By the power of… Kevin Smith! Hello people, I’m very excited to welcome you to what will be our weekly recap of Masters of the Universe: Revelation! The newest Netflix show from Mattel’s property. This works as a direct continuation/sequel of the original 1983 show, but it is also an update, a little more serious version “with higher stakes”, that will have a long story arc trough the series.
Apparently this is just a one-off season, divided in two parts of five episodes, there’s no indications that they have plans of making any more seasons, but I guess that if it becomes a success there will be a continuation. What is sure is that Netflix is also developing a CGI, family-focused ‘revival’.
This first episode is named “The Power of Grayskull”, let’s dive in.
1. The wonderful intro
The Netflix press release stated that the opening credits of the show were the original oil paintings of the Masters of the Universe artwork used in the toyline’s packages, and even though I was expecting it, I was still amazed at how beautiful they are and what a perfect intro they went to the show.
To be honest, I was nervous because I didn’t know how much I needed to catch up with my childhood knowledge of original series, but as soon as the episode started, XXX’s narration explained everything I needed to understand it, and I knew I was going to be fine with what I already knew.
2. Clawful Awful
All the dialogue here have that vibe from the original show, with cheesy interactions and over the top responses, I just love it, I think that Kevin Smith was a great choice for Showrunner, and as writer of the first episode he nailed the characters, giving everyone a distinctive voice.
But to properly express that voice, you need voice actors and, of course, here we have a top-tier cast that includes Chris Wood, Mark Hamill, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Lena Headey, Diedrich Bader, Alicia Silverstone, Griffin Newman, Kevin Conroy, Tony Todd, Phil LaMarr, Dennis Haysbert and a ton more.
If I’m not wrong, all of the cast recorded on their own homes due to the Pandemic, and I think that if you really focus you can hear it, but mostly every dialogue sounds great and most importantly, every dialogue was delivered with the emotions that it needed. I want to specially shout out Griffin Newman, mainly because I’m a fan of his podcast Blank Check, but also because his work as Orko was both charming and heartwarming.
It is worth mentioned that they brought back Alan Oppenheimer, the original voice of Skeletor and other characters to voice Moss Man, but his appearance was rather short because he was killed almost immediately. I guess that this was only a small tribute to recognize Oppenheimer’s work in the previous show.
3. The animation
We also have to talk about the animation, the style is anime-inspired, all the action scenes had a lot of dynamism and the character designs are big and well defined; one of my favorite moments of the fight scenes was when Orko and Evil Lyn clashed and all their magic powers were shown at full throttle, the animators took their time to make a wonderful show. And that effort was there in the final result, but also from the beginning at the design stage, according to Netflix’s press release, they worked on making the bodies of female characters more muscular and accurate to what soldiers and fighters would look like in real life.
The animation is done by Powerhouse Animation Studios, and they already have a lot of experience on Netflix shows like Castlevania, Seis Manos and Blood of Zeus. In fact, Netflix is so happy with their work that just last month Deadline reported that they signed a First-Look deal with the Streaming Service.
4. Now let’s talk about the story
This episode starts like a regular episode of the original series, there’s a party on the palace because Teela will be named Man-At-Arms, replacing her adoptive father; meanwhile in Castle Grayskull, Skeletor manages to enter and fights with the Sorceress, but there’s something different now.
Continued belowSkeletor reveals that he now understands that he doesn’t want the Castle itself but something inside it, and he has a plan to finally win. So, when the Sorceress calls for help everybody comes to try and save the day, but everything is working as the villain intended.
5. Time is stronger than magic
He-Man is angry and mortally wounds Skeletor with his sword, but that was his plan all along, because the hero also unknowingly used his weapon as a key to open the vault and revealing a magic orb that contains all the magic of Eternia, and it threatens to end all life.
The sorceress manages to briefly freeze the time, with the intention to say goodbye to her Teela, who is her daughter that she gave to Man-at-Arms. But He-Man has a plan, maybe he can use his sword to absorb the magic of the orb, even if it kills him.
What is different from the original is that both the villain and the hero chose to sacrifice their life, and now nothing will be the same, both Skeletor and He-Man disappear from the world, but at least it is safe nor. It is an interesting parallelism that they both chose to die for what they think is their own “greatest purpose”, and I hope to see that similarity explored a little bit more in future episodes.
6. Teela Feels betrayed
When he is about to disappear, He-Man returns to his form as Prince Adam, which is a revelation (ohhh, I get it now!) to Skeletor and Teela. When they return to the palace, Duncan reveals that the king’s son was the hero known as He-Man, that angers the King and he exiles Man-At-Arms.
But the King is not the only angry person, Teela is also angry because her best friend and his father hid from her the truth of He-Man, so she quits her new role and storms off.
I think that this episode will be different from the rest of the season, because it sets up the new status quo of Eternia. Both its biggest guardian and biggest foe are gone, and the person with the task of protecting the kingdom is also absent.
The premise of the show will now be Teela’s journey to recover the Sword of Power, band together all the heroes and save Eternia once again, this time maybe without He-Man.
BONUS: By the way, Randor is an absolute asshole to his son and Marlena, despite knowing the truth, seems so scared of his husband that chose to keep quiet, what an awful pair of parents, no wonder She-Ra is not around!
And that’s it for this episode, I absolutely loved it, great animation, excellent performances, an interesting change of the status quo and an intriguing premise for the episodes to come, I can’t wait to watch a new episode!
What did you think of this new world? Leave your comments below and join us every Monday for our take on Masters of the Universe: Revelation, on the meantime, you can read Alexander Manzo’s review of “Masters of the Universe: Revelations” #1, Dark Horse’s prequel comic that I’m sure will come in handy on the next episodes, also, you can watch episodes of the old show on Youtube.
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