![]() ![]() When He-Man’s classic nemesis Skeletor (Diskin) enters the picture, his story becomes all about absorbing and usurping other people’s powers, including those of his villainous allies.īy contrast, the show’s version of He-Man shares his powers with Krass, Cringer, Teela, and Duncan, each of whom undergo similar transformations, and are gifted with cool new technology and abilities. Masters of the Universe turns this central flaw into a core conceit. Stories in which royal families are revealed to have hereditary abilities tend to skirt around the icky-ness of bloodline essentialism. While it retains the premise of a seemingly never-ending power struggle, it takes a meaningful approach to the He-Man mythos. And Keldor is… well, you can figure it out from his blue and purple color scheme, or by putting an ‘S’ in front of his name (Yes, he was in fact He-Man’s uncle in the comics.)īut the show’s similarities to existing canon are far less interesting than its departures. Duncan is a teenage Man-at-Arms who switches to the side of good. Villains Kronis and Evelyn become Trap Jaw and Evil-Lyn in surprisingly dazzling fashion. Krass is a version of He-Man’s short, stocky, spring-legged ally Ram Man - one of the funniest toys in existence - and she eventually takes on the mantle of Ram Ma’am. However, the long-dormant sword is also a beacon of sorts, and activating it awakens a mysterious figure from his decade-long stasis: Adam’s uncle and King Randor’s long-lost brother, Keldor (Ben Diskin), a man with a skeleton hand and a familiar lust for Grayskull’s powers.Įagle-eyed He-Man fans will no doubt recognize some of these names, and while the characters don’t bear all the hallmarks of their 1980s equivalents, they eventually grow into versions of them with enough passing resemblance. It allows him (and only him) to call down the power of Castle Grayskull and transform from a scrawny teen into the hulking He-Man, Eternos’ champion. This rural paradise is thrown into disarray with the arrival of high-tech magician Teela (Kimberly Brooks), re-cast as a white-haired Black teenager, on the run from a pair of villainous thieves she recently betrayed: the brutish Kronis (Roger Craig Smith) and scheming sorceress Evelyn (Grey Griffin), along with their lanky, tech-savvy sidekick Duncan (Anthony Del Rio), who doesn’t seem too enthused about being a bad guy.Ĭhaos ensues when the villains catch up to Teela, leading to Adam’s discovery of the show’s enormous, anime-inspired version of the Power Sword. (They seem to reject magic and fear technology, but this doesn’t play into the story much.) Adam’s closest allies are the tiger Cringer (David Kaye), once his pet in the original, now re-imagined as a wiser, older mentor, and his adoptive human sister Krass (Judy Alice Lee), a sprightly, blue-haired, purple-skinned girl who enjoys knocking things down with her helmet. He lives in the forested outskirts of the kingdom along with the Tiger Tribe, a small but peaceful group of humans and tigers living in harmony. Prince Adam (Yuri Lowenthal) has been separated from his father, King Randor (Fred Tatasciore), for a decade and has no memory of who he is. And while this may irk those who took issue with the ways Revelation shifted the narrative focus away from the stars of the 1980s show, it’s worth remembering that these series are largely meant for children - especially this new one, an adequate, breezy, zippy adventure with teenage protagonists.Įternia is now Eternos, a realm where magic and futuristic technology blend together. Nearly everything else is a stark departure. While this new version shares its title with the ’80s show, they have little else in common, apart from a few bullet points of the basic He-Man premise: good-guy toy wields a power sword that turns him into an übermensch, cackling skull-man bad-guy toy wants the sword and/or the power. Less than two months after Masters of the Universe: Revelation (Netflix’s fantastic all-ages sequel to the 1980s series), the streaming service has come out with yet another reboot, the CG-animated He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
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