Masters of the Universe: Head Canon and Fanfic

Moss Man:

Eternia is a place where things become. Men float down from the sky and become immortal guardians. Women fall from the stars and become queens. And sometimes, gods crawl up from the earth and become heroes.

In a way, it began with a corpse. Not really, of course. This being, this creature, had been part of Eternia before Eternia had a name. Plant life doesn't die, really; it transforms. It transmutes. And running through the green veins of this place was a quiet god, a god of life and sustenance, but also of decay. A god of cycles, of natural things. But the god, or whatever it truly was, for it had no worshippers, it had no followers, it simply was, it grew lonely. Lonely of this silent endless life, listening to the beasts live their brief lives, the thumping of feet, the cries of joy and pain and fear and love.

The corpse. One of the first men, the beast-men, an elder, perhaps the elder, the first of his kind. Things lived longer then, because they had a purpose. The first stories always have a way of staying with you. But this old beast of a man knew his time was over. His work was done. He had led his people out of their feral nature to become something noble, and true, and terrifying. The old beast-man, his work done, laid down in the deepest forest, away from those who would look for him, rested his back against a mighty tree, and slept his last sleep.

Moss crept over his skin. Vines grew into his muscles, and into his veins. In death he somehow became even more alive then he was in life. His bones became branches. His hair became leaves. And then one day, more moss than man, he stood up, took his first breath as something new, and a god of the earth and green strode with childlike wonder into the world.

*​

"No one really knows what Moss Man is. I've seen him die and come back to life. I've seen whole forests bow to his will. The trees answer to him when he speaks. He is not just of Eternia - in many ways, Eternia is Moss Man. And yet he has a childlike nobility to him. He wants to understand the mortal beings around him. To grasp our ethics, our motivations. He is somehow the most complicated man I have ever met, and as simple as an infant. Deeply philosophical, but filled with endless wonder. I suspect he will be here long after our wars for this place are over. It will be Moss Man who locks the door of Eternia, turns out the last light, and shuffles us into the next world."
 
That was fantastic! I loved in the DC/MOTU crossover from a few years back how they revealed that Moss Man was basically The Green's representative on Eternia...he was their Swamp Thing. This origin for him not only works with that concept...it transcends it! Moss Man as an elemental force...a being both part of the planet itself, and a higher lifeform of godlike power. Well done!
 
TheGillMan said:
That was fantastic! I loved in the DC/MOTU crossover from a few years back how they revealed that Moss Man was basically The Green's representative on Eternia...he was their Swamp Thing. This origin for him not only works with that concept...it transcends it! Moss Man as an elemental force...a being both part of the planet itself, and a higher lifeform of godlike power. Well done!
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It occurs to me AFTER writing this that this is basically how I'd pitch Swamp Thing if I ever could get on DC's radar. As someone who really isn't good with plants or nature in general, really, apparently I like writing about it - my short story in that Generation Wonder anthology is "My Life as a Houseplant" which is sort of "what if a teenager got Poison Ivy's least cool powers"
 
Really enjoying seeing these characters not just reimagined, but reimagined from behind their own eyes. I think that's what's selling me on it the most. It feels less disconnected than the last few cracks people have taken at MOTU lore.
 
Damien said:
Really enjoying seeing these characters not just reimagined, but reimagined from behind their own eyes. I think that's what's selling me on it the most. It feels less disconnected than the last few cracks people have taken at MOTU lore.
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It does kind of feel like traditionally MOTU characters are kept at arms' length, outside of the core five or six characters. I'm having fun looking at what they might be if they were the hero of their own story and not background players in He-Man's story.
 
Mer-Man:

Is there anything as infinite as the sea? The sky has nothing on its mystery, its ecology. To rule over the seas, to command the waves and tides, that is to be eternal. The mer-men were one of the first races. They spread across the oceans of Eternia long before mankind build their castles and fought their wars. One might say they were a violent people, but the ocean is a violent place – you either fight and survive, or you re swallowed up by the depths. And so the mer-men were ferocious, and fearless. From the cold depths to the battering waves, every drop of water was their domain.

Until the dead man came and conquered. Until the last great king of the mer-men bent his knee to a petty tyrant and shamed his great species forever. That will be forever his shame – that he was king of a world, and he let some conjuror with a skull for a face convince him to surrender dignity for power.

But there is dignity in him, still. Perhaps there is not a hero within that scaly chest, but Mer Man longs to be a king again one day. We shall see if he lives long enough to reach it.

*​

“Of all the warriors who swore their swords to Skeletor’s cause, none hate him as much as Mer-Man does. The sea king knows his worth. And worse, he knows what he lost by throwing his lot in with Skeletor. He will never be an ally to us, never a friend. But I think there is a world in which Mer-Man remember who and what he is. If he does, the tide of this eternal battle will change forever.”
 
NICE! Giving some...*ahem*...depth to Mer Man is no easy task, but this is so freakin' great!!! I really like how you managed to reconcile the different depictions of him in MOTU, with some media having him as a sniveling henchman, and others showing him as a ruthless leader of his people. This marries those two disparate versions into a far more complex whole, and I'm SO here for it!
 
TheGillMan said:
NICE! Giving some...*ahem*...depth to Mer Man is no easy task, but this is so freakin' great!!! I really like how you managed to reconcile the different depictions of him in MOTU, with some media having him as a sniveling henchman, and others showing him as a ruthless leader of his people. This marries those two disparate versions into a far more complex whole, and I'm SO here for it!
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Partially inspired by how amazing his Masterverse figures are, too - like THIS guy is a sniveling idiot? No way. Clearly Skeletor has something on him because THIS guy has got to have dignity in there somewhere.
 
I really dig the idea of Mer-Man turning on Skeletor, but also NOT siding with the Heroic Masters. Honestly, I'd never even considered the angle of what it really means that Mer-Man is basically king of the sea, but still subservient to Skeletor. Definitely begs the question of 'why.' Although I have also always liked the idea that Skeletor really is just that powerful and terrifying. Like in the 2002 comic where we learn that Trap-Jaw is who he is because Skeletor fucking smoked him one and tore his jaw right off.
 
Damien said:
I really dig the idea of Mer-Man turning on Skeletor, but also NOT siding with the Heroic Masters. Honestly, I'd never even considered the angle of what it really means that Mer-Man is basically king of the sea, but still subservient to Skeletor. Definitely begs the question of 'why.' Although I have also always liked the idea that Skeletor really is just that powerful and terrifying. Like in the 2002 comic where we learn that Trap-Jaw is who he is because Skeletor fucking smoked him one and tore his jaw right off.
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I think Skeletor kind of has to be terrifying. (Similar to Cobra Commander in that regard.) A buffoon doesn't pull an army like this together. He's got monsters who would be threats on their own under him, so there's got to be real power behind that skull.

And I could see Mer-Man essentially growing a pair and being like nope, this is my kingdom and not throwing in with anyone. Or going full isolationist. Try and follow me where I go from here and you'll see real power.
 
Sorceress:

There has always been a sorceress. Perhaps it has always been her. The Sorceress does not know. She does not remember a time when she was not the Sorceress. Except, perhaps, when she was a bird, soaring over Eternity, soaring over Eternia, the winds of magic and forever beneath her wings.

There has always been a sorceress because this is a land of Men. This-Man and That-Man, swinging swords of power and demonstrating over and over again that might does not make right no matter how much power one accumulates. No one is a master of the universe. The universe is ungovernable. The Sorceress knows this. Her job is not to be master or mistress of anything. She is to be the one who watches, and the one who knows, the one who can push This-Man and That-Man to point that sword or axe or fang or claw in such a way to bend the arc of Eternity toward goodness and rightness.

She has seen the Universe, masterless and eternal, wend its way through time beyond memory. She will be here when the sun sets one final time, when the jaws of Castle Grayskull slam shut. Only fools do not heed her words, but the universe is full of fools.

*​

“Some think she’s a goddess, or an angel, some celestial guide put here to make heroes out of ordinary men. I have met this Sorceress and held her hand. I have spoken to her as friends do. She is no angel. She is not divine. She is simply the one who knows how the story ends and cannot help but try to change it, and she is the saddest person I’ ve ever met. She knows if the play is a comedy or tragedy, and cannot help but try to rewrite it.”
 
Oh wow, I really like that. What a great take on the character. I think, probably largely informed by Filmation, I've always really seen her as a more grounded, motherly figure. This version is so much more detached and otherwordly. This version of Sorceress isn't revered by Eternians because she is the infinitely kind and nurturing Grayskull Mom. She is revered by -both- sides because she's the Oracle of Delphi and Cassandra rolled into one.
 
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