Masters of the Universe Is More than Just a Toy, Cartoon, and Movie. Here Are 10 He-Man Comics You Need to Read.

As much as ‘80s kids loved to pour over the minicomics that accompanied every Masters of the Universe figure, we weren’t exactly known for our foresight. Thus, those short introductions to the world of Eternia usually got tossed in the trash, along with the cardboard backers and plastic covers that held the toys together.

Fortunately, the people at Dark Horse Comics, the current holder of the He-Man IP, have us covered. The two Minicomics Collections bring together the sixty-eight comics that were included in Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power (aka She-Ra) toys. Eventually published in conjunction with DC Comics, these stories feature work by various writers and artists, including future legends like Batman: The Animated Series designer Bruce Timm and Usagi Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai. They aren’t terribly coherent one to the next, and the lore contradicts what gets established later. But in terms of pure nostalgia, it’s hard to do better than The Minicomics Collection.

To the figures’ target audience, nothing seemed more antithetical to Masters of the Universe than the newspaper. Who wants to read about stocks and business dealings when you could have Fisto fight Stinkor? And yet, He-Man appeared on newsprint for nearly five years, with an ongoing story that was part Spider-Man strip and part adventure strips like Prince Valiant.

Written by Jim Shull, illustrated and lettered by Gérald Forton, and colored on Sundays by Connie Schurr, the He-Man newspaper strip isn’t anything particularly special, as far as the characters are concerned. It breaks up He-Man’s battles against Hordak and Skeletor into short, bite-size chunks, going for economy instead of the maximalism that the property invites. Yet, for those interested in comic book storytelling and art, the strips are a delight, remarkable examples of how much can be done in just three short boxes.

And now things get messy. DC had the original Masters of the Universe license, it eventually went to other companies—including, briefly, Marvel, who published stories under its kid-friendly Star Comics line—and eventually got the license back in the early 2010s. The company gave the property plenty of attention, commissioning stories from top-level talent like Kieth Giffen, Geoff Johns, and Frazer Irving. However, because of either reprint rights or just disinterest, DC has since largely ignored those works, letting the collections slip out of print and not even including them in the digital platform DC Universe Infinite, which makes them very hard to find.

Still, you can easily get a trade paperback of the second collection, Origins of Eternia, which makes for a surprisingly satisfying starting point. As its name suggests, the collection features several one-shots and miniseries that lay out the first adventures of key characters. Written by Joshua Hale Fialkov and illustrated by Frazer Irving, The Origin of Skeletor reveals the dark history of He-Man’s arch enemy. Written by Giffen and Brian Keene, with Giffen providing Jack Kirby-inspired pencils, The Origin of Hordak does the same for the second-worst man in Eternia. Even from this short glimpse, Origins of Eternia proves that DC had something special with its Master of the Universe line.

No phenomenon has dominated pop culture in the 2020s more than the multiverse, and Masters of the Universe is no exception. As befitting a franchise redefined with each new toy line, cartoon show, or comic series, He-Man has been interpreted in many ways, and the Masterverse takes time to explore some of the best of the bunch.

Spearheaded by Tim Seeley, who wrote the great but hard to find Masters of the Universe comics for DC, the Masterverse reimagines Castle Grayskull as a cosmic hub, where variations of He-Man battle Skeletor in all of his forms. The miniseries does have some lore justifications for its various incarnations, but really, the appeal of Masterverse comes from seeing different artists put their spin on the mythos. With art by Sergio Aragonés, Kelley Jones, and David Rubin, Masterverse proves that He-Man is hero that can wear a thousand faces.

Even before Frank Miller used the phrase to tell his iconic Batman origin tale, year one stories have been an integral part of comic books. So it’s a little surprising that it took He-Man, a guy who has been in comics for decades, to get his first year one tale in 2023. The miniseries Masters of the Universe: Forge of Destiny looks at one of Prince Adam’s first adventures as He-Man, a story that would make him the hero of not just the original animated series from the 1980s, but also of the more modern Revelation.

By the time of Forge of Destiny’s release, Tim Seeley has mastered He-Man’s mixture of fantasy camp and solid character work, allowing him to make the story feel real and grounded, without ever losing the fun of the toy line. Artist Eddie Nunez matches the writing with illustrations that match the look of the classic comics, done at the highest possible level. Nunez drafts incredible battle scenes, filled with detailed renderings of each of the characters, all pleasing to the eye, at once legible and awe-inspiring. Forge of Destiny gives He-Man the foundation we’ve always known was there, but have never seen.

When Netflix ordered Masters of the Universe: Revolution, a follow-up series to Revelation, Dark Horse Comics followed suit, producing another comic series. But instead of doing a series set between the two shows, Revolution goes all the way back, to explore the origins of the new series’s primary baddie, Hordak.

Some fans might complain that we’ve seen the origin of Hordak, before, even in comic book form, with the Keith Giffen comic published by DC. But with Revolution, writers Tim Sheridan, Rob David, and Teddy Biaselli, working with penciler Daniel HDR and inker Keith Champagne get to reimagine the story for the universe of the TV show. Given the way Revelation and Revolution both honor and reimagine what’s come before, Hordak’s origin here isn’t a retread—it’s a continuation of both his story and the world of Masters of the Universe.

With Revelation and Revolution done and the new Masters of the Universe film yet to come, Dark Horse had a daunting task before them. They had to not only build on the momentum of those previous books, but also create a new series that would be a welcome starting point for new fans brought in by the movie. Fortunately, they had the right people for the job, reteaming Tim Seeley with Freddie E. Williams II.

The first arc, Sword of Flaws, manages to please both longtime fans and newcomers. By leaning into the broad genre trappings that made He-Man so much fun in the first place. Anyone who knows how sword and sorcery stories work, or who knows how sci-fi works, will be able to jump in without trouble, even if they can’t tell Moss Man from Beast Man. However, Seeley and Williams work in enough hints about the true nature of their world by introducing the Sword of Flaws, the launching point for stories to come.

Seeley and artist Reilly Brown delve deeper into the secret of the Sword of Flaws in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #5, part one of the storyline “The Battle of Snake Mountain.” The power sword has always been at the heart of the He-Man mythos, most often as little more than the device by which Prince Adam transforms into the heroic He-Man. But in “The Battle of Snake Mountain,” He-Man learns about the corrupting power of his blade’s dark twin, the Sword of Flaws.

“The Battle of Snake Mountain” plays with a classic pulp hero concept, the evil doppelgänger, and brings it to the world of He-Man—complete with He-Man’s own evil doppelgänger, called (conveniently enough) Faker. Between Faker and the titular Snake Mountain, Seeley and Brown have plenty of toy-focused fun to offer. But their solid storytelling chops turn “The Battle of Snake Mountain” into something deeper than the usual action figure brawl.