DC Comics Presents #47 (2025 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

This issue marks the first ever appearance of He-Man and many of his cohorts from Masters of the Universe in comics. According to Bob Rozakis in his opening column in the letters section 'Pair Mail', Mattel approached DC with the idea of adapting their forthcoming Masters of the Universe toy-line in comic book form. 

Toying around with the concepts provided by Mark Ellis from Mattel, project editor Dave Manak and Paul Kupperberg got the idea to have He-Man's world of Eternia merge with the DC Universe. Since this would be a first ever introduction of the characters to readers, DC felt having Superman meeting the Masters of the Universe would alleviate some of the unfamiliarity felt by the youngest of readers.

The story begins with Eternia's crown Prince, Adam going about his normal day of first learning combat skills from the palace's head of security Man-At-Arms then wasting his time in a tavern where a drunkard challengers the royal to a fight. Prince Adam is about to get his brains bashed when he's rescued by the palace guard. Only it turns out that this aloofness is all a ruse because in reality, Adam can change into the realm's mightiest human, the all-powerful He-Man.

Meanwhile He-Man's archenemy, the evil Skeletor is attempting once again to breach the ramparts of the mysterious Castle Greyskull. Feedback from a spell causes a breach in the universe, sending the Man of Steel to Eternia. Skeletor immediately casts his magic upon Superman, who has no immunity to the dark arts, turning the Last Son of Krypton into Skeletor's slave and latest weapon in his never-ending battle against He-Man!

A few months after He-Man's debut, a 16-page insert appeared in many of DC's flagship titles. A 3-issue miniseries came about next, dated November, 1982-February 1983. However, Mattel wasn't very happy where DC's direction was going with the franchise and severed ties after issue #3. He-Man wouldn't return to monthly comics until 1986, teaming with Marvel's Star Comics imprint for a 13 issue series (and adaptation of the disastrous 1987 live-action flick starring Dolph Lundgren, that ended when the House of Ideas shuttered the all-ages line of books in 1988. As the title faded, He-Man and company would lie dormant in comics until renewed nostalgic interest in the title would spawn short-lived franchise agreements with Image Comics, Dark Horse, and CrossGen Comics in the early 2000s. Masters of the Universe would return to DC from 2013-2020. Several minis were produced, including a 6-issue crossover between the characters of DC's Injustice video game and the heroes of Eternia. Dark Horse Comics currently owns the franchise, where they've published a couple of miniseries based on the animated Netflix reboot helmed by Kevin Smith. 

For this issue, Paul Kupperberg wrote the script with pencils by Curt Swan. A backup feature starring the Golden Age Sandman and his sidekick Sandy was crafted by Mike W. Barr and Jose Delbo. 

Completing this review completes Task #3 (Comic from the Bronze Age (1971-1985) of the 2025 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: The Newspaper Comic Strips

Everybody whose a fan of the classic He-Man and the Masters of the Universe line knows that with each action figure came with a 8-10 page mini-comic. But very few know that in the late 80s, MOTU ran as a weekly newspaper comic strip. Maybe the fact that only about a dozen major cities ran the strip has something to do with it. Could also be the sad but inevitable fact, that for the time, He-Man was running out of steam with the kids of the era.

Dark Horse continues it's compendium of all things He-Man in this massive 2017 hardback! When I say massive, I'm not lying. The book weighs about 12lbs. It has over 500 pages. Plus this collection of strip is over-sized, much like a tabloid. I honestly have no idea where I'm going to store this thing as my graphic novel shelves can't hold something this big!

He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Orko and friends battle Skeletor, King Hiss, Hordak and the mutants of Trogg on the far-out future world of Primus . There's also some all-new characters such as a woman named Miranda who wins Duncan's heart. However, due to copyright/licensing issues, She-Ra and her cronies do not appeared anywhere in these stories.

The first 6 or 7 episodes are really well done. The color job on the Sunday strips are so amazingly bold. They look like screen shots from the animated series, only done with crystal clear clarity. 

Towards the end of the run, most of the American publications had dropped the strip. But since most foreign nations were still getting 'first run' episodes  of He-Man on their national TV stations, the comic managed to survive until the early 90s. While the quality of the strips were good in both story and artwork, the preservation of the strips was sorely lacking. 

A total of 1,674 days worth of story were produced. Amazingly 98% of them were able to be retrieved thanks to microfilm preservation of newspapers or the clippings of those lucky few fans who got to read the paper first run. Still, some of those finds weren't of the best quality and they do not translate into high-grade paper very well at all.

As for those missing tales, editor Daniel Chabon and his staff do a great job describing the missing scenes thanks to script notes from the original creative team of Chris Weber, Karen Willson and Gerald Forton; all of which sit-down for in-depth interviews of the creative process throughout. 

I really enjoyed this collection. But even more, I enjoyed the kick-butt customer service I got from bellwetherbooks, a seller on Amazon. My collection of He-Man mini comics was missing 30 pages. As a replacement alternative, they gave me this book for free! I'm not saying that you need to take advantage of them or worry that they provide damaged books. But I do recommend them as a company that fixes it's mistakes, has good communication and super fast shipping and good prices! Give them a try!

As for this book- a very good read with some editing issues. Some are Dark Horse's fault. but for the most part, it's due to not being able to find pristine negatives because Filmation and or Mattel decided to trash them.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Minicomic Collection

I've wanted this collection for quite some time! 

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. 

Masters of the Universe #3

Masters of the Universe finishes in such a way that good triumphs over evil, but it doesn’t eliminate the bad guys. Otherwise, there’d be no reason to watch He-Man on TV.

The art improved in issue 2, but no further improvements are made in this issue. Also, the ending seems a little forced as I think the writers were running out of pages for their story and still hand a handful of characters to introduce.

I was somewhat happy with the ending and I enjoyed the fact that DC put a small reader’s guide in the back of the issue to explain any nits like why Sorceress looks like Teela! (so that's why!!!) and reveals that He-Man actually appears in a couple of team-ups with Superman in the pages of DC Presents. I must get my hands on those.

The series started off weak but got better. It’s no Shakespeare, but then again I hate Shakespeare.

Worth Consuming, but don’t pay more than a buck or less per issue.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Masters of the Universe #2

After reading issue one, I was disappointed that the series didn’t involve the origin of He-Man. My wish was answered pretty quickly by about page 10 of this issue. I’m still a little disappointed with the paper thin plot; He-Man and friends must find several talismans in order to free Sorceress from the clutches of Skeletor.

Essentially, the quest is for potential fans to figure out who’s who on Eternia.

Thankfully, the art is getting better by this issue as well. Teela looks more like herself now. Yet, Sorceress is still wearing Snake armor, like Teela. It doesn’t make sense why since she’s got a magic hawk in this book AND has bird-like powers. But at least this is no issue #1. So, some praise is due.

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.