The Revelation of Making A Good He-Man Series
Masters of the Universe: Revelation is a stunning success through five episodes.
***NOTE*** There ARE spoilers for the first five episodes of Masters of the Universe: Revelation in this newsletter issue. Don’t read until after you’ve seen them if you’re the type who hates seeing those.
Growing up, I was a huge fan of toy commercials. No, I wasn’t a huge fan of the 30-second ads that were blatant advertising ploys for parents to buy all the latest figures and playsets for various animated properties. No, I was a huge fan of the actual animated properties that were transparently commercials for the toys associated with those shows. I liked quite a bit of those shows growing up: Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters, GI Joe, and of course, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. However, no property held my attention more raptly than He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The show was poorly animated and loosely plotted, but oh man, were all the toys cool as hell or what? I had so many of them growing up, at least until I was more interested in sports and Nintendo. At that point, my mom gave all my toys away. It’s sad because it would’ve been cool to hand those figures down to my son, but sometimes, parents see the joy they would bring other kids in the immediate before taking up premium storage in a Philly rowhome to save for grandkids that aren’t necessarily guaranteed at the time.
Over time, those toy commercials became properties that tried to be more than transparent attempts at hawking crap to parents trying to keep their kids satiated. Rather than being a series of unconnected half-hour episodes meant to introduce characters rather than bind a story together, the kids who grew up into movie and television creators decided to take those properties and give them a nice spit-shine with things like “lore,” “continuity,” and “plot.” Some of those attempts have been better than others. The Transformers movie franchise, though profitable, has churned out a lot of crap, but conversely, there has been a lot of good stuff going on in other franchise reboots, like with My Little Pony, Ninja Turtles, and most stunningly, He-Man’s sister series, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
I was aware of the original She-Ra series, but I didn’t watch much of it because, you know, it was a “girly show.” However, I knew of most of the principles, at least of Adora and the Evil Horde. The latter was a fixture in the He-Man show as a crossover villainous organization, and I had most of those action figures to go with my main ones. That being said, I went into the new series with no expectations and came out amazed. The camp from the original series was sheened over with ‘80s retro gloss that was probably more befitting a reboot of Jem and the Holograms. Still, the aesthetic worked for the show, which had a wonderful grasp of telling a big story that built from season to season. Thousands of old school She-Ra fans were dazzled by the glow-up their appointment viewing from childhood got, and thousands more people, a lot of them young girls and queer youth looking for meaningful representation in their entertainment, were introduced to something good to hold to their chests. I wanted the same for me.
The thing is there have been two attempts at rebooting the series, neither of which lasted more than two seasons. The first one was more of a sequel series that was released in 1990. The second one was a “gritty” reboot in 2003 on Cartoon Network. I didn’t see much of either one, which doesn’t make them invalid, to be quite fair. Still, the success of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power left me wanting a modern reboot, one that didn’t take itself too seriously but one that also had an intriguing story. I preferably wanted something that tied into the She-Ra show, but admittedly, that might have been too greedy to think. Still, having Prince Adam meet up with his long-lost twin sister and her feline girlfriend is too good of a premise not to want to happen.
When I found out Kevin Smith was working on a reboot, my heart sunk just a little bit. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a blind View Askew hater. I love his early work, and even as recently as Zack and Miri Make a Porno, where collaborated with several Judd Apatow mainstays, I’ve enjoyed his work. Still, he’s garnered somewhat of a checkered reputation with his recent work. Still, if it was going to be on Netflix, a service to which I already subscribe, I was going to watch it, at least as long as it was okay for kids. When you’re a parent, your nightly habits have to coincide with keeping young children happy, y’know? Then I started seeing some news that came out of it. The voice cast was STELLAR. Mark Hamill as Skeletor? Lena Headey as Evil-Lyn? Sarah Michelle Gellar as Teela? Luke Cunningham (Ser Davos from Game of Thrones) as Man-At-Arms? Henry Rollins as Tri-Klops? There were a TON of heavy-hitters from jump, people for whom I would listen to read the phone book. Then there was the way Smith talked about the series itself, how he wanted to continue the story (ha) from the original series, and that this series was like he got to play with all the action figures, only in the form of a television show.
Did you have He-Man action figures growing up? Which one was your favorite? Drop it in the comments!
The first five episodes of season one dropped this past Friday, and we as a family sat down to watch them on Sunday. Even if I had allowed my expectations to go unchecked and rise to sky-high levels, they would have been exceeded. These five episodes took risks. They laid down emotional stakes. They had major twists. The action was hot and heavy. Most importantly, these episodes stayed true to the spirit of the original series – not the toy commercial aspect, but the quippy, campy action-fest aspect – while elevating it with a cohesive, emotionally-charged, overarching story that stayed true to the original personalities of the characters while evolving them for a more mature audience.
The first risk Smith and his team took was not focusing the show on Prince Adam/He-Man and Skeletor. He did that by having them apparently kill each other in the pilot episode in a climactic and apocalyptic battle in the Hall of Wisdom. Killing off the main protagonist and antagonist from the original series is a bold move, but it’s also one that pays off if the story that follows is rich and helps develop some other interesting folks along the line. The weight of the story fell on the female seconds of each of those principals in the next four episodes. Evil-Lyn and Teela form an uneasy alliance in a quest to restore the magic to Eternia, magic that was destroyed when He-Man and Skeletor had their destructive battle.
That was the second big risk Smith took. By taking a show that was fueled by so much macho bravado on the surface (but that was always inclusive of women), Smith risked getting his show review-bombed by insecure chauvinists who accuse anyone of trying to elevate a female or gay or minority character as “virtue signaling.” Granted, the show has suffered some of this review-bombing, some from bitter fans of the old show who think the show didn’t elevate female characters like Teela and Evil-Lyn and the Sorceress and eventually Adora/She-Ra. A lot of it was from dedicated trolls who hate when anything tries to be more inclusive. It shouldn’t have been even considered a risk anyway, but in this shit-encrusted world where professional trolls like Ian Miles Cheong and Adam Baldwin hold too much influence, it sadly is.
It was a risk that paid off incredibly. The show has been a study on Teela’s journey as Prince Adam’s best friend and second to a person finding her own identity. It deals a lot in trust, the trust that was broken when she found out everyone was lying to her about who He-Man was, and the trust she had to forge with a mortal enemy. It’s a theme that’s both mature and easy to digest for younger viewers. The story being told here is one that befits a children’s show (and even though Smith has admitted this show was more for people like me, the TV-PG rating makes sure that it is accessible to new young fans too), but it gives kids something to think about too. It gives them something they can look back upon and feel like they were watching something artistic in mind. It really hearkens to Smith’s original oeuvre, not the explicit one of raunchy shock comedy, but one where it was a guy who just liked making films or cartoons getting to be a storyteller. It’s just this story has fantasy, swords, magic, and muscle instead of the wit and sexual entendre of Clerks.
Of course, it could all go pear-shaped with the last five episodes, which don’t have a release date yet. How can you release something that intriguing and awesome and not have a date for when the adoring fans like me can get more? However, the jaw-dropping final scene of episode five, which I won’t spoil for people because it’s that spectacular gives the final five episodes of season one big stakes in uncharted territory. For a funny reason, I trust Smith and his team with landing the plane and hopefully getting a second season from Netflix for this show. It is everything I wanted and then some. In many respects, it’s similar to She-Ra and the Princesses of Power in that it’s respectful to source material that shouldn’t earn such respect while putting a whole new aesthetic spin on it. Instead of going full ‘80s in that direction though, Masters of the Universe: Revelation goes over-the-top on anime trappings. It’s its own thing, and it’s ultimately satisfying.
There’s always money in nostalgia, and no one knows that better than Kevin Smith. The difference between the good interpretations and the bad ones are whether or not the people interpreting it are in it to do something fun or which ones are just grabbing cash. Smith is a lot of things, but for all his faults, he’s not someone who just wants to grab the cash. I’m glad he took the reins on this, because my youngest self who watched every episode of the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series and had so many of the toys is loving the fact that nearly 40-year-old me has this thing from the past that he can hug lovingly.