Back in the 1980s, when you got either a Masters of the Universe action figure or vehicle/playset, you got a free mini-comic. Generally what happened was on you way home from the store, you would read the minicomic in order to learn more about the item you have just bought. (Yes, I realize now that these books were basically 8-12 page ads. But they were so much fun to read!) Once you got home, you'd take your new toy and act out the adventures in the book. Or you'd nag your parents to buy the missing characters from the book.
Over the years, finding those minicomics would become a mission for many fans such as myself. I don't have room to display dozens of action figures and playsets. But I have a couple of inches of space in one of my long boxes to house a complete run of minicomics.
Turns out that the minicomics are even harder to find than the figures. That's because the minicomics would get lost or thrown away or damaged. In the over 10 years plus I've been collecting as an adult, I've only found one He-Man mini comic. It was only a couple of bucks but not in the best of shape with some apparent water damage.
Thankfully, someone at Dark Horse decided to hunt down those lost treasures. And they went above and beyond including not just the complete run of MOTU, but the inserts from She-Ra, Princess of Power, the 1989 space reboot of He-Man, the original storybook set of 4, and some never before published minis as well!
This collection is massively small. It has well over 1100 pages. Yet, it's just slightly bigger than the size of the mini-comics. So the transferring of original works to copies prevents the artwork from looking stretched-out!
This massive volume includes early work from some of the industries legends such as Bruce Timm, Lee Nordling, Stan Sakai, Mark Texeira, and Robert Kirkman!
It's really hard to complain about this book. Yes, some of the stories are quite silly, if not ludicrous. (They were written for kids aged 5-10!) The volume, it's got just about everything a MOTU minicomics collector would want- except for the final 8 minicomics produced for the He-Man classics line. I'm not sure why those weren't included unless Dark Horse was afraid that the book and it's costs were getting too out of hand.
This book, from 2015, originally retails for $29.99. If you are patient, like I was, you can find it for a very good deal on Amazon. If you are wanting to revisit the wonder of being a He-Man fan back in the 80s, this is the perfect MOTU collection for you! And it will save you money and time for something else instead of trying to complete this set individually.
Now if only DC Comics would release a collection of the Super Powers minicomics, my mirco-sized comic book searches would be complete!
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.
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