Joseph Laycock,
Boston University

Abstract

Many adults of the millennial generation share childhood memories of “syndication cartoons”––cartoons created to promote an existing product. Mattel’s “He-Man” was one of the most successful syndication characters of all time. However, few people know that in 1982, Mattel commissioned a document called, “The Masters of the Universe Bible.” The “Bible” drew on comparative mythology in order to create a modern mythos for Mattel’s franchise. While most syndication cartoons were unsuccessful, He-Man became a global phenomenon and turned Mattel’s fortunes almost overnight. This article suggests that He-Man had such an influence precisely because of the mythic themes outlined in this document.

[1] Few people know that in 1982, the Mattel Corporation commissioned playwright and author Michael Halperin to produce a document entitled The Masters of the Universe Bible. ¹ This document, which became the basis of the popular cartoon series He-Man and Masters of the Universe, drew on various myth cycles as well as the bible. Normally, “bibles” are created as reference documents to foster consistency for media with multiple writers such as comic books and television series. The He-Man Bible was intended to create a back-story for a popular series of toys so that the franchise could be extended into a cartoon series. In doing this, Halperin also drew on the structural theories of mythologist Joseph Campbell, folklorist Vladimir Propp, and literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov (Halperin 2008).

[2] Despite its bizarre premise, which has been called “a pastiche of modern mythologies” (Kline 1995, 299), the Masters of the Universe (MOTU) franchise had a profound influence on the millennial generation. Edgy comedy shows like Family Guy and Robot Chicken reference He-Man on the assumption that their audience shares childhood memories of the franchise. By contrast, numerous similar projects that attempted to market violent and fantastic toy lines throughout the 1980s have been forgotten. There is evidence that the commercial success of He-Man was largely the result of the mythic themes infused into the franchise by Halperin. This analysis suggests a phenomenological connection between contemporary action-adventure narratives and traditional mythology as first theorized by Mircea Eliade. ² It also offers an alternative perspective of children as consumers of popular culture: Rather than being mental “blank slates” vulnerable to commercial exploitation, children sought a coherent cosmology and favored programming and products that could evoke a meaningful narrative.

The Origin of He-Man

[3] Based on revenue, Mattel is the largest toy company in the world (Fortune 2009). Although Mattel has produced dozens of lines of toys, the vast majority of their profits have come from Barbie. The success of Barbie is that it allows young girls to imagine their future roles as adults (the controversy over Barbie is largely that these roles have become too circumscribed). The doll’s creator, Ruth Handler, claims to have conceived of the product when she noticed how much her daughters enjoyed playing with paper dolls (Haasen 2003, 135). Young girls do not need to “learn” how to play with Barbie because the plastic doll was presented as an enhancement to a naturally occurring form of play.

[4] The first “action-figure”––a doll for boys––was GI Joe created by Hasbro in 1964 (Clark 2007, 167). Hasbro executive Don Levine, sometimes called “the father of GI Joe,” is normally credited with coining the term, “male action figure” to emphasize that GI Joe was not a doll (Sweet and Wecker 2005, 14). Like Barbie, GI Joe had an inherent performative “script” that children understood. This was the Vietnam era and young boys knew what soldiers did. In trying to close the action-figure gap, Mattel created Major Matt Mason, an astronaut doll (Walsh 2005, 199). This was followed in 1973, by another unsuccessful toy called “Big Jim” which was billed as a “sports hero” (Sweet and Wecker 2005, 16).

[5] In 1976, Mattel president Raymond P. Wagner turned down an offer from George Lucas to purchase the license to produce Star Wars characters. Lucas had asked for $750,000 and Mattel’s refusal is considered, “one of the all-time enormous flubs in toyland history” (Oppenheimer 2009, 121-122). Roger Sweet and David Wecker comment on the Star Wars franchise, “George Lucas’ space story blasted loose a host of preconceived notions about what creative toys, toy characters, toy vehicles, and play sets could be, while Star Wars set new precedents for imagination and its role in kids’ play” (Sweet and Wecker 2005, 14). Lucas licensed Star Wars to rival toy company Kenner, which reduced the size of its action figures to only three and three-quarter inches. This allowed the company to lower the price of the figures and encouraged consumers to “collect” all of the characters, making the line even more lucrative (Sweet and Wecker 2005, 15). He-Man was created out of Mattel’s attempt to reverse this mistake.

[6] The man most often credited with conceiving of He-Man is Roger Sweet. Sweet joined Mattel in 1972 having an MS degree in product design from the Institute in Design in Chicago (Oppenheimer 2009, 122). In 1980, he was part of Mattel’s male action figure (MAF) group charged by Wagner with creating a toy line that would supplant Star Wars. Other prototypes created by the MAF group included “Kid Gallant” a young knight, and “Robin and the Space Hoods” (Sweet and Wecker 2005, 17-20). Jerry Oppenheimer quotes Derek Gable, the head of the MAF team:

Roger came to me one day and he said, “I’ve got this idea. It’s a guy who’s bigger than big, as wide as he is tall, with huge muscles.” Roger was then into weightlifting and he said, “Look all these male action figures on the market are wimpy. I want to do a really big action figure.” He called it “He-Man,” sort of a combination of space and medieval, a medieval guy with weapons” (Oppenheimer 2009, 122-123).

[7] Sweet cites fantasy artist Frank Frazetta as the primary inspiration for He-Man and believed that what he called “Barbarian Monster Fantasy” could be a unique theme, distinguishing Mattel’s action-figure from both GI Joe and Star Wars. He writes of Frazetta’s paintings of fantasy barbarians:

These were giant, brutal men, engaged in the kind behavior little twentieth-century kids had never seen their dads do. Yet there was something universal about it, something all men and boys could relate to at the most basic, most primordial of levels––a kind of awareness that doesn’t exist in the brain so much as in what I’ve heard referred to as “spinal cord knowledge,” or in perhaps plainer terms, the far reaches of the most primitive of instincts (Sweet and Wecker 2005, 74).

This account is significant because it suggests that, for Sweet, He-Man appealed to something resembling Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious. The term “spinal cord knowledge” parallels Jung’s notion of archetypes––a concept that came to shape Star Wars by way of Joseph Campbell (Ellwood 1999, 127).

[8] Sweet created three prototypes shortly before Christmas of 1980 and presented them at a product conference. The first He-Man figure was created by altering Mattel’s Big Jim figure, adding clay to make Jim’s physique even bigger (Sweet and Wrecker, 84-85). The president of Mattel reportedly pointed at the He-Man figures and declared, “Those have the power” (Oppenheimer 2009, 123).

[9] By the mid 1980s, both Mattel and Hasbro were creating lines of action figures that were increasingly war-like and fantastic. ³ Mattel president Glenn Hastings commented, “We were trying to fill a hole in the marketplace. We looked at boys ages three to six and found that, unlike girls, they spend a lot of time fantasizing about good vs. evil” (Blake and Grant, 1985). The soldiers marketed to boys in the 1960s now began to blend with super-heroes, science fiction, and fantasy to create a new genre.

[10] Sweet’s vision of a heavily muscled blend of science fiction and fantasy became a trope of 1980s cartoons. Heather Hendershot presents a typology of children’s cartoons in which she describes “the muscled super-hero” genre. She writes:

Muscled super-hero cartoons are boy-targeted action cartoons featuring characters with superhuman capabilities. They have tremendous physical strength, and they use their special powers to fight evil forces. Many of these characters have secret or double identities, and their transformations from one form to the other often constitute the show’s most climactic moments. The muscled super-hero cartoons are often set in a vague future or past, and the characters often have mystical powers (Hendershot 1998, 98).

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe contained all of these elements and came to define the genre.

[11] However, these otherworldly warriors presented a marketing problem: They were not connected to a domestic script like Barbie, a historiographic script like GI Joe, or a film script like Star Wars. How were children supposed to play with a scantily clad swordsman? What was its meaning? Stephen Kline has written that advertising is doubly important in the toy industry, because children must not only be alerted to the product, but also informed how to play with it (Kline 1995, 223). By producing a fantastic toy line, Mattel had inadvertently taken on the task of creating new stories that would be meaningful for children.

[12] The first series of MOTU action figures were released in 1981 (Engelhardt 1986, 40). At the time, the FCC limited advertising during children’s television to only twelve minutes per hour (Minow and LaMay 1995, 48). This left Mattel little time to convey the saga of He-Man. Their solution was to include a “mini-comic” with each toy––an illustrated story about He-Man and a featured character or vehicle (Peccora 2002, 72). Comic books were not subject to the same regulations as children’s television and Hasbro had already created a successful comic for GI Joe (Clark, 167-168). ⁴

[13] The He-Man of the mini-comics is heavily indebted to Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian, using phrases like “Hark!” The level of violence would also be unfamiliar to most MOTU fans. In 1982, Mattel and DC began collaboration to create full-sized He-Man comics. He-Man first appeared battling Superman in an issue of DC Comics Presents entitled, “From Eternia with Death.” DC continued to portray He-Man as a medieval adventurer. Prior to his bout with Superman, He-Man declares his love for, “the lifting of a full flagon of ale with hearty fellows.” This was followed by DC’s three issue Masters of the Universe series, which ran from 1982-1983. Marvel also experimented with a Masters of the Universe series from 1986-1988. However, by this time, the He-Man mythos had been firmly established through the cartoon series based on Halperin’s bible.

[14] Because the purpose of the original mini-comics was to circumvent advertising regulations for children’s entertainment, they contained an order form, encouraging consumers to order more MOTU toys by mail. However, Mattel began receiving letters from confused children. According to Halperin, they wanted to know more about the protagonists and antagonists. What sort of world did they inhabit? What motivated their battles? (Halperin 2008). These letters are significant for two reasons. First, the position of children’s advocacy groups that marketing products directly to children constitutes exploitation is based on the assumption that children lack the capacity to be critical consumers. ⁵ However, these letters suggest a degree of agency by children that critics of He-Man have generally assumed not to exist. Second, the request for a back-story suggests that fantasy and violence were not enough to produce satisfying play. Children required a cosmology in order for He-Man’s battles to be meaningful. This was a marketing goal that could not be achieved through a mini-comic.

[15] In addition to the comics, Mattel had plans to create an animated series to compliment the action figures. The company had already attempted this strategy with a cartoon entitled Hotwheels that ran on ABC from 1969 to 1971. In December 1969, the FCC released an opinion stating that Hotwheels was an unacceptable program-length commercial for Mattel’s toy line of the same name. ABC allowed the show’s contract to expire and then discontinued the program (Hendershot 1998, 108). However, the FCC became far more amenable to toy-makers under Reagan. Mark Fowler, the head of the FCC during the Reagan administration, advocated a policy of deregulation that has come to be known as “the toaster policy” (Hendershot 1998, 184). For Fowler, television was not an aspect of culture in need of government regulation but a machine like any other: “a toaster with pictures” (Englehardt 1986, 40).

[16] What emerged from this deregulation became known as “syndicated cartoons.” Comic characters have been adapted for marketing purposes since the nineteenth century. ⁶ But syndicated cartoons represented a reversal of this order: cartoons based on toys. This development has been called “The Strawberry Shortcake strategy” after the first animated series designed to promote a toy line (Kline 1995, 139). In 1982 and 1983, the FCC eliminated all guidelines for children’s programming, including restrictions on violence (Kudanis 2003, 138). There were now no legal obstacles to the debut of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe in 1983. Mattel contracted the cartoon to Filmation studios, which created 65 half-hour episodes based on Halperin’s back-story. The episodes went immediately into syndication to be shown by local stations on weekday afternoons (Englehardt 1986, 40). Despite complaints by children’s advocacy groups, in 1985 the FCC ruled that the commercial success of toy-based cartoons meant that these programs were by definition “in the public interest” (Stayer 2003, 139). This era of total deregulation lasted until the passage of the Children’s Television Act in 1990 (Stayer 2003, 132).

[17] The National Association for Better Broadcasting labeled He-Man, “the heaviest load of outright commercial exploitation that has ever been heaped on America’s children” (Douglas and Michaels 2005, 280). While the cartoon was designed to sell toys, Mattel’s strategy was not as crass as children’s advocacy groups have portrayed it. The cartoon was not designed simply to bludgeon children with raw exposure. Rather, it was intended to enhance the toy by providing a narrative. As Stephen Kline commented, “It is simply not sufficient for a programme to be popular with kids. The programme must instill in them the promise of an imaginary world that can be entered not just by watching television but also by owning and playing with a specific toy line” (Kline 1995, 280). Mattel knew that their series had to succeed where the mini-comic had failed: it had to embed He-Man within a mythos that would be meaningful enough to compel children to buy the toys.

Mythic Themes in The Masters of the Universe Bible

[18] Michael Halperin, who had just written a sword and sorcery script, was commissioned with the creation of a He-Man mythos. Halperin’s writing career suggests that he was overqualified to write a back-story for eight action-figures. He has received numerous awards for his fiction, most notably Jacob’s Rescue (1993), a young adult novel set during the Holocaust. He also holds a Ph.D. in film studies and has written several books for screenwriters on effective storytelling including Writing Great Characters (1996), Writing the Second Act (2000), and Writing the Killer Treatment (2002). Halperin’s plays also shed light on his work for Mattel. Many of them address religion and philosophy including Freud at Sinai, which describes a dialogue between Moses and Freud, and Spark of Reason about the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza.

[19] Halperin took the name “Eternia” from the mini-comics and decided that this was a planet in another galaxy. Eternia was a paradise ruled by an omnipotent council of elders. Its neighbouring planet, Infinita, was war-torn and home to villains such as Skeletor, He-Man’s nemesis (Halperin 1982, 1-7). A large section of Eternia’s land mass is named “the plain of Perpetua” (Halperin 1982, 3). The repetitive use of these names––all synonyms for the infinite and eternal––seems designed to imply that He-Man’s adventures do not occur in a mundane, finite world. This conforms to Mircea Eliade’s theory of myth as stories that occur outside of normal time and space in illo tempore (Eliade 1968, 70). Thus, although He-Man resides on another planet, the setting of the MOTU narrative resembles classical myth more than science-fiction.

[20] The history of Eternia described in The Masters of the Universe Bible bears some resemblance to the Hebrew Bible, particularly the David cycle described in 1-2 Samuel. Eternia had once been ruled by a council of elders with the ability to manipulate time and space. These elders dwelled in the Hall of Wisdom, a place that “shone with the light of a million stars” (Halperin 1982, 6). The leader of this council is a being known as Zodak (Halperin 1982, 8). Zodak had originally been marketed as a villain by Mattel. It was Halperin who turned the character into one of the elders. Curiously, the name Zodak resembles Zadok, a high priest of the Israelites described in 2 Samuel. Accordingly, Halperin casts Zodak in a priestly role: when Infinita makes war against the elders, it is Zodak who, “asks the stars for help” (Halperin 1982, 8). After repelling an invasion by Infinita, the council of elders decides that they must withdraw from the world so that the people of Eternia may govern themselves. The elders correspond to God in this myth and their absence from the world is the theodicy of the MOTU universe. When they depart, the elders declare that a champion shall arise to defend the world in their absence. Left to their own devices, the Eternians choose to create a monarchy, recalling Second Samuel in which the Israelites desire a king (Halperin 1982, 9-10).

[21] The elders do not actually leave Eternia: Instead, they shed their material forms, condensing into a single mass of light. Zodak alone remains as a steward of the elders, whose spirit and power resides beneath Castle Grayskull. Castle Grayskull is a place “set apart and forbidden”––Émile Durkheim’s definition of the sacred (Durkheim 1995, 44). The castle is literally shaped like a monstrous skull, in the hopes that this would ward the unworthy away from the power of the elders. Furthermore, Eternians are forbidden from entering Grayskull, the only exceptions being Zoar the sorceress and He-Man. Skeletor’s driving goal is to capture the castle and steal the wisdom of the elders. The battle for Grayskull, which forms the backdrop of the entire series, has a strange resemblance to the Philistines’ capture of the Ark of the Covenant as described in 1 Samuel. Interestingly, during the war between Absalom and King David in Second Samuel, Zadok requests to accompany the Ark the Covenant (2 Sam 15:24-29). Thus both Zadok and Zodak function as guardians of the sacred.

[22] Conservative Christians accused the MOTU franchise of promoting “pagan mythology” (Cross 1999, 232). However, He-Man also borrows heavily from Christian narratives: He-Man wears a red Maltese cross––a symbol associated with the Knights Hospitaller and other Christian warriors. He-Man is the offspring of Marlena, a human astronaut, and Randor the king of Eternia. With both human and otherworldly parents, He-Man bears much in common with classical heroes as well as Christ. Halperin commented on this connection:

Jupiter carries off Europa and she bears the monster Minotaur. Jupiter disguises himself as a swan and seduces Leda who bears the twins Castor and Pollux the patron deities of sailors. In modern times we have Spock, the progeny of a Vulcan father and Earthling mother. He-Man/Adam’s heritage was the result of wanting to have a dramatic and interesting background for the character taking him out of the realm of the ordinary (Halperin 2008).

More significantly, He-Man is the fulfillment of a messianic prophecy. His coming is prophesied to the elders as, “A being so powerful and filled with good that evil, no matter how mighty, could not stand against him” (Halperin 1982, 9). Halperin also refers to He-Man as, “the planet’s savior” (1982, 37a).

[23] The cartoon series incorporated these details and emphasized He-Man’s moral perfection. He-Man never harms a sentient being, sometimes to the frustration of his allies. In one episode, he consults a wizard to determine whether the creatures he is fighting are alive, only demolishing them when he learns they are automatons. To a large extent, this was designed to mollify irate parents. Filmation president Lou Scheimer said in defense of the show, “We try not to have He-Man hurt any living creature, and the good guys always win” (Oppenheimer 2009, 126). However, one episode in particular, “Wizard of Stone Mountain,” deliberately casts He-Man as a spiritual saviour. A wizard makes a Faustian pact with an evil being offering his soul in exchange for the love of Teela, one of He-Man’s allies. When He-Man confronts the evil entity, he asks who or what it is. It answers, “I am the master of fear and destroyer of hope. The enemy of mankind throughout the universe. Mortals, I am evil itself.” This would seem to be the closest thing to Satan that could be presented on a secular children’s show. The creature attempts to crush He-Man with a giant, fiery claw but recoils, declaring: “He is as powerful as I. Your goodness is equal to my own dark power.” When the creature departs, He-Man declares that the only force that could destroy it is love, implying that this is also the source of He-Man’s power.

[24] Not only did Halperin draw on myths and sacred stories, he also made deliberate use of the theories of Vladimir Propp, Joseph Campbell, and Tzetan Todorov. Each of these theorists attempted to break narratives into elements of a universal structure. Indeed, Propp and Todorov compared their work to that of a natural scientist (Propp 1977, 13; Todorov 1975, 5-6). Halperin reversed this process, using the idea of a universal structure to create new narratives rather than to deconstruct existing ones. This had already been done by George Lucas, who drew on Campbell’s theory of myth to create the highly lucrative Star Wars mythos. Indeed, Campbell seems to have had the most overt influence on The He-Man Bible, particularly his structure of the hero’s cycle of separation, initiation and return.

[25] In the original mini-comics, He-Man did not have a secret identity. Prince Adam, He-Man’s mundane alter-ego, was first introduced in DC Comics’ “From Eternia with Death” as a womanizing youth brawling in a tavern (this is the episode where He-Man battles Superman, and the addition of a secret identity may have been an attempt to draw in Superman readers). ⁷ It is Halperin who created Prince Adam’s persona as lazy, timid, and a disappointment to his father––a theme that is emphasized heavily in the cartoon series. The Masters of the Universe Bible describes Adam’s initiation on his eighteenth birthday by Zoar the sorceress beneath Castle Grayskull, after which he returns to save the palace from Skeletor (Halperin 1982, 27-35). Halperin’s narrative modifies Mattel’s characters and creates new ones in order to serve the various initiatory roles outlined by Campbell.

[26] Prince Adam is first alerted to his mission by Man-At-Arms, who escorts him to Castle Grayskull. One of Mattel’s original eight characters, Man-at-Arms was first presented as a sort of technological warrior who supplies He-Man with gadgets and vehicles. Halperin’s narrative transforms this character into a sort of divine technician. His actual name is Duncan; Man-at-Arms is a title bestowed to a line of Eternians charged with learning the dangerous technology left behind by the council of elders (Halperin 1982, 12). In essence, this makes Duncan part of priestly line. Man-At-Arms corresponds to Campell’s type of a “protective figure,” frequently an old man, who supplies the hero with magical objects (Campbell 149, 69). Halperin refers to Man-At-Arms as “the warrior-teacher” (Halperin 1982, 32). On his eighteenth birthday, Prince Adam offers a toast declaring, “I raise a cup to the one who taught me everything and to whom I owe my strength of arms––Hail, Man-At-Arms!” (Halperin 1982, 25).

[27] Man-at-Arms leads the prince to Castle Grayskull where they must enter “the jawbridge” (the entrance to the castle resembles the mouth of a skull and features a drawbridge with lined with teeth). This corresponds to the next step of Campbell’s narrative, “The Crossing of the First Threshold” which leads the hero into “the zone of magnified power” (Campbell 1949, 77). ⁸ Within Castle Grayskull, the prince meets the sorceress, Zoar. Zoar was invented by Halperin and conforms to “the Goddess,” another of Campbell’s types. Campbell describes this stage of initiation as “a mystical marriage of the triumphant hero-soul with the Queen Goddess of the World” which occurs in “the tabernacle of the temple, or within the darkness of the deepest chamber of the heart” (Halperin 1982, 109). Zoar leads the prince to the chamber beneath Castle Grayskull and bestows upon him the sword of power, informing him, “Within you, is a soul of power and might and truth. The soul of one called HE-MAN” (Halperin 1982, 34). She then teaches him the words of the transformation ritual. ⁹

[28] Much of the success of the series is that this heroic initiation has been turned into a ritual that has tremendous performative value to children. In every episode Prince Adam becomes He-Man by holding aloft the power sword and reciting the words, “By the power of Grayskull, I have the power!” Regardless of where Adam is during the ritual, the scenery melts away into a dazzling cloud of sparks. He-Man is shown clutching his sword surrounded by an aura of intense, white light. When the sequence ends, the scene resumes and He-Man springs into action. The animated sequence is based directly on Halperin’s initiation narrative. The following description is given of the transformation, “A blazing, brilliant, flaring burst of light illuminated the room. … The prince was obliterated from sight except for the Sword of Power which seemed suspended over the spot where Adam stood” (Halperin 1982, 34). By the mid-1980s, ritual mimesis of this transformation had become ubiquitous among American children (Blake and Grant 1985). Hendershot points out that similar transformation sequences, complete with ritualistic exclamations, were incorporated in the action-based cartoons Thundercats and Voltron (Hendershot 1998, 99). Voltron debuted in 1984 and the Thundercats in 1985 (Peccora 2002, 71). Thus, He-Man can claim credit for pioneering the transformation ritual.

The Appeal of He-Man

[29] The commercial success of the MOTU franchise was incredible. In 1983, Mattel experienced a 51% gain in sales after five consecutive quarterly losses––a change of fortunes directly attributable to He-Man and MOTU (Oppenheimer 2009, 125). Between 1982 and 1985, 125 million action figures were sold––the equivalent of eleven for every boy in America between the ages of five and ten (Peccora 2002, 70). In 1985, sales of MOTU action figures generated $450 million (Epstein 2007, 68). He-Man was seen in 43 countries including England, Ireland, Colombia, Venezuela, and in the Caribbean. In 1985, it was the number-one program in Germany (Peccora 2002, 71). ¹⁰ Episodes were translated into numerous languages including Swahili, Arabic, and Zulu (Oppenheimer 2009, 125). ¹¹

[30] He-Man ended the era of Hannah Barbara animation. Saturday morning was dominated by syndication cartoons for the rest of the decade. By one estimate there were 70 toy-based TV shows by 1987 (Douglas and Michaels 2005, 280). However, only a handful of these franchises achieved market success. At the height of this marketing strategy, J. Michael Straczynski, a writer and producer for He-Man was asked to produce a cartoon series for Lego. As a way of refusing, Straczynski wrote a satirical pitch about children who discover “Mayan talking blocks” in the jungles of Mexico. To his astonishment, the manufacturers wanted to begin production of “Mayan Talking Blocks.” Why was He-Man’s success so difficult to replicate? Straczynski commented, “He-Man helped sell toys because kids liked the show. Toy manufacturers found out later in the eighties that a really crummy syndicated cartoon based on a line of toys could not produce a major commercial success” (Burke and Burke 1998, 58-59).

[31] It seems that the success of the He-Man phenomenon was primarily a result of the mythic themes infused into the franchise directly by Halperin and indirectly by the superhero genre. Furthermore, this mythic quality distinguished He-Man from similar children’s cartoons. He-Man has been implicated in the commodification of gender roles and the bellicose posturing of the Regan era. Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels go as far as to suggest that the 1998 massacre at Columbine High School and other school shootings may have been rooted in the violent scripts of 1980s action figures (Douglas and Michaels 2005, 285-286). However, He-Man was fundamentally different from Barbie and GI Joe: Children could not aspire to be He-Man in the way that girls could become beautiful women or boys could become heroic soldiers. Sweet realized this before he created the first He-Man prototype. Deliberately cast as a mythic hero, He-Man was in a different category altogether.

[32] In 1986 an article appeared in The Journal of Young Children entitled “Living with He-Man: Managing Superhero Fantasy Play.” The authors note that playing He-Man is fundamentally different from playing house and other types of games. Superhero play often involves “mastery play”––that is, while pretending to be superheroes, children have been observed to take actions that would normally frighten them or exhibit skills they did not know they had. They argue that superhero play is healthy and prescribe measures to maintain its positive aspects while countering aggression and antisocial behavior (Kostelnik et al. 1986, 6-9).

[33] They also note six qualities of superheroes that are desired by children: They are unquestionably good, they have superhuman powers, they solve every problem and overcome all obstacles, they are in control of their surroundings, they always know what is right, and they receive accolades and recognition from powerful adults (Kostelnik et al. 1986, 4-5). Barbie and GI Joe do not posses these qualities, nor do ordinary adults. Other than superheroes, the only other beings that possess these qualities appear in myths and sacred stories. ¹²

[34] Stephen Kline conducted research with children and action figures in which he asked them if they would ever use He-Man to fight Cobra (the nemesis of GI Joe.) The children found his question shocking (Kline 1995, 330). If action figures are simply about performing male gender roles, then there is no reason why characters with different brand names should not interact. But the children’s response suggests that the stories in which action figures are embedded are more important than their muscles and weapons.

[35] Vera Zago has argued that playing with action figures is a performance and that children will sometimes use action figures to entice others to join them as playmates (Zago 2001, 146). Holding a Skeletor doll and announcing that you plan to rule Eternia, is an invocation to anyone else familiar with this script to assume the role of He-Man. Similarly, Kostelnik et al. argue that He-Man offers a source of “collective symbolization,” a necessary prerequisite for children to play imaginary games together (1986, 4). Children cannot engage in these performances unless they have a language of personas, roles, and symbols which they share with other children––a type of mythology. Children’s performance of He-Man parallels Eliade’s model of ritual as a repetition of a primal action that occurred in illo tempore (Eliade 1996, 320). As a formulaic pastiche of mythic tropes, He-Man was better fit to serve this function than other franchises of the era.

[36] Finally, there is evidence to suggest that Mattel was fully aware that mythos is necessary for a successful franchise. In defending the franchise against children’s advocacy groups, vice president of marketing Paul Cleveland opined, “Having good guys and bad guys didn’t start with He-Man. Little boys played that way 1,000 years ago” (Englehardt 1986, 40). Finally, Mattel requested Halperin’s services again in 2002 when they re-vamped He-Man for a new animated series (Halperin 2008). This suggests an awareness that violence and muscles are not enough to sell an action-figure.

Conclusions

[37] An early critic of He-Man noticed the franchise’s mythic dimension and commented, “Our mythocultural past is ransacked to produce a tiny, preset group of images” (Englehardt 1986, 39). Implied in this comment is the suggestion that the deliberate application of myth theory cannot produce meaningful stories. By contrast, Halperin subscribed to the theory of Tzvetan Todorov, who wrote that, “Literature is made from literature, not from reality ... Self expression in literature is something that has never existed” (Todorov 1975, 10). Decades later, Halperin’s narrative is itself ready to be ransacked: Now that the “He-Man generation” has come of age, popular culture is seeing an echo of the Strawberry Shortcake strategy. With the success of the film Transformers in 2007, there is a rush to produce movie adaptations of the syndication franchises of the 1980s.

[38] Justin Marks has written a script for a He-Man movie entitled Grayskull: The Masters of the Universe. This script is in many ways a return to the grim tales of the mini-comic. He-Man’s blundering sidekick Orco is absent as well as any other comedic element. Fans are quite excited about the script and have called it, “Lord of the Rings meets The Matrix and a little Batman Begins thrown in for good measure” (El Mayimbe 2008). It is significant that the three films mentioned in this review are not only popular, but have been explored by religion scholars.¹³ This suggests that the appeal of MOTU is not simply its elements of violence and the fantastic (which can be found in numerous low grade action and science fiction films), but its mythical dimension. The fact that comedic elements have been removed suggests that grown-up fans see the saga of He-Man as a serious story worthy of a serious telling. The He-Man generation was handed this myth by Mattel, but it is no longer Mattel’s to control. The future of the He-Man mythos is now in the hands of the children who performed it. After more than two decades the consumers of He-Man finally do have the power.

References

Blake, Patricia and Meg Grant. 1985. “A He-Man for All Seasons.” Time, 7 January. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,956236,00.html, accessed May 8, 2009.

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Notes

1. A scanned copy of this document may be found online at < http://www.he-man.org/cartoon/exclusivefeatures/exclusive-mastersseriesbible-intro.shtml > (retrieved April 26, 2009).
2. Eliade famously described Superman as a modern myth (Eliade 1968, 185). Similarly, the edited volume, Waiting for the Dawn contains photos of Eliade responding to a question by Mike Bell concerning comic book super-heroes based on Norse mythology (Eliade et al.1985, 66-67).
3. Kline cites a study of language used in televised toy ads during the 1980s. It indicates that 50% of toy ads aimed at boys contained the word “battle” or similar language (1995, 248).
4. The original mini-comics were drawn by Mark Texeira, who is best known for gritty comic books such as The Punisher, Sabretooth, and Vampirella. Many of the original mini-comics can be viewed at He-Man.org, < http://www.he-man.org/primary_sects/comics/html/mini_comics/motu/index.shtml > (retrieved April 25, 2009).
5. Heather Hendershot points out that despite the considerable amount of adult discourse about cartoons in the 1980s, there is almost no evidence with which to construct a cartoon’s reception by children (1986, 134).
6. The first American comic character to be used in marketing campaigns is widely regarded to be Buster Brown, who first appeared in the New York Herald in 1902 (Gordon 1998, 37). However, Roger Sabin argues that the comic character “Ally Sloper,” who appeared in British comics from 1867-1916, may be the first “comics superstar.” Sloper’s image appeared on product labels and was adapted into a plethora of consumer goods (Sabin 2003).
7. For a synopsis of this comic, see He-Man.org, http://www.he-man.org/primary_sects/comics/html/comics/motu_dc/comic_pages/DC_pres_47. shtml (retrieved 2 May, 2009).
8. Within Propp’s framework, this scene could be interpreted as the “twelfth function” in which the hero is tested in preparation for receiving “a magical agent or helper.” A sword is one of Propp’s classical examples of a magical agent (Propp1977, 36).
9. The transformation from Prince Adam to He-Man may simply have been based on the modern super-hero genre. However, the transfiguration of the hero is also Propp’s twenty-ninth narrative function. The hero’s new appearance is often “directly effected by means of the magical action of a helper,” which in this case would correspond to He-Man’s sword (Propp 1977, 56).
10. According to Kevin and Timothy Burke in Saturday Morning Fever, academics from Peru described a protest in Lima in which activists began their speeches by shouting, “I have the power!”––the slogan was taken directly from local broadcasts of He-Man (Burke and Burke 1998, 94).
11. The Bollywood film Nafrat Ki Aandhi (1989) features a burlesque show inspired by He-Man. The performance features a male model dressed as He-Man and an enormous set shaped like Skeletor. Although the song is in Hindi, the final words of the performance are in English, “He-Man! Skeletor will kill you!”
12. In fact, Todorov argues that the genre of a fantastic story may be determined solely by the abilities of the hero: If the hero is by nature superior to the reader and the laws of nature, then the story should be classified as myth as opposed to legend, the mimetic genre, or irony (Todorov 1975, 11).
13. Greg Garrett explores all three of these films in his The Gospel According to Hollywood (2003).