>As Jon, Nick, and I would tell you, the 80’s were a great time to be a kid. The coolest toy/cartoon/comic franchises came from this era like Transformers, GI Joe, He-Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Ghost Busters to name a few. It wasn’t until I was about 12 that I became a comic book fanatic, but the seeds were planted by the toys and cartoons of the era.

When I was about 4, the first of these franchises that I really got into was He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The cool thing about the action figures was the mini comic that would be included in the packaging that provided not just a background story on the characters, but ideas of adventures to put these characters through in your bedroom and back yard. I cannot quite remember the actions I put He-Man and friends through, how dirty, muddy, wet, or broken some of them managed to get in their adventures.

Then of course there was the cartoon from Filmation. Originally conceived as a half hour advertisement for the action figures, which was the order of the day for almost all of my generations favorite toy franchises, the series took on a life of its own combining the sword and sorcery genre with a generous dash of science fiction. The one thing I could never figure out when I was young was how these people on Eternia were running around like they lived in the bronze age, yet had flying vehicles that shot frickin’ laser beams! Out of He-Man would come She-Ra as Mattel attempted to reach out to girls as well as boys complete with toy line and cartoon which became just as memorable for the girls of my generation.

In the world of comics, Marvel began publishing a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe comic book under their Star Comics imprint in 1986 and featured the villain Hordak, who was arguably more evil than Skelator. The series would only last 13 issues, and by the time of the big screen release of the Masters of the Universe movie starring Dolf Lundgrin, the franchise had begun to see a decline in popularity as a group of mutated turtles began dominating the day. In one last hurrah, there was an attempt in 1990 to relaunch a new cartoon series and toy line, revamping the characters which would fall flat very quickly.

In recent years, comic creators who grew up in the 1980’s made an attempt to revive their favorite characters in comic books, most of which were short lived, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe being one of these franchises. It seems as though GI Joe and Transformers were the only franchises that managed to have any staying power, but that’s a story for another time.

Oh, and who can forget the moral/ PSA at the end of every episode…

-Jim

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