Ok, Maybe I’m bias because I grew up watching this animated character with my little brother sitting on the floor eating cheerios or maybe it’s the fact that I had a plastic sword down the back of my shirt till the an age that I’m embarrassed to admit or maybe it’s because every time I’ve held any object that could resemble a sword I’ve held it in the air and roared “I HAVE THE POWERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!” or maybe it’s just that the He-man comics have been great.
Keith Giffen does a great job of giving the reader a combination of familiarities as well as equally interesting new twists and turns with a story that seems to flow as smooth as lightning flows through a sword in front of Castle Grayskull. The familiarities are simple, the characters, the look, the feel, the world, the sword! Ahhhhh so awesome. (its not like a new story was made-up using the He-Man Characters names throwing a “Masters of the Universe” title on it and having the only glimmer of good being Frank Langella wearing a skull mask, the sword didn’t even look the same, wtf)
The new dimensions Griffen has created are really working well. For starters the dialog between all characters seems to be updated for a more mature audience, hence people in their thirties who watched the cartoon over two decades ago. Also the tweaks to the story line add to the overall intrigue, such as Skeletor being He-Man’s uncle, brilliant!
It’s almost as if this moving animated story from our childhood has been developed and enhanced as its put to one dimensional pages, having these characters come to life from television to comic pages is a total reversal from tradition. The characters seem to have grown up as we have, they sound more mature, and they have more complex dilemmas that can’t be solved in a thirty minute episode (My buddy and The Animal commercials included).
This last issue “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” #6 concluded the first story line, hopefully this comic will continue and offer new stories and tight jams for these recognizable, well known characters that we haven’t heard from in a while. Also without giving too much away, I want to know what the hell happened to Orko????? His name is only mentioned once in this entire arc and I’m still asking WTF ORKO WTF????????????