It took a couple decades of development hell to make it happen, but a new live-action film based on the Masters of the Universe animated series and toy line from Mattel has finally made its way through production, heading for a June 2026 theatrical release. A teaser trailer was unveiled last week, so this seemed like the perfect time to read the Marvel Comics adaptation of the first live-action Masters of the Universe movie, which was released in 1987.
Marvel’s adaptation was released through their Star Comics imprint, which only existed for a short time – from 1984 to 1988, to be exact. Star was created for titles that would be aimed at child readers and were often based on kid-friendly TV shows or toy lines. Bullwinkle and Rocky, Care Bears, Fraggle Rock, Muppet Babies, Heathcliff, ThunderCats, the Ewoks and Droids of Star Wars, Masters of the Universe, those were the sort of comics we got from the Star imprint – with the name “Marvel” still on the cover so we’d know which company was truly behind it all.
Marvel/Star got in on the Masters of the Universe action in 1986, releasing comics based on the toy / animated series character every other month between May of ‘86 and May of ‘88, for a total of thirteen issues. At first, the stories were written by Mike Carlin, then he passed the pen over to George Caragonne – but, since the ‘87 movie was kind of its own thing off to the side from everything else, it makes sense that a different writer was tasked with handling the adaptation. The writer: Ralph Macchio. No, not the Karate Kid actor. This Ralph Macchio worked at Marvel for more than thirty years.
Essentially “Star Wars meets Conan,” the Masters of the Universe property originated as a toyline produced by Mattel, with the first toys of the heroic barbarian He-Man and his friends and foes reaching stores in 1982, each figure accompanied by a miniature comic book that told a chapter in the story of He-Man's fight to keep the evil, skull-faced madman Skeletor from infiltrating Castle Grayskull and from within gaining the power to take over the world of Eternia. In 1983, the Filmation cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe began a 130 episode run in which some things were changed - He-Man was given the alter ego of Prince Adam, who would transform into the hulking, muscular He-Man when he lifted a magical sword and said the words “By the power of Grayskull, I have the power!” - but the basic idea of him and his cohorts battling to keep Skeletor away from Castle Grayskull was retained. The Mattel mini-comics then began using the concepts introduced in the cartoon as well.
Written by David Odell, the script for the ‘87 film begins with Skeleton having achieved his goal. He and his minions, including his right hand woman Evil-Lyn, have taken over Castle Grayskull, a magical place that sits at the center of the universe, at the border between light and dark. Whoever controls the castle can gain the power to be “masters of the universe.” From here, the Sorceress of Grayskull has kept the universe in harmony for ages, but now she is Skeletor's prisoner, trapped in an energy field, her lifeforce being sapped away by the villain. When the moon rises, Skeletor will become all powerful.
To ensure that his archenemy He-Man can't ruin his plans, Skeletor has his soldiers scour Eternia for an odd dwarf creature called Gwildor, the inventor of the device that the forces of evil used to turn the tide in their favor - the Cosmic Key, a handheld device that uses musical notes to open doorways to anywhere in existence. Play one tune and it could teleport you across the city, play another and it could send you to another galaxy. Gwildor is located, but coincidentally rescued by He-Man and his companions Duncan, a.k.a. Man-at-Arms, and Duncan's daughter Teela.
Gwildor has in his possession the prototype of the Cosmic Key, and when he and his rescuers are cornered by Skeletor's forces, they have to punch in a tune to escape. A doorway opens, they go through – and on the other side, they find themselves on Earth in 1987. A creative decision that allowed the production/distribution company Cannon to make the movie on a lower budget.
Lost by the interstellar travellers mid-transit, Gwildor's Cosmic Key ends up in the possession of two teenagers, Julie Winston and her boyfriend Kevin Corrigan. Having recently lost her parents in a plane crash, Julie is dealing with some serious grief, and there's a sort of Wizard of Oz-esque element to her storyline.
When Gwildor's Cosmic Key is activated on Earth, Skeletor's Cosmic Key is able to locate it, allowing the villains to follow the heroes to our planet. The first wave to come seeking the key are a group of mercenaries, most of whom were created for the film. There’s the short, hideous, white-haired and hook-handed Karg, who was apparently supposed to be a half-man, half-bat character; Saurod, an armored reptilian; bald swordsman Blade; and a re-designed version of the furry creature Beastman, the only one of the bunch that came from the cartoon/toyline.
The mercenaries go for the teens and the Key, but luckily the heroic Eternians show up on the scene just in time to fight them off. After the mercenaries' failure, Skeletor steps things up, sending Evil-Lyn and a squadron of troops to Earth... And all this action and destruction going on in small town America catches the attention of the local police, mainly represented by Detective Lubic. As the situation escalates, Lubic finds himself in over his head, but he's up for the challenge.
Eventually, the action moves back to Eternia for a final confrontation between He-Man and Skeletor, which occurs by the light of the moon... And since the entire story happens within the course of one day, there was no time for the filmmakers to address whether or not there’s a Prince Adam in this version of Masters of the Universe. He-Man is just He-Man the whole way through.
Macchio had the unenviable job of having to condense the story of the 106 minute film into a comic book with a page count of 44, but he handled it well, some clunky dialogue exchanges aside. He also managed to work in more information about Eternia than the movie did. During their final interaction with the Eternians, Julie and Kevin are told that Eternia was discovered by Americans on a NASA ship (Starfinder 5) that became stranded on the planet on July 10, 2221. So the characters travel through space and time in a major way.
While the established Masters of the Universe characters that are featured in the movie were redesigned for live-action, one of the coolest things about the comic book adaptation is the fact that the art team (the book was penciled by George Tuska, inked by Art Nichols, and colored by Evelyn Stein) made the characters look exactly the way they looked in the cartoon. So if any fans ever wondered what the movie scenes would have looked like if the characters were cartoon-accurate, this comic book delivers those images.
Masters of the Universe is definitely not all a live-action adaptation of the source material could have been, but I do think it is much more entertaining than it gets credit for being. I'm sure nostalgia plays a big part in my appreciation for the movie, but regardless, I thoroughly enjoy it, flaws and all. I was 3 years old when the film reached theatres and 4 when it hit VHS, so the movie was pretty much always in the mix of my childhood He-Man fandom. While older fans were let down by this adaptation and judged it harshly in comparison to the cartoon, to me it was always just like another episode. I accepted it as much as I accepted the rest of the He-Man lore that I was handed. And I’ve always been fine with the fact that it’s largely set on Earth. If you're going to rely on the audience's familiarity with the property when they go to see the feature, as this does, rather than re-build the story from the ground up in live-action, "He-Man Goes to Earth" is an event in his continuing adventures that's worthy of a movie.
I didn’t have the comic book adaptation in my collection when I was a kid, which is unfortunate because I would have absolutely loved it and probably would have read through it many times. Instead, it took me nearly forty years to read the comic book – but I still found it to be an enjoyable adaptation of a movie that I’ve seen a lot of times.
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