By the Powers of Grayskull! This show is the much hyped continuation of everyones favourite 80s action cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Netflix announced this follow up, lead by legendary comic book geek Kevin Smith a while back and the big day is here! 5 episodes of new Masters of the Universe. Is it any good? Let’s break it down!
Production value wise, this show is incredible. The updated design doesn’t exactly match the classic series, but pays homage to it whilst having its own identity. As someone who remembers when He-Man got its first big refresh in the early 1990s this is so much better as that show was unrecognisable on so many levels.
The animation, background design and lighting is all too notch, as is the sound design. This is up there with the best production values on an animated show that I’ve seen in a long time.
The music creates great atmosphere and the voice acting of the classic characters is great across the board.
Production values aside, let’s get down to the story and tone. It’s interesting watching as this is clearly not made with children in mind. This is common nowadays as nostalgia is a huge business these days, but this is a show made from the ground up for people in their 30s and 40s who watched the original when they were young.
The tone is dark, and the characters have real depth. We get light cuss words such as crap and bollocks which made me laugh out loud as I didn’t expect this from a He-Man cartoon going in.
The show is also a direct continuation/follow up to the 80s cartoon and whilst I’m sure many could just jump in and still follow the show without prior knowledge, the show does take ownership of the fact that this is for adults and not kids.
But tone aside let’s dig into the story, and yes I will discuss things that are spoilers here. So be warned.
I know online that for many there is a lot of controversy over the fact that a certain main character is missing, and whilst I’ll get onto that in a minute, I’d say anyone who gets stuck on what this isn’t is also missing out on what this is. As it’s own story, this is still perfectly good with great characters and action.
But…yes there is almost no He-Man in this. It is jarring and it is a big disappointment as I was expecting this to be a He-Man series and this isn’t that.
The first episode is great throughout, and has a truly shocking end as a battle between He-Man and Skeletor ends with He-Man stabbing Skeletor, but seemingly that was a plan of Skeletor for the stab opened a lock for Skeletor to get possession of the power of Eternia at the heart of Castle Grayskull.
He-Man then had to make the decision to sacrifice himself to save the universe. Episode 1 literally ends with He-Man and Skeletor both dead, and it sets up Teela as a new hero.
Her development from the original show is the greatest of all the characters in this continuation and she makes a strong lead, even if she feels mostly like a new character. New character Andra doesn’t quite get as much screen time as needed to fully make her mark, but for what she is given is a good addition to the team.
It’s an incredibly bold choice for them to kill off the main character and main villain in episode 1 and refocus the series the way they have, but again when you accept it was the one that was made and take the show as it is this shock will lessen with time. And this is why I think this will prove to be a show that gets its initial jarring bad reaction from some people, but will gain more positive reception as time goes on. It happened with the Star Wars prequels and I expect it to be the case here.
This said, I’m still fresh from watching this, and whilst my head tells me this is great is so many ways, my heart still hurts that the choice was made to kill He-Man in episode 1. This packed an emotional punch that I didn’t expect because to be honest classic He-Man isn’t something I have returned to since I was a child. Still, this was like when you hear that a sports star or actor you watched as a child has passed and this was a childhood hero killed.
This isn’t the end of the trauma though and not since the death of Dobby in Harry Potter have I not wanted to see a character killed as much as I hated seeing Orko die in this show. Beyond this, there is a passing of time and we see an older Man of Arms, Sorceress and even when we first see Orko he looks fragile.
The show makes the bold choice to have Teela team up with Evil-Lyn and Beast Man which is mind bending as this were all enemies back in the day. Evil-Lyn dominates scenes she is in and is surprisingly trusted by the Sorceress to carry the last of Eternia’s magic which is fading after the death of He-Man.
The adventures they go on throughout the episodes focus on their finding the two half’s of He-Man’s sword which was divided when He-Man sacrificed himself and with this they will restore magic to Eternia.
This quest takes them to both hell and to heaven (or the He-Man equivalents at least)
The show will be back for more at some point, but these episodes ended with the cliff hanger of them killing He-Man a second time.
After just a couple of flash back appearances through the show, and an evil version of He-Man who Teela battles in the underworld Prince Adam appears in the heavens and decides to go back to Eternia to fight along side his friends only for the shock ending that Skeletor had survived in his staff which Evil-Lyn was unknowingly carrying him in. He stabs and “kills” Prince Adam and then Skeletor ends the show by calling that he has the power!
Conclusion
It’s a good show and it’ll be exciting to see where things go from here in the next batch of episodes. It’ll be hard to judge the whole story fully before it’s fully told, but for long time fans it will be hard to accept that He-Man barely featured and was killed twice and didn’t get much opportunity to shine. In this sense it will feel a missed opportunity. But again this is be largely dictated to how the story ends. If we look at movies where the heroes lose or don’t use their powers like Iron Man 3, Spider-Man 2 or the lack of Superman in Justice League, there are often times when as audience we long for there to be more of a hero, but usually get them in the end. This was part 1 of a new chapter in the He-Man and The Masters of the Universe story and I cannot wait for part 2!
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