I didn’t sleep well last night and it’s past post time. Not wanting to leave the day blank I have a two-part overview for you from cerealgeekTV’s YouTube channel. The host and owner is James Eatock, who used to host fun and interesting videos for the Official He-Man YouTube channel until the channel took a different direction…it’s run by the rights holder and Eatock, a famed MOTU fan, was just hired for a gig. This channel is all his and covers a variety of 1980s nostalgia from growing up in the UK.
In the two-part “To Catch A Falling Star” Eatock looks at the Star Comics run of Masters Of The Universe. Star was the kids title imprint, created sometime after regular Marvel was already doing GI Joe and Transformers so they were done under the Marvel banner and in the Marvel style. When Star was folded into regular Marvel they had a few titles left that were still treated as Star Comics like ALF and Mighty Mouse but under the Marvel name. Star Comics also had a few original titles like Top Dog and Planet Terry that nobody talks about because they weren’t tie-ins to nostalgic properties. Someday I hope to come across a full video about star.
In part one Eatock goes over the first half of the Masters Of The Universe comics, review of some of which you’ll find on this website. I found them rather uninteresting, but in part two he tells me (indirectly) that I stopped too soon in my back issue collecting.
The comics I had found a new home with a friend of mine who is even heavier into nostalgia than I am. I didn’t mind parting with them, but a new writer came along who would give the title a second chance at being good.
From my response in the comments: “I never got to see these. Certainly sounds like an improvement. I’m of the mind that you can push the toys while telling good stories. Just have them be one-shot guest stars unless they turn out to be popular enough to become part of the regular cast. It works for non-toy tie-in comics.”
My favorite MOTU comics still remain the second series of minicomics but that concept is long gone. It was before secret identities, the Sorceress instead of the Goddess, and the play gimmick of two halves of the Power Sword opening the jawbridge of Castle Grayskull being utilized in the story, with He-Man and Skeletor each owning one half longways that somehow still function as swords and magic talismans. What’s your favorite He-Man comic?
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