Masters of the Universe: Revelation Is the Best He-Man Story Ever

Dreamed up by toy salesmen in the very early 1980s, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe franchise has seen a lot of adaptations. Classic children’s cartoons in the 1980s and the early 2000s. Not so classic ones in the 1990s, along with a regrettable film adaptation. Yet, the recent Masters of the Universe: Revelation series on Netflix is simply the best He-Man story ever told.

In today’s fandom-conscious world, things like “canon” means more than that one Christmas song and dusty old books in a university library. Fans take the rules and histories of their favorite characters seriously. When it comes to Masters of the Universe, creating a cohesive universe was never top priority. Kids would read one set of stories in comics and see another set on TV. The 2002 series did introduce a serialized element in its last season, but beyond that these characters are almost designed not to progress, grow or change.

That’s where Masters of the Universe: Revelation becomes revolutionary. For the first time, fans get to see He-Man, Teela, Man-At-Arms and all the characters be different people in the last episode than they were in the first. These versions of the characters get mad and stay mad for an episode or two. When a character dies? It sticks. (Well, in most cases.)

Every good genre story has an element of silliness, and Masters of the Universe has plenty. For example, the original action figures were designed for a Conan the Barbarian-style setting. Yet, when it came time for vehicles, they had no budget left. So, they just repurposed some space vehicles from a canceled line, and thus they became “space barbarians.” The characters have names like “Clamp Champ,” “Fisto” and “Trapjaw.” It’s as if the toy creators were daring the writers and artists to try to tell a story with any redeeming value given such ridiculous characters. But they did.

Filmation, the studio founded by Lou Scheimer, did cartoons on the cheap, and it made the first Masters of the Universe series. Essentially half-hour commercials for toys, somewhere along the way Filmation decided to use the show to tell stories about heroism, empathy, compassion and forgiveness. Skeletor and his evil minions would try some bad shenanigans, and He-Man would stop them with the help of his friends. He was the most powerful man in the universe, and even he couldn’t do it alone. Even without a serialized element, Flimation did create some iconic mythology for the series. The Sorceress can’t leave Castle Greyskull, the center of all good magic in Eternia. Teela doesn’t know who her parents are, though they are strongly hinted to be said Sorceress and Man-At-Arms.

At the end of every half-hour episode, the main characters would be right where they started, as paragons of virtue. Masters of the Universe: Revelation is a comparatively mature take on these characters, giving them real stakes. Showrunner Kevin Smith and his team of storytellers created a narrative that took all those original themes and put them into a story that changed the characters. In the big battle between He-Man and Skeletor, both are seemingly killed. We see characters like King Randor and Queen Marlena dealing with the grief of both losing their son and not knowing he was Eternia’s greatest hero. Teela takes the titular revelation the hardest, abandoning her life has a palace guard. Orko suffers depression at the loss of his magic. The show picks up years later, when Teela’s old life comes back to haunt her.

What follows are a handful of episodes about grief and how important He-Man was to the world of Eternia. One criticism of this series was that the show was sold as being about He-Man, and he died in the first episode. Yet, stories about a character’s absence are still about that character. Through memory or magic vision, He-Man appears in every episode of this show. The different versions we see, however, let viewers see this Superman-like hero from other perspectives. We see how he’s a savior, a faithful ally, but we also see a version of He-Man that’s scary. What happens if the most powerful man in Eternia wasn’t everyone’s friend?

Of course, by the second half of the season, He-Man and Skeletor both return. Yet, in the back episodes we get a closer look at the villains. In the cartoons, every time Skeletor called one of his underlings a “blithering boob” it was great. Yet, this series contemplates what life is like for those who serve under his abusive rule. Evil-Lyn, his right hand, does what villains do and tries to take all the power for herself. Who knew a story about the guy with a skull for a face in the space barbarian TV show could also be a damning commentary on patriarchal power dynamics? Not bad for a cartoon with a talking tiger and a guy who’s got lobster claws for hands named “Clawful.”

Every story about He-Man (or She-Ra and her cadre of powerful princesses) tells a story about hope. Masters of the Universe: Revelation shows us how well the characters in these stories do when there’s not a lot of hope to spare. It’s the type of heroic story that isn’t afraid to let its heroes fail, sometimes more than once. The storytellers wanted people to shed tears for these silly characters. Orko was a controversial character. He’s the Jar-Jar Binks of Masters of the Universe. He frequently messes up, and kids either loved or hated him, no middle ground. In Revelation, there is a scene with Orko that would turn all those kids who hate him into believers.

Masters of the Universe is a story that should never work because it’s too contrived to make any sense. Yet generations of children let these characters light a spark in their imaginations that burns into adulthood. Masters of the Universe: Revelation is a gift to those fans, because it delivers the kind of emotionally complex and high-stakes story they’ve always wanted.

Masters of the Universe: Revelation Season 1 is available on Netflix.

Additional source: The Toys That Made Us: Master of the Universe on Netflix