by Joshua H. Stulman

If you’re a child of the ’80’s then you know from experience how big a deal toys were. There was no “adult collector” market back then. Every successful toyline was a full on merchandising assault captivating every aspect of a young child’s life. From themed cereals, bedding, pencils & notebooks, and of course the big three (Comic Books, Cartoons & Toys), each brand tried to define a unique aspect of fantasy. Hasbro’s Transformers cornered the robot and cars market while they also had G.I. Joe dominating the military themes. Kenner focussed on licensed properties like Star Wars for the first part of the ’80’s, as well as DC Comic’s Super Powers line. Finally, there’s Mattel’s He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was developed by Mattel as a toyline that quickly spun into an ’80’s mega brand. The basic concept fused the Sword/Sorcery genre, popularized by Conan and Dungeons & Dragons, with the science fiction of Star Wars. This odd matching seemed to work as He-Man both had magical swords and axes along side robotic horses and laser guns.

The original story was very simple. The power of Grayskull was hidden inside a castle and could only be unlocked by whoever controlled both halves of the power sword (one good/one evil). The Masters of The Universe toyline debuted in 1981 and featured the heroic champions lead by He-Man to defend the castle against the Evil warriors lead by Skeletor.

To help continue the storyline, each figure came with a mini-comic produced by DC Comics to tell new adventures of He-Man and his fellow Masters. By 1983, the toyline had become so popular that Mattel contracted Filmation to produce a cartoon series for the toyline. Similar to G.I. Joe, each episode had a lesson attached to it to avoid TV regulations prohibiting the cartoons as 30 minute toy commercials.

The Filmation cartoons both added and contradicted elements to the growing He-Man mythos. The series introduced the magical transformation of Prince Adam to He-Man as well as re-focusing the power of Grayskull to the Sorceress (no longer a snake goddess).

Mattel was busy creating new characters and toys for He-Man. They licensed He-Man to Marvel to produce a new full size comic book series to introduce the new storylines. By 1985 Mattel opened a secondary line She-Ra: Princess of Power! This “sister” brand took a cue from Star Wars and placed She-Ra as the leader of a rebellion against the intergalactic Evil Horde lead by Hordak. To help support the new expanded brand, Filmation debuted the She-Ra cartoon as He-Man’s unofficial third cartoon season. The She-Ra cartoon series merged numerous He-Man characters into the new storyline and further expanding on the background of established He-Man characters, i.e. revealing Hordak’s origin as Skeletor’s teacher.

By 1986 Mattel sensed fatigue in their brand and changed the focus again by introducing a third villainous faction, the Snake-Men lead by King Hsss. At this time, the He-Man cartoon had been cancelled for a year, so there was no real outlet left to build on the He-Man story. Despite news of a full length live action film, He-Man’s time was quickly coming to a close.

The He-Man film debuted in 1987 along with an expanded toyline that saw a mixture of new movie characters as well as long time characters like King Randor and the Sorceress finally seeing toy form as well as the massive Eternia playset. Unfortunately, the film departed too much from the familiar story and failed to re-ignite the brand. The few final He-Man toys were released in 1988 in mostly international markets (Spain & Italy). These are perhaps the rarest toys of the series. The final storyline involved time travel to prehistoric times and debuted the battling giants Megator and Tytus along with the rock changing animals known as meteor-orbs.

An attempt at reviving the brand as the “New Adventures of He-Man” included a cartoon and new toyline re-focussed on space adventure, but by that time another toy giant emerged and nothing was going to stop the “mean, green, fighting machines”!

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Joshua H. Stulman

Owner, BrooklynComicShop.com