James Robinson Tags In Keith Giffen for the Rest of DC Comics’ HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

So, here’s a weird one. Writer James Robinson has stepped down as writer for DC Comics’ He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, tagging in Keith “The Closer” Giffen for issue #2 and beyond. Writers and artists leave comics all the time, especially these days. But what makes this news so unusual is that He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #1 came out just last week, and it’s only a six-issue mini-series. Giffen is picking up the remaining five chapters, with his first issue, #2, due out in September. Like we said. Weird.

More on that over at DC’s Source Blog.

Meanwhile. DC’s already prepping its next book set in old Eternia: Masters of the Universe: The Origin of Skeletor #1. Ready to get real, real excited? It’s by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Frazer Irving. Crank up the Wolfmother and bring it on.

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: THE ORIGIN OF SKELETOR #1
Written by JOSHUA HALE FIALKOV
Art and cover by FRAZER IRVING
One-shot • On sale OCTOBER 31 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
• Take a look at the twisted origins of Eternia’s most loathsome and terrible villain.
• What horrific events from Skeletor’s secret past defined the evil despot he became?

Comments

  1. What the hell JR????

  2. Speculation: either he’s expanding his New 52 workload or we’re about to see even bigger shake-ups.

    DC’s commitment to keeping the delivery cadence high is having some seriously negative side effects.

  3. The first issue was not nearly as good as I hoped it would be. So this isn’t bad news – I hope it turns out to be good news.

  4. The three things that stuck out to me after reading this post..

    1) Whoa! A Wolfmother reference…now I wanna hear some Wolfmother!

    2) Frazer Irving! I’m there.

    3) DC has big plans for He-man and after the so-so reviews of the first issue, a course correction was needed…stat!

  5. Yeah, this story is making me pissed at comics again, I am the target demo for this series, I loved He-Man, however I don’t buy just any old thing with MOTU on it, far from it, James Robinson writing this series is the reason I am reading it. I don’t really need to know the decision behind the move, that is their business, but no issues in August and October ( besides the one shot which looks awesome) sucks! That being said I am a fan of Keith Giffen so we’ll see how this turns out.

  6. Giffen is a good writer most of the time. OMAC was great, though short lived. Frankly, I’m not surprised by the sudden switch–I really really did not like the first issue at all. However, I was wiling to give it another issue in the hopes that JR would work his weave and reveal.

    And in the last couple of days I’ve seen a Wolfmother reference and a Big Van Vader reference. What gives?

  7. Something else had to have been the cause. It got 290 pulls and a 3.5. Not a bad showing at all. I bet this is one of those we never find out about.

  8. There can be nothing better than Frazer Irving art, esp. in service of Skeletor. Also, Keith Giffen is the perfect writer to close this series out.

  9. I wasn’t interested in the He-Man series, but I will definitely pick up the Skeletor mini.

  10. I was not aware that the reviews for the first issue weren’t that hot. I really liked the direction it was going; an amnesiac Adam discovering his true identity. I would have (re)introduced us to the world nicely. Oh well.

  11. I’m not usually the biggest James Robinson fan, but I liked the first issue of this series. Bringing Keith Giffen on for the rest makes me very happy, as I am definetely a Giffen fan. Also, that Skelator Mini with Irving on art sounds like a dream come true!

  12. And with Skelator being a one-shot, they probably won’t switch writers mid-stream.

    Is the publication schedule such that you can put out issue one, get feedback, and then switch writers in time for issue 2? I’d think by the time issue one hit the stands, the series would be half written.

  13. James Robinson has an Image comics announcement coming up at SDCC. This may have something to do with it …

  14. Robinson probably tried to introduce the Shade into Eternia. Nice try, JR.
    🙂

  15. I kinda want this series to go balls out crazy like OMAC now. I would jump all over it with Giffen on pencils.

  16. A Skeletor one-shot by Fialkov and Frazer Irving sounds cool. I’d rather James Robinson keep his focus on Earth-2, The Shades almost done and with Worlds Finest being Earth-2 characters maybe he has soon to be connected stories on the horizon. Giffen seems appropriate for the obscure characters in Masters of the Universe as that seems to be his forte, besides its just a mini and bet if the Skeletor one-shot is a hit, that’ll lead to other stories of Eternia.

  17. Why is this a surprise? this is par for the course for DC

  18. I was so entirely disappointed by issue #1 but this is strange all around. There has to be a lot more to this story and I’m guessing it is more interesting than issue #1 was.

  19. September?! WTF!
    Giffen is great, i have no problems with that.. but dammit i don’t want to wait that long!

  20. Was pretty underwhelmed with #1 the other week so no great loss, however that Skeletor book looks dope, great team.

  21. I bought Robinson’s first issue on a lark and liked it a lot more than I expected to. It looked like he was going to give Eternia and the Masters an actual history, instead of just throwing up some nostalgic bits and calling it a day. I liked Giffen’s writing back in the ’90’s, but I haven’t been a fan yet of his current NU52 output. I was getting excited for the rest of this series, now, not so much.