"Masters of the Universe: Revelation" Prequel Comic by Dark Horse

[Leo656]

https://www.ign.com/articles/masters...l-comic-he-man

Cover by Stjepan Šejic:

Spoiler:

Cover by Mike Mignola:

Spoiler:

Sounds okay from the Preview.

That first cover by Stjepan Šejic looks great. That Mike Mignola cover is the f*cking WORST comic book cover I've EVER seen in my goddamn LIFE, though! Jesus CHRIST, that's terrible. It looks like a three-year old drew it. Sh*t like that is why I cannot stand "stylized" art.

Anyways, I'll pick this up but 1. Hopefully Smith's involvement is minimal, as his non-Green Arrow or Askewniverse comics are all terrible, and 2. Hopefully I don't get stuck with the Mignola cover. That sh*t's GHASTLY.

[ZariusTwo]

That's surprising, I thought DC had the licence to print all things MOTU

[frank_one]

None of the covers is good actually. The first one is boring layout and colors-wise and is lacking in details, the second one is nothing more than a sketch or the work of a VERY lazy artist but has a more interesting and creative layout than the first one.
Judging by the covers, this is something quite cheap.

[Leo656]

My only real problem with the first cover is that if He-Man actually held his sword like that he'd break his f*cking wrist. That's some pretty amateur stuff in that regard.

Also, obviously, that he should have his real chest logo. But y'know.

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

That's surprising, I thought DC had the licence to print all things MOTU

Nobody seems to know what's going on with that, actually. Lots of confusion. I know that aside from the DC Omnibus, obviously, Dark Horse has had the rights to produce all those spectacular MOTU hardcovers they've been making over the last few years. I'd assumed that was only a conditional sort of arrangement, but I guess that at some recent point they quietly got the "master" license.

For all anyone knows it might even have something to do with DC's recent "falling out" with Mattel. The MOTU rights are very complicated so I wouldn't even doubt that having something to do with it.

[mrmaczaps]

Series sounds interesting.

DC did a relatively decent job with the franchise and I was saddened when their series ended, went to a mini and then still ended.

It would be kind of nice if they would stop rebooting though. Give a quick one shot type origin issue & then just get on with telling a bad@$$ story.

Same goes really for TMNT. Lol. If this current ongoing finally dies as it should, wait a year, release a one shot TMNT Origin & then do a new ongoing series.

I might give this a go...

[oldmanwinters]

I'm also surprised DC doesn't have the license anymore. I don't think they had done anything with Masters of the U in a few years (and even then, it's mostly be crossovers with other franchises), but I figured He-Man was almost a WB property at this point.

Maybe they have already begun licensing out their potentially viable IPs.

[Leo656]

DC actually put out the "Masters of the Multiverse" mini-series just last year (which tied up a couple of things from their prior ongoing series) and apparently it did rather well. It consistently outsold TMNT for most of the months in which they both came out, but that's a VERY low bar. I just think it's worth mentioning. Point being, the brand wasn't actually "dormant" for that long under DC given that the most recent series they put out wasn't that long ago.

But yeah, as to why Dark Horse is suddenly doing the MOTU comics, a lot of people are asking but nobody seems to have any answers yet. It has to have something to do with Dark Horse already doing the hardcover books, and probably also DC and Mattel no longer being "pals". That's all I can figure. Dark Horse was already putting those books out for the last couple of years even when DC was putting their comics out, and DC only really had the comics license because Mattel had the master license to do DC toys and also owns MOTU, so it was a "marriage of convenience". Since DC and Mattel aren't playing in the same sandbox anymore, I assume that the DC agreement expired and thus Mattel just extended Dark Horse's publishing rights to include comics and not just collectors' hardcover books like the Character Guide or the Toy Guide and what have you. Keep it all under one company.

That's what makes the most sense to me, anyway.

[mrmaczaps]

The Masters of the Multiverse was pretty decently done all things considered.

Although I would have liked to seen more of a few of the variations, it was a great mini series. I was hoping for more really. The ongoing was great too. I didn't try to retcon anything from before or change anything much except maybe for killing off a few of the main characters. It was kind of nice to not spend six months on an origin story. They just started midstory, gave a bit of flashback as the tale unfolded and then new storyline and then next & then fizzled out.

[Leo656]

Yeah, I really ended up loving the DC series. I'd only read like two issues of it before buying the Omnibus a couple of months ago, and while I can see why some people don't like it - particularly Filmation cartoon fans; the book at times seemed to go out of its way to kind of give the finger to that series, especially with what they did with Orko - I feel like within the context of the story they were telling everything they did made sense. It didn't feel like it was just a nostalgia trip; it felt like a version of the mythos aimed specifically at people of a certain age who grew up with the franchise and always wanted a more "mature" exploration of the lore. If I'd change anything at all, I would only have kept the characters in their classic costume designs. I honestly really didn't like most of the "new looks" for He-Man and others very much at all, but I was so into the story itself that I stopped caring about the costumes pretty fast.

Outside of the mainline series, I thought the MOTU/Thundercats cross-over WAS just a straight-up nostalgia trip, but was still just about perfect for what that story tried to be, as well.

Basically, I thought that just about everything DC did with the brand in comic book form was great. The only thing I was a bit "meh" about was the actual DC/MOTU cross-over; I was pleased that it was actually integral to the main plot of the ongoing series, but the fact that it was the New 52 version of the DC characters took it down a few points, along with a few other things. I liked it a bit more the second time I read it but I still think that it's the weakest thing from the entire DC MOTU run, including the non-canon Thundercats and Injustice cross-overs.

Masters of the Multiverse definitely could have been a bit better if it had more room to breathe, and some of the variant universes barely had much of a spotlight, but given that there was no chance it was ever gonna be a big 12-issue thing I think it's about as good as it ever could have been. It covered a little bit of everything AND wrapped up the ongoing series as a nice little "epilogue" of sorts, making the ending of that series really important (just when I was wondering if that universe would come into play at ALL in the mini-series and had just about stopped expecting it to). That was really clever and well done.

Given that this new book is just a mini-series designed to bridge the Filmation cartoon with the new Kevin Smith cartoon that's coming out, I'm not expecting a whole lot but it might still be pretty good.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

DC actually put out the "Masters of the Multiverse" mini-series just last year (which tied up a couple of things from their prior ongoing series) and apparently it did rather well. It consistently outsold TMNT for most of the months in which they both came out, but that's a VERY low bar. I just think it's worth mentioning. Point being, the brand wasn't actually "dormant" for that long under DC given that the most recent series they put out wasn't that long ago.

Probably did decent enough for a monthly title, but not decent enough by DC standards for a licensed monthly title.

Dark Horse, like IDW, probably has lower standards.

[Leo656]

Probably some truth to that.

I think DC was just about "done" with the license anyway, though. "Masters of the Multiverse" very much read like a Grand Finale, and everything else interesting they could have done with it, they already did. Sure, Skeletor was revived at the very end of the ongoing series/"Eternity War", but the "big" story was already told and over with. The Goddesses of Serpos and Horokath waged war for the fate of all existence while He-Man and Skeletor finally had their climactic battle. He-Man married Teela and became King of Eternia. Randor, The Sorceress of Zoar, and Hordak were all dead. He-Man inherited the complete Power of Grayskull and decided to share it with others rather than keep it all within himself, which led to the "He-Force" and the ending of the "Multiverse" mini-series where he and they made the big save and saved everything from Anti-He-Man.

There were definitely a few loose ends left open - Skeletor's revival by Evil-Lyn, Orko still being out there somewhere, Queen Marlena still being stranded on DC Earth - and they definitely could have done a She-Ra series if they wanted to, since the end of "Eternity War" specifically set that up. But for the most part, anything they did going forward would have been small potatoes, story-wise, compared to what they'd already done. She-Ra and the Great Rebellion on Etheria aside, there really wasn't anywhere left to go with the story.

The best thing about the DC series was that it was quite literally "all killer/no filler"; it started Big, and then just got bigger and Bigger and BIGGER until finally, it was over, and the ending felt both final and earned. The Multiverse mini-series was a nice little endcap, but even without it the ongoing series told one nice clean story with a beginning, middle, and end. I really respect that. I wouldn't have minded seeing those loose ends resolved, but it would be very hard to address them in a way that wouldn't feel like a big step backwards after everything they already did.

So yeah, I don't think it ever sold "great" numbers and that probably had a lot to with some things, including them letting go of the license, but DC also quite thoroughly finished the story they set out to tell from the beginning. So there probably wasn't much urgency to keep it, anyway. The last few things they did before "Multiverse" were the non-canon Thundercats and Injustice cross-overs; they were good, but again, they left nowhere to go story-wise. So they'd finished the ongoing series and crossed he brand over with all the relevant properties DC owned rights to, including Thundercats and two different versions of the DCU... and then did a mini-series exploring all the different and disparate versions of the MOTU lore with the "Multiverse" mini.

Yeah, they were done. Money's always a factor, but they'd also pumped the well dry over their ten years (!!!) with the license. They didn't put out a huge outpouring of content - although that Omnibus is pretty damn back-breaking - but all of it was great, with even the "worst" of it being pretty good. That's a win any way you look at it.

They could've done that She-Ra book if they saw any strong sales in it... but that would've come out a few years ago if it was ever gonna happen. Other than that, yeah, not a lot of unfinished business. That probably made letting it go a pretty easy decision.

[ZariusTwo]

What did you think of the He-Man and Injustice crossover Leo?

[Leo656]

Pretty good! Pretty ballsy stuff, and I liked how hard they worked to make it fit with Injustice 2 - even though the ending makes it pretty effectively non-canon with anything but itself. But that's okay. ALL of DC's MOTU stuff was more devoted to being "MOTU as its own thing, but published by DC" rather than "MOTU as a DC Thing", and I feel like that's an important distinction.

Like, in NONE of the DC MOTU books were the MOTU characters and situations ever presented as being "lesser than" the DC characters; quite rather the opposite. He-Man is treated as a MUCH bigger deal than Superman, in both the MOTU ongoing and in the non-canon Injustice series, for example. A controversial choice, to be sure, but one that makes sense contextually and shows how committed DC was to taking the MOTU brand seriously. These were quite clearly "MOTU stories, guest-starring DC characters" on a very fundamental level, even though the stories themselves were pretty well-balanced. It would have been easy - easier, probably - to do it the opposite way, and show a stronger deference to the "home team" DC stable, but they showed a strong commitment in "putting over" MOTU, and I really appreciated that.

Some cool choices, some nice fanservice moments. Fits in with the game's canon quite well. Not much I would have done differently, really, if anything at all. I love the games, but the little bit I'd seen of the regular Injustice comics was all pretty bad. I felt that this was a really big improvement over that stuff, for sure.

It works SO well, in fact, that at the time it was coming out there was strong desire/speculation among MOTU fans that He-Man and/or Skeletor might end up being guest-star DLC characters in Injustice 2, like the TMNT had been, and a lot of serious disappointment when that didn't happen. It felt like a no-brainer, and when it didn't actually happen a lot of people were pissed off. It was probably a little bit too late to do that, by that point, but it did make the comic seem like a bit of a c*ck-tease. Would've been epic. People had hope that it might happen in the inevitable Injustice 3, but now that it looks like DC and MOTU are done playing together, it probably won't happen. That's pretty disappointing.
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Having read all of DC's MOTU output from the past decade, the ongoings as well as the non-canon mini-series, I'm more convinced than ever that the wrong f*cking company bought TMNT, and it really pisses me off. It absolutely, 100% should have been WB and DC. Anyone who has doubts need only look at how they handled MOTU.

- You want a self-contained universe that only rarely crosses over with the DCU, and doesn't need to clusterf*ck them together constantly just to remind you who owns it all? Here It Is.

- When they DO inevitably cross-over, you want it to be well-written, make sense, and have the "guest stars" not look like a bunch of chumps in deference to the DC stable? Here It Is.

- You want a more "adult" ongoing comic that aims at pleasing fans who literally grew up alongside the franchise, balanced with plenty of existing lore and fanservice moments in just the right amount? Here It Is.

- You want a book that takes everything you knew before about the franchise, discounts none of it, and rather than just making up "new stuff for New Stuff's Sake" actually moves the story forward in a logical and satisfying manner by building on what you already knew and loved and merely taking it to the Next Level? Here It Is.

- You want non-canon cross-over books that are more directly based on the "iconic" cartoon versions you loved as a kid, with just a smidge less "silliness" but still remaining completely in that vein, so that your "inner child" can have their cake as well? Here It Is.

- You want, literally, Something For Every Fan of the brand regardless of what their preferred "flavor" is, with everyone getting a chance to feel included and satisfied? Here. It. IS.

I know the TMNT/Batman cross-over comics were pretty much sh*t, but that's a very extreme and bad example. Those comics were done mostly as a goof, thrown together very quickly, and DC doesn't own TMNT so they didn't have as much impetus to really go out of their way to do anything really "special" or even good with it. I can see why they'd be enough to make some TMNT fans say that DC would be a terrible fit, but the truth is that if DC owned TMNT, stuff like that would be only ONE "flavor" of TMNT amidst an entire spectrum that appealed to every different fan.

I really do believe that, after seeing every book that DC put out for MOTU. They went out of their way to treat that brand with the utmost love, respect, and care. And they really didn't have to; they could have just done a bunch of Filmation riffs and cashed in on nostalgia, but they DIDN'T do that. They did SOME of that, while also putting out stuff that appealed to fans who HATED the cartoon stuff, so that everyone who loved MOTU had their own turn to play with it, whether they wanted it "grown up and violent" or "cartoonish and kid-friendly." Everybody Won.

And if DC went to all that over a now-obscure 1980s brand that most people dismiss as being "a silly kids' toy commercial" and nothing more, and made it a point to show you that "Yes, it CAN be that, but look what ELSE it can be, too...", well... if they did it for He-Man then I have to believe that they'd put the same work in for TMNT. 100%.

The only downside being, if DC did own TMNT, it might not be a steady ongoing every month, but rather a series of connected mini-series released at strategic intervals with short breaks in between, along with a few "fanservice" ones that weren't canon. But that's fine; just look at the MOTU omnibus, the Injustice mini, and the "Masters of the Multiverse" mini, combined. DC's run of MOTU books may have "just" been a series of mini-series that told one long story, plus a few non-canons, but they put out a LOT of books all the same. They just didn't do it all in one long uninterrupted shot. It wasn't "conventional" but it got the job done. If they handled TMNT that way, I wouldn't complain so long as they put out a good number of issues per year.

Alas, we're stuck with Viacom's chronic mismanagement and IDW's "Adventures In Furry-Town (Guest Starring the TMNT)". I can't help it; reading DC's MOTU comics, I feel entirely ripped off by how the TMNT brand, and especially the comics, have been handled. When there's concrete proof rightoverthere at how much better it CAN be done.

It's fun to dream. But also very frustrating.