Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion-Dollar Idea (Order from Amazon)
by Roger Sweet and David Wecker
Emmis Books, 2005
ISBN: 1578602238

I picked up a copy of Mastering the Universe when it was first published. Aside from flipping through a few bits here and there, I never sat down and read the whole thing through until a few weeks ago. The book is ostensibly an account of the creation, development, and ultimate fall of Mattel’s Masters of the Universe toyline through the eyes of toy designer Roger Sweet.

But if you take away anything from Mastering the Universe, Sweet would like it to be this: it was all his idea. And I mean all. As one reviewer of the book on Amazon put it, it reads like a court deposition in a case where the question is who created He-Man. Sweet backs up his claims by constantly citing specific patents, internal documents, and other paperwork that means little or nothing to the average reader (or indeed, anyone other than another Mattel employee).

For this reason, Mastering the Universe isn’t always an easy read. Sweet’s writing (aided by his nephew, David Wecker) is peppered with moments of bitterness, egotism, and defensiveness, not to mention a heavy helping of self-martyrdom. Oddly enough, in both its self-aggrandizing nature and its defensiveness regarding credit for MOTU, Sweet’s book shares certain similarities with Dream Doll, the autobiography of Mattel founder Ruth Handler, who claimed she was the sole inventor of Barbie. (more…)

Since first reading about the idea (I can’t remember where) that the Masters of the Universe premise was similar to Jack Kirby’s New Gods, it’s become fun to try and equate various characters. Darkseid is Skeletor, of course; Kalibak is Beast Man; He-Man is Orion; Teela is Big Barda; the Sorceress and King Randor share the duties of the Highfather; Stratos is Lightray; Man-at-Arms is Himon; Granny Goodness is Evil-lyn, and so on. Obviously some of the comparisons work better than others, but none are quite so similar as Zodac and Metron. Both were depicted as cosmic observers who followed the battles between good and evil and occasionally interceded (usually on the side of good). And they both were fond of flying space chairs.

While his original packaging described him as an “Evil Cosmic Enforcer,” most of the 1980s MOTU fiction established Zodac as a “neutral” character, someone who observed the battle between good and evil from a cosmic perspective. What exactly Zodac’s role in these events was a lot less clear. There seem to be a few different types of “neutral cosmic observers.” There’s Metron himself, who seems content to observe from afar but occasionally interferes–usually by helping the good guys. Then there’s Marvel’s Watcher, who’s actually sworn not to interfere but does so anyway, all the time, always by helping the good guys.

Zodac’s a bit more complicated, since he is usually described as a Cosmic Enforcer, suggesting it’s his job to make sure good and evil–or perhaps more logically, order and chaos–are in balance, helping whichever side seems to be losing. By this logic, Zodac should spend a lot of time helping Skeletor, but I can’t think of a specific instance in which he interceded on Skeletor’s behalf. At most, he might not help He-Man as much as he could have. And since Zodac often delivered the moral at the end of cartoon episodes, he was more or less understood by kids to be a “good” character. Personally, however, I would have liked to see a MOTU story in which it turns out the mastermind behind a plot against He-Man was actually Zodac, not Skeletor…a kind of He-Man R.I.P. (more…)