While settling a bet at work I came across an interesting theory, that the Masters of the Universe motion picture was actually based on the Fourth World series of comics by Jack “The King” Kirby as much, if not more so, then from the He-Man cartoon and action figures. This was nearly as exciting to me as the rumoured Ziggy Stardust comic by Kirby, and I was about ready to file this story under wishful thinking too, until I did some further digging that brought up this quote from John Byrne.
“The best New Gods movie, IMHO, is ‘Masters of the Universe’. I even corresponded with the director, who told me this was his intent, and that he had tried to get [Jack] Kirby to do the production designs, but the studio nixed it. Check it out. It requires some bending and an occasional sex change (Metron becomes an ugly dwarf, The Highfather becomes the Sorceress), but it’s an amazingly close analog, otherwise. And Frank Langella’s Skeletor is a dandy Darkseid!”
Well, at least they tried to get The King involved. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Lucas.
Nobody takes pot shots at Lubic!
“Yeah, I’m looking at you, Lucas.” .. awesome.
I don’t even totally agree with that assesment.. but it’s awesome, nonetheless
I just had a discussion with someone about He-Man yesterday actually. The theory they told me was that Mattel had molds for Conan action figures but since the movie ended up being rated R, they figured it wouldn’t work for kids’ toys. So someone came up with He-Man instead.
Then how do you explain Moss-Man? That is an interesting and believable theory though…
Admittedly I’m not as versed with Kirby’s work as the comic nerds on here, but I do know that the movie, cartoon and toys were great. I haven’t watched it in ages, but I guess he could have only made that movie even better.
I’m with Steve however – and I’ll go one even further. Fuck Lucas.
This was the last good work:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097576/
That was in ’92. Count how many years it’s been.
Don’t believe the hype.
Just to clarify, the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toys and carton weren’t based on Kirby’s Fourth World, just the movie.
I heard the Conan/He-Man story before. He-Man is chock-full of interesting pop culture connections.
OK, I’m posting here because I don’t like to join sites where I don’t know anybody, but I want to say this after googling He-Man Fourth World (yes, I saw the connection on my own and only this morning discovered it was in dispute) and nobody has pointed out the shared dialogue between Skeletor and Darkseid that led to my noticing it, and this is the only thread I found that didn’t require me to join for money or with an existing “paid” E-Mail acct… Anywho, at the beginning of the MOTU movie, He-Man asks Skeletor how he dares to enter Greyskull and capture the Sorceress. Skeletor (Frank Langella) quickly declares “I DARE ANYTHING! I am SKELETOR!” This is his introduction. In Darkseid’s first appearance in the New Gods which I recently read while brushing up on my DCU history in preperation for current events, Orion asks a similar question and Darkseid (keep in mind New Gods premiered in the 70’s) gives the exact same answer. “I Dare anything. I am Darkseid.” This got me thinking, and thinking that the Kirby connection goes back further than the movie. Many characters who premiered in the toy line look to be Kirby inspired. The one that most vividly springs to mind is Mecha-Neck. look at that headpiece, that chestplate, that mace, the circuitry in his extended neck… it’s got Kirby written all over it. Much, though, of comicdom’s design does, but rarely to this degree. Kudos to whoever designed this character on creating an elegant Kirby tribute.