He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

In case you didn't know already, I've been working feverishly to pen up a series of reviews on BCI's entire He-Man/ She-Ra DVD box sets to be published here on Associated Content in the next few weeks. Amidst my reviewing (I happen to be smack dab in the middle of the first volume of the first season of She-Ra Princess of Power) when an advanced copy of the soon-to-be-released 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Volume One set arrived to my office. Needless to say, (since, after all, you are reading this) all other projects got put on hold while I absorbed each and every moment of the 13 episode, 3 disc set. I suspected this latest BCI release was going to be special when I first heard the series was coming to DVD a few months back but I was wrong: It has surpassed my expectations in nearly every possible category.

Before we dig into the set, a brief history lesson is in order. He-Man has been around in animation for a solid 20 years in various incarnations beginning with the well-known Filmation material from the early 1980s. Filmation's series (not including spin-off She-Ra) ran for two massive (65 episode) seasons even though the character rights belonged to the producers of the toy-line, Mattel. The second animated incarnation (from Jetlag Productions) was known as The New Adventures of He-Man that ran from 1989-1990 again following the 65-episode tradition set by Filmation. The show only lasted one season and brought a futuristic/ scientific approach to the He-Man Universe. Despite some decent writing and interesting character development, the series was never well-received by fans of the original and it had appeared that perhaps the He-Man legacy would be permanently laid to rest. Then in 2001 Mattel decided to again take a stab at the He-Man toy concept and sought out Mike Young Studios to assemble a corresponding animated series. Airing in August of 2002 on Cartoon Network, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe again appeared on broadcast television. This time the show's writers learned from their past mistakes and made certain to keep the material close to the fantasy roots of the Filmation original.