Since the closest thing I could find (even with a search) to a He-Man thread is the clearly-labeled "toy" thread, I figured it would be safe enough to start a thread dedicated less to MattyCollector and its shipping, subscription, and storefront shenanigans, and more to the lore behind the destined wielder of the Sword of He.

Even without a currently-running cartoon or comic book series, one at least has to hand it to Mattel for keeping the fiction going with the bios included on the back of the Classics packaging, even if some of it is a bit vague on some things at times. And as a fan of legacy heroes, I enjoy seeing the whole backstory of Eternia filled out with King Grayskull (of Awesome) and other wielders of that magic sword.

I'm perhaps just as interested in seeing how they will fit New Adventures of He-Man in, especially as I've just begun watching the DVDs. Toy-wise, I know they seem hellbent on representing the originals first and foremost, much to my chagrin, but I kind of wonder if we'll ever get the Bill Rizer-looking version seen in that toyline... or if they would instead create some bizarre amalgamation of the two.

On a related note, were the different appearances of everything ever explained in any sort of fiction, writer's bible, or other context? Or was it simply a "time passed, this is how Eternia and everyone looked when this new adventure started" kind of thing?

Incidentally, given the talk of He-Man and the Masters becoming renegades against Hordak in the Classics bios, I think that the NA look would make a neat appearance for He-Man in that context. On the other hand, I have no idea how the different-looking sword would be explained.

And speaking of time passing on Eternia, the whole story for New Adventures cites He-Man and Skeletor going to the future, to a world called Primus. This always struck me as just a little... odd. I mean, is Primus what Eternia becomes in the far future? Otherwise, what's with the future angle at all?

So, those are just my initial thoughts here, and hopefully enough to kick-start the thread.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

It is an interesting story they're telling. I don't know if I like it how there was always a "He-Man" as it were. That each hero of the time was regulated to such, with the one true He-Man being the He-Man.

Also regarding New Adventures, Optikk's bio sheds some light on how it fits with the new storyline.



So it doesn't appear in this story they go to the future, it's just Skeletor gets more warriors from Denebria in order to conquer the world.

Given the fact that He-Man is a legacy hero as of classics, the "NA He-Man" could actually be the "actual" He-Man's successor, or a trainee protecting a different world.

Could be...

That's an interesting idea...

...though I don't know how his Adam identity would fit with that, unless his son was Adam, Jr...

And Optikk sure is an odd choice for the first NA figure, isn't he? One would sooner expect Flogg or Sludgehead...

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

Not to mention that Marlena and Randor finally discovered that Adam was He-Man in "New Adventures" so I don't see how that theory works, it's interesting and i suppose if you wanted you could retcon that into your own personal continuity if you wanted.

Dark Destroyer

I think what turned me off most in He-Man fiction was the 2000 series episode where Adam was taught that "He-Man would always be needed", thus forcing him to accept that he couldn't be allowed to prove himself, and just rely on someone else's power and identity to be a hero.

What a great lesson to teach kids.

Randor goes missing before then too, and nothing is stated he returns safely. The 2002 comics were going to have Faker kill Randor disguised as He-Man. This may play into the new storyline (or something similar) too.

randy

We don't have a NA He-Man bio for Classics yet, do we? This stuff is being re-written, anyway. Sure, they try to incorporate a bit of everything, but it's still a full re-write.

Aside from this, is there any word on how things fit in the old storyline? Namely the Primus-Eternia connection, if any?

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

Not yet that I know of.

I've never cared for He-man, old or new. Recently though I've been rewatching Filmation's top four cartoons of the 80's (He-Man, She-Ra, Bravestarr, and Ghostbusters) on the Qubo channel. My opinions on He-man hasn't changed, but I'm surprised to find out how much I really enjoy She-Ra's series (And the other two as well) without any real nostalgia. I think it's because She-ra's enemies are more interesting. You've got her fighting to free a planet from the Horde Empire, and Hordak who feels more competent then Skeletor, rather then trying to defend a single piece of real estate from group dressed in bad Halloween costumes. And all this makes me rather disappointed that the 2002 series never got to the Horde, as might have actually made the series interesting.

I like each continuity for different reasons.

Teela, Teela, Teela and Teela

WHAT???

I think I preferred Teela as a blonde.

-SS (and Movie Teela was a vegetarian so didn't care for her either.)

good journey Teela? Nah they can keep her... until I gets my MotUC Golden Langellator

I have to admit that I had a thing for Chelsea Noble as movie Teela and would buy a figure of her. When i was a kid had a and still do have a crush on Filmatation Teela. Hmmmm..

Dark Destroyer

I don't recall watching the He-Man cartoon at all, but later in life I learned J. Michael Straczynski wrote for it and She-Ra. Now I'm really tempted to watch it. Good idea, or no? I tried to watch Thundercats (another one I never watched as akid), a couple years ago and thought it was awful.

And Prince Adam's mother was human, right? She was an astronaut who was warped into Eternia's dimension?

I say try it. If you get the Qubo channel, they air on their 'Night Owl' block with other old cartoons, as I mentioned. I went in with little memories or nostalgia for them, except He-Man, and I rather enjoyed them. They are campy, silly, and occasionally a bit stupid, but they are also fun to watch.

She-Ra's show was more memorable as the characters were interesting, it was more cohesive and the episodes when He-Man came to visit were always a treat. The original He-Man cartoon felt more like "threat of the week".

Well, many Eternians were human but yes - Marlena was from Earth.
Apparently, Tri-Klops, Beastman, and Evil-Lynn were supposed to be from Earth too according to the original series bible.

-SS (it's actually amazing how many concepts MOTU "imported" from Blackstar - another Filmation series.)

I saw some of the original series, and never really liked it. Too simple plot and everything. I did like the New Adventures series, for it had pretty good animation for its time, though I understand the whole space setting must have upset the old fans.

I watched the new series (2002?) and loved it, too bad it ended just when they were about to introduce Hordak.

Yeah. She-Ra had an episode about book burning. The Horde wanting to destory any books that tell about how they didn't always rule so that the children would accept "That's how its always been" and grow up to be complacent to being servents. While He-Man had "Oh no, Beastman's opened s Zoo and captured Cringer!"

I always loved those episodes.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

Thing what you want about Filmation, but you just can't deny that they were genuinely learning and improving throughout the 80s. There's a clear curve of rising quality if you compare MOTU, She-Ra and Bravestarr.

I can very much agree with that. Qubo Night Owl shows them almost in order (He-Man, then She-Ra, then BraveStarr, and finally Ghostbusters) and while they all have the same basic premise (Ensemble enemies banded together vs Team of Heroes) Each show brings something more to the table and tries to mix it up rather then staying statically to the formula.

No. I don't think it was ever reallymeant to be connected to the old continuity, cartoon wise at least. I think it's just supposed to be like many of our TF shows, just another continuity that begins with He-Man and Skeletor.


I thought that was pretty cool. But in the old Filmation series there is an episode where Marlena hints that she knows that Adam is He-Man, you know despite the clever disguise of a dark tan, deep voice, and very little clothing. I forget the specifics of the episode, but I seem to remember Marlena looking at Adam and saying "A mother knows her son."

If they include NA He-Man they also have a choice of origins for him, the cartoon and the pack-in comic origin.
Personally I like the comic origin.

The first episodes seemed to have it as though He-Man and Skeletor had already been fighting for some time...

I mean, I guess it doesn't have to relate to HMOTU, but...

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

Watch the first 8 episodes of She-Ra this week, and surprise how interesting it was.

Really enjoyed it. Shocked that Adora doesn't turn into She-ra till the end of the 3rd episode. That was impressive.

That was good, but remember it originally aired as a movie. A local theater would (I think it may still do) show this during the early mornings to kids.

But I'm a little disappointed (I doubt this is ever brought up again) that She-Ra should have an emotional connection to Shadow Weaver and/or Hordak having raised her since she was a baby. She must have some emotional ties to them, even though she was brain washed (IIRC?).

Randy

The stuff I've read (Wikipedia, James Eatock's blog) seem to all say that NA was supposed to take place after the old series, not to mention the title, "New Adventures," seems to directly reference the series which came before it.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

It's definitely supposed to take place after the Filmation cartoon. Teela shows up on one episode (though looks very different).

Randy

So, I've run into a slight problem here. I want to fill in my DVD collection, preferably with the best versions available of each set. Those seem to be the BCI ones, though they've unfortunately gone out of business. So even though there's a complete She-Ra series set now, it's apparently bare-bones.

Plus, there's that nifty DVD bookend mural that the other sets have going on.

My problem? I'm not sure which DVD sets from the 2002 Mike Young series are the ones I want to complete that.

Shopping on Amazon, I see several sets with different covers and different publishers, and I'm not sure which is the one I want. And He-Man.Org's DVD section doesn't seem to have them pictured/listed.

So, can someone help me identify which sets are the ones I want for that series?

In addition, if you know a good place with prices that will leave my wallet in a non-weeping state, so much the better. But for now, I'm more concerned with finding which sets I want to get, so I can at least add them to my Amazon Wish List for future reference.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

You know what I find interesting about He-Man? Is that we've never really had any novels (if at all) from the franchise. I would think the fantasy aspect of the franchise would lend it's self extremely well to a book. Conan has novels. I can see no reason why some publisher (TOR) for instance hasn't made an offer to Mattel for the publishing rights to MOTU. A movie (if one ever emerges from development hell) would have a novelization most likely. I would pick up MOTU novels in an instant.

Dark Destroyer

Taking your comments into account, you're going to want to start out with this one. It's a Best Buy exclusive release of volume one inside a slipcase that continues the mural. It's out of stock, so you'll have to hunt around elsewhere. Then you'll just pick up volumes 2 and 3 and slip 'em in there.

(Prices on Amazon for 2 and 3 look good, so you should be good to go.)

Which ones on Amazon do I want for 2 and 3? As noted, they seem to have about two different ones of each...

As for that set... I'm out of all sorts of luck there, since Best Buy's American site doesn't ship to Canada... hopefully eBay will help.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

Since the toy thread has been locked and I can't find any new one (seriously, can we link to new threads in the last post of locked threads, people!) is this the best place to talk about the toys?

He-Man.org has posted up new figures:

http://www.he-man.org/news_article.php?id=1773

Notably Clawful (he's okay), Battleground Teela (eeeeh), The Faceless One (who I'm quite disappointed by, he has a face) and others.

Does Battleground Teela actually have any fiction behind her or is this just random throw out a Teela day? I'd rather they gave us a New Adventures style Teela really.

I'm guessing King Hiss is based on the 80's style there. Love the replaceable torsos I'm guessing. And LMAO Preternia Disguise He-Man has the Cosmic Key from the live action movie! Now we need a Gwildor!

And I like the choices for the DC and Masters pairings. But man She-Ra towers over Supergirl

I saw that Best Buy exclusive in store back when it came out, and I'm still kicking myself for not getting it! I had already bought the regular release from some other store, and was just too lazy to buy the exclusive and do something with the other one like return it or something.

I guess there's no reason we can't talk about everything He-Man here, if that is what is needed...

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

I found a free episode of the 80's He-Man on iTunes. It's called The Dragon's Gift.

I thought this might be germane to the fiction discussion: A MOTUC timeline put together by a poster on the Matty Forums using the bios and a few judgment calls to fill in the gaps.

Wicked... but what do the breaks denote?

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

I'm not really sure. I kept the formatting from the original post just in case it was something significant that I just couldn't see.

I thought they just reperesented different time frames.

Yess, but it's pretty obscure - before the original cartoon, DC put out a three-issue miniseries (and a couple of other stories). There was a screw-up in the production of issue 1, and the artist (George Tuska) didn't get any reference pics for Teela, so he just made up a female version of the HM design and called it Teela to make his deadlines. He got the references in time for #2, and that was it until now.

There's some scans here: http://s268.photobucket.com/albums/jj35/Me...Blonde%20Teela/

Looking at the Classics line and story, thinking about the whole "renegade Masters" storyline, and looking at "Preternia Disguise" He-Man has left me wondering if Mattel is planning to work some variation of the live-action movie into their storyline...

Has that been discussed at all?

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

That whole timeline is cool, I just don't like that they made Teela a clone of the Sorceress and not Duncan's (unbeknowest to him) actual daughter.

Not that I know of. But theoretically, they could do movie characters that had previously been released as toys. However, they probably couldn't do the movie versions of the cast that existed prior. (So no black robes or golden mask for Skeletor, for instance)

I'm not seeing why they couldn't. Sure you couldn't cast likeneses of the actors/actresses but I'm sure they could do homages to the different styling in the film. Though for most of the cast I wouldn't really care much for the movie styles.

It was actually Fisto's daughter IIRC.