MOTU Comic Book

[dayraven]

oops... misremembered something... i was thinking that the son of skeletor was conceived after the merger of keldor and demo-man, hence the "more than one father" comment, but going back and re-reading the BGEL bio, she was apparently pregnant from keldor... so the kid just got way less interesting. he's the son of keldor, not skeletor, proving that the guys who wrote the bios are apparently less adept at recalling their own writing than i am.

sorry everybody!! now the kid's nothing special. but the son of the blue dude, and yellow woman (cuz i'm assuming that mattel is justifying lyn's alternate colors to be a part of her depowerment at the hands of BGT), so he could be green... like demo-man. and probably gifted at spellcraft, but raised away from his parents, he likely wouldn't have their discipline/skill... and while he might be evil, lyn is a lot less evil than treacherous and keldor was certainly treacherous... so the kid would rebel against his folks. so he'll be a good guy, likely the best friend of adam's kid. lyn will show up and try to be this cutesy mom type, only she'll be greasy skabby boozehound mom that was cool once, but it desperately, failingly, trying to hold on to her youth by hosting keggars and getting drunk with the kid's friends, but they only party there cuz she buys them all beer, and they laugh at her the minute she leaves the room... you know the kind. they wear a lot of animal prints and smoke virginia slims, and sport way too much makeup. i picture evil lyn in the future as a boozed up eileen brennen in a trailer.

[DrRampageo]

So no bone face baby then? boo to that

[dayraven]

depends... maybe part of the faustian bargain w/ demo-man included his son's face!!! that could be crazy creepy cool.

[DrRampageo]

It really would

[Thad_theImpaler]

so... i have some problems w/ the mini comic... i know, big surprise, right? but hear me out, cuz it was close to good. close... and w/ just a few touches, could have been much better, and i will even do the work. i'll post my suggestions, and anyone else who actually think about motu, and cares about the stories we get from those in charge of it, feel free to make any suggestions you think would have made the story better.

so here goes:

the cover- yup, my problems being at the COVER. why? because that's original he-man on bionatops... and it's made clear, both on the preternia disguise he-man bio (who, henceforth, shall be known officially as Strang-Or) and in the comic itself... he was required to disguise himself in preternia. so that should have been Strang-Or on the cover, by their own internal rules. they can't make any beg-offs on this for recognizability of the core hero, because this is clearly not for retail

the first page- yeah... the first page... i won't be going page for page w/ problems, but we're not off to a good start... the group shown fighting in the very first panel is also shown in the very last panel welcoming back the returned old guys... more on them in the next complaint... but we have he-man atop battle cat, then adam back-to-back w/ randor... so he's changing right in front of people now... and in mid-battle? or is that just bad editing? i suspect it's bad editing, same as i think the cover was... but to get the cover, and the first page wrong is just major suck. MAJOR.

the FIX: get a god damned editor mattel. evidently scott allie would be better served going back to starbucks.

so the old guys... you know what kills the classic hero story? i mean, the archetypal "hero" not He-Ro... the old mentor character trumping them. why are there prophecies about the returning kings? why are the old guys the ones who rally the weary heroes, when it should be the role of the hero? the hero is the one who should rise to the challenge, the hero is one foretold to be the savior. that's how the hero story works. the hero saves the day. this is literally like merlin doing all the heavy lifting for arthur. this is gandalf taking the ring to mordor. this is the harkonnen getting this asses handed to them by leto. this is... wait for it... BAD STORYTELLING.

the FIX: the story should have worked the other way around, he-man is missing, the old kings are already back and are failing to really make much of a difference for the goodies, THEN he-man bursts is, JUST AS HE-MAN, and he and battle cat turn back the bad guys.

MORE FIX: i can even solve one of their sticky points for them... cuz they created a sticky point. how does skeletor win? how does skeletor, or hordak, or king hsss ever get the drop on he-man and the team long enough to get them routed, let alone to launch a PR campaign against them? even in the really real world, it takes a while to get someone in bad stead after they've been branded a hero. and he-man is a very well known hero. how long does it take the eternian people to buy into skeletor's "no really, the guy's a dirty money grubbing gar!" campaign to pierce the zeitgeist? my guess more than one afternoon... so i explained how the baddies won. they got the sword. someone, i recommend the as-yet-unreleased evil seed, manages to steal away the power sword, and gives it to skeletor. adam has to pull out that mecha-sword again, but it only gives him a limited amount of time as he-man... say and hour or two every day. this explains why he-man gets routed, cuz he can't just he-man at will anymore, and why he-man is forced to "improvise" the powers of grayskull, cuz he has to make every moment that he's he-man count. he learns to make alterations to his transformation to give him mission specific powers to make his time more efficient. just a suggestion...

so... he-man has to wear a disguise in the past. interesting. too bad that ONE AND ONLY POWER SWORD is front and freaking center. that thing is a dead give away. shouldn't Strang-Or have been using the laser cannon he came w/? shouldn't the snake men immediately think they're fighting king grayskull?

the FIX: at the very least, strang-or should have had to pull out the FREAKING MECHA-SWORD!!!!! but i'm not bitter.

doesn't strang-or run the risk of bringing that techno-organic virus into the present time? and does cable know they're stealing his virus? no fix here, just asking...

boy, for being the leader of the snake men, and a master of disguise, that king hsss sure is a trusting guy, isn't he? he doesn't even ask for a name of the skull faced wizard... not even his name. and fortunately, none of his boys prove worth a damn either. no one even ganked him from behind. see the FIX about better storytelling.

and while we're on hsss... those freaking dbags have him sitting on his throne and i count five long snakes. five snakes. how many were on the toy they sold us? yeah... three long snakes, and two stubs. they sold us vintage hsss, but illustrate 200x hsss. that right there is very definition of douchebaggery.

the FIX: for me, i think there should have been a logical mandate to keep the comic details in touch w/ the toys, since the comic is sold w/ the toys and is about the toys.

and really, isn't the whole comic done w/ a lean, virtually muscleless aesthetic? where are the bulging biceps of the toys we actually bought/buy? they things are all slinky and lean... one might almost say they're anime-ish. but they're definitely not hyper detailed, so FWEHEW! we skated that edge but managed to jet back to coolsville at the last moment. i'd have loved to see the artist guy try to emulate the bulky proportions of the actual figs.

I don't think the first page of the comic is supposed to be taken as scene by scene, but a montage of differing occurrences

I was also a bit offput by the statement that Teela/Sorceress said she was 'disguising' the power sword, yet it looks pretty undisguised. Granted however, in this era, the sword would still be all glowy-starfieldish.

As for all the snakes 'on' King Hssss, i'm pretty sure it's just the throne he's sitting on, not his revealed form.

And the cover, isn't that a straight-up redo of the vintage comic cover? I could be mistaken but I thought that's what they were going for.

[PrfktTear]

And the cover, isn't that a straight-up redo of the vintage comic cover? I could be mistaken but I thought that's what they were going for.

You sir, are correct. The cover is pretty much 100% accurate to the vintage comic cover --- so I don't see any issue with it.

Plus, how often does the cover of a comic book have anything to do with the story?

[dayraven]

well, in this case, the cover did actually reflect the events in the comic... kind of.

and while they clearly relish the vintage stuff, sinc the interior is all new, they could have altered one tiny detail one the cover to make the whole thing jibe.

and if that first page is a montage and not continuous, why are the principal players the same? how would the pics be all over the place, chronologically, but then the narrative (which clearly references the images) is continuous? the images play correctly to be chronological, just the costume details are fudged. that's not a stylistic choice, that's a mangosteen up.

[Thad_theImpaler]

and if that first page is a montage and not continuous, why are the principal players the same? how would the pics be all over the place, chronologically, but then the narrative (which clearly references the images) is continuous? the images play correctly to be chronological, just the costume details are fudged. that's not a stylistic choice, that's a mangosteen up.

While I don't know the artists intention, my interpretation is that it is a continuous montage, the principal players would be the same because in this classics continuity the masters have been reduced to an elite core group. The primary costume difference I noticed was the Thunderpunch outfit in the first panel, which can easily be interpreted as a further transformation of He-Man after he's already become He-Man. If you go by the character bio, he's able to draw on the power of grayskull to further enhance his weapons & armor (and even in the original 'toon there was occasion when he had to keep chanting "by the power of grayskull" when he was he-man to become even stronger for a task). And as for Adam fighting alongside his returned father, there's not necessarily any reason he has to fight as he-man all the time, especially if the interpretation is he's trying to show his father how capable he really is, instead of the lazy playboy persona he would have kept up before Randor's disappearance. But granted, that's alot of extrapolation to take from a few brief panels. But I don't see how the panels couldn't be taken continuously from that perspective. It shows the fight, the loss, the return of the kings, a turn of the tide, and a celebration of reunion/camaraderie. Things I'm sure they would love to expand upon if given the proper outlet.