the time. I think there's been a one

time in the Shira part of this podcast that I

actually enjoyed Lukie being in an episode, but...

Orko, to me, he is a side character, but he's

more than that. I mean... I was not expecting

him to show up in She -Ra, and he does. He has

a whole episode with Madame Raz and Shadow Weaver,

and that was awesome. But in the DC Universe,

Masters of the Universe 6 issue crossover, they

give Orko more backstory, more character depth

than I've ever seen, and then people are complaining,

oh, but Horde Prime took him over and turned

him dark and emo. Like it was something out of

frozen or something which it wasn't thank God

Well, you'll you'll never be able to appease

hardcore fans with anything Listen, but I mean

we're hardcore fans. And how did you feel about

the whole orco thing? I mean, I mean I was kind

of indifferent towards it I mean they seem to

be going up until that point with like they can

never advance the story at all It was always

kind of oh here's he man. He gets his powers.

Here's Skeletor. They fight they fight and nothing

really progresses. Yeah. But with these, they

gave some thought into it and the story started

going in some places. Maybe not for the best,

but it's still in places nonetheless. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, see, I think that's the, I think

that's DC's problem is that they'll start something

and then they'll, you know, say, oh, well, you

know, this is going to be a new ongoing. and

then it has a limited run whether it's because

of cost or whether it's because of not performing

well in sales or whatever and then whatever the

next story they try to do they basically have

to restart the whole damn thing even though from

the 2012 miniseries up until the end of eternity

war it's all one continuity It still felt like

every time that they're you know between the

end of issue 18 I will say issue 18 because issue

19 does not friggin count in the ongoing series

of the 2013 ongoing series because that was just

stupid. But at the end of the last chapter of

Blood or Grey Skull between that and the start

of attorney war it's like huh so yeah the story

is continuing but we still have to find out about

all this other stuff and I don't know. Well,

those two seemed to flow into one another fine,

but all the other DC stuff around that time I

was a little confused as to what fit where. Yeah

Yeah, I I'd almost love I don't think this will

ever happen But you know, I'd almost love for

the Mattel MOTU license for comics to go to IDW

Because IDW's got everything. IDW's got transformers,

it's got ponies, it's got G .I. Joe, it's got

turtles, it's got everything. It's got gems,

it's got masks too, right? Yep, gems, masks.

Mask has already been out. Oh. Yeah. I'll send

you some links later. But yeah, I mean, IDW's

got all the 80s cartoon type properties except

for really He -Man and they've got, you know...

some really great, like I would love to see a

super giant crossover with Optimus Prime and

Gem and Twilight Sparkle and Duke and Scarlet

and He -Man and Teela. I don't know, why couldn't

that work? I feel like these guys tease that

so many times with the exception of their non

-properties and they've never gone through with

it. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Alright folks, I

think we're gonna get the heck out of here If

you guys have any opinions on the comics or you

have any opinions about what we've talked about

Please let me know in the comments on the post

on the website As I said Das and I at the beginning

of next year We will wrap up the Eternity War

coverage and we'll probably start the He -Man

Thundercats coverage at some point next year

I just don't know just yet Coming up next we've

got The first ever double episode of the powers

of grayskull series we've got episode 76 and

77 Optimus soul, and I recorded these in one

night because they're two Shiva cartoons in each

podcast and he makes a joke in that of There's

two episodes in in that four episode span there

one is called Bo's magical gift and The other

one is called glimmer come home or glimmer comes

home so The joke is that Bo's magical gift makes

glimmer come home So all right, yeah There's

that so huge double -sized episode and the funny

thing is It's not any longer than what a normal

regular sized episode would it be of powers of

grayskull it ended up being like an hour and

45 minutes I thought it was gonna be longer So

yeah, what have you got going on? Where can the

people find you online sir? mainly just Facebook

and Instagram I've Fallen in love with Instagram

over the past couple of months and it helps Keep

my sanity in line when I'm working a retail job

Yes So it's it's very It's a good outlet for

my sick twisted sense of humor Taking inappropriate

pictures of Jeffrey are you? No, no, I'm not

working at Toys R Us anymore. Thank God you got

that joke. Because that was going to come out

all kinds of wrong. No, I got it out of there

three years ago. So what are the handles? Is

it just A -B on both? Yes, A -B. All right. Some

you can find me at tf2nmike on twitter at pow

of greyskull is the show twitter at geek cast

radio is the network twitter you can also go

to facebook .com slash geek cast radio network

like us there obviously go to the website geekcastradio

.com We will catch you next time folks in episode

60 no episode 76 and 77 By the power and for

the honor of greyskull you all have the power

Of course, if you'd rather remain here... Never.

I hate this place. You two, bring the girl here.

No! No! Well, what are you waiting for? I'm afraid

the plan has been changed, old friend. I have

better use for the Princess of Eternia than you.

What? Now get him no Skeletor you traitor And

now princess I must decide what to do with you

She's fated just like a woman Oh, pretty princess.

It's too bad we have to lock you up in the dungeon.

Thanks for the compliment, Fang. You can't do

this to me. Funny. I thought I just did it. Bye

now. Where are we going? To the lab. Skeletor

wants us to run some tests on this sword the

princess was carrying. What for? Odak seems to

think there was something special about it. Who

are you, woman? The name's She -Ra. And you can

stop trying to call the king. I've freed the

princess. What? Get her! My, you boys are forward.

Oh, all right. One dance and that's it. Now you

fellows are using your heads. Just ahead of us.

Let's be careful. He -Man, look out! What happened

to them? I've got a pretty good idea. Hello,

He -Man. Sorry you missed all the fun. Who in

the world is that? Teela, man -at -arms. This

is my friend, She -Ra. Nice to meet you. Where's

Princess Adora? Uh, she's, uh... Oh, she's safe.

Right, right. Well, then what are we doing here?

Nothing much. So what say we all leave? Fine

with me. I don't believe this.