DC have been teasing their He-Man fans over the past few days with a new redesign, all the while hiding their true purpose – this August will see a He-Man/DC Universe crossover miniseries from Keith Giffen and Dexter Soy, called DC Universe Vs Masters of The Universe.

DCU VS MOTU_1

This looks like the classical hero team-up storyline, which’ll start with Skeletor tumbling to the DC Universe. Once there he attempts an evil scheme – he is, after all, called Skeletor – which will bring both The Masters of the Universe and the regular DC heroes together to try and stop him. He-Man wants to stop Skeletor, the Justice League want to stop Skeletor, there’s a misunderstanding and they fight, but ultimately they band together to fight off the bad guy.

Probably.

It’s classic stuff, and I quite like when a comic just gets down to business and gives people what it says in the title. It’ll also be really interesting to see how Giffen and Soy work together, in terms of storytelling and layouts. The first issue of six will be out at the end of August, with the above cover from Ed Benes.

I wonder where The Flash is. Probably fighting some more gorillas. That guy and gorilla-fighting, eh?

17 COMMENTS

  1. He-Man? Fuckin’ He-Man? Is there anything these world-devouring conglomerates don’t own? How about Superman vs. the cast of Friends? Indiana Jones and Wonder Woman take on David Letterman and the California Raisins! I know, let’s have Winnie the Pooh team up with Robin and Frank Miller’s Ronin to fight the fucking Nation of Islam.

    Are there He-Man fans? Aren’t the guys who watched He-Man, like fifty years old by now (not that that matters, I guess). Is there a soul out there begging for a He-Man “redesign” so we can slap a bunch of other properties on some overdrawn cover with six different colors of laser beams and have a corporate press release copied and pasted on a bunch of internets? Am I taking crazy pills?

    Sorry, I needed to get that out of my system. Carry on.

  2. “Shhh…if you listen closely, you can actually hear the bottom of the barrel being scraped.”

    HAHAHAHAHAA

  3. Just to Allen’s point:

    My actual first memory is of watching He-Man (true story) and I’m 28 now, so not quite 50.

    Also, He-Man’s very first appearance was in a DC Comics Presents issue form 82 or 83 where he teamed up with Superman to fight Skeletor.

    Even though He-Man fandom has certainly waned since then, there is definitely precedent and a market for this. Actually, this feels to me like Mattel is about to do something big with the MOTU property again. Maybe this is them gearing up for the movie that’s been in the works for a while?

  4. Allen, perhaps you’d be interested in digging up a copy of Marvel Team-Up #74, which had Spider-man and the “not ready for prime time players” (or cast of Saturday Night Life). Yeah … just … yeah.

  5. Ah, lighten up about the SNL issue of Marvel Team-up…it was done for fun and I think Jim Shooter said on his blog that it enabled the Marvel staff to get to meet the SNL cast. The host was even Stan Lee in the issue!

    I don’t personally have any interest in a Masters of the Universe revival, but a crossover can be fun for those that haven’t gone all-in on cynicism.

  6. Um, this is actually something that was done originally in the 80’s. Mattel the producer of DC retail (and non retail subscription figures) is also the owner of MOTU. DC’s toys are made by Mattel, DC is publishing Mattel’s licenses as comics. MOTU vs. DC is a retelling of the 80’s storyline. This is not scraping the bottom of the barrel this is DC and Mattel selling their respective toylines.

  7. Would love to see DC versus Hanna-Barbera Heroes: Space Ghost, Herculoids, Birdman, Mighty Mightor, The Impossibles, Frankenstein Jr.. Yeah, like that’ll ever happen.

  8. Big He-man fan! I really enjoyed the Masters of the Universe series from Image from a while back. But I wont be picking this up that’s for sure.

    I don’t understand why the make over/reboot is needed on MOTU characters. He-man’s costume (or lack there of) is iconic. Instead the homophobic nerds a DC cover him up from head to toe and strip off Teela!! Fucking hell!

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