Masters of the Universe: Head Canon and Fanfic

docsilence

Dungeon Daddy
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Getting far, far too much joy out of doing head canon over in the Joes forum and found myself staring at some Masterverse figures tonight (with that new movie trailer pending) and wanted to take a stab at doing something similar for MOTU as well. Feels like MOTU has always been a story about stories, just weird iteration after weird iteration, and we all probably have our own favorite internal canon for these characters...
 
Zodac:

Let me tell you a story of Eternity.

I was there when Eternia began. I will be here when the universe goes dark and takes with it all the stories of heroes and villains, of warriors and monsters. I have been here through this cycle of rebirth, through every iteration and retelling. Because that is what time is, is it not? The retelling of stories, again and again, in the tragic belief we may one day tell the story just right.

I have been here since the beginning. When our hero was just a man with a sword, a simple, hard, brave man, propelled forward through a world that makes no sense out of a sense of right and wrong. I was here when his nemesis was born, of greed and acidic hate, screaming to the stars and blaming the misfortune he wrought upon himself on anyone and everything else. I was here when that dichotomy that became the center of Eternity was hatched like a dream from a god's skull. A man, a monster, a skull.

This story has been told many times. Perhaps this time it is true.

*​

"We've never known if Zodac was truly our ally. He has come to our aid, certainly; he has turned the tide of battles in ways he himself told us was not his right. He claims to be a watcher from afar, but time and time again, he is pulled down from his throne in the sky to take action. The Sorceress told me that this is Zodac's curse. He could move on, he could find peace, if he could remain neutral, if he could make his heart a stone and his mind still. But he sees in the rest of us the thing he has always wanted to be - not a man who watches from the stars, but a hero who takes arms against a sea of troubles and says 'no more.' She says he is a tragic figure, doomed to have forever in his grasp when he'd trade eternity for one lifetime of redemption."
 
You crazy son of a bitch. You actually did it.

It's going to be really interesting (for me) to see where you go with this. Much as I love G.I. Joe, I'm way more flexible in how I see that franchise's story when it comes to individual characters. For whatever reason, I'm way more emotionally invested in MOTU as a franchise and in its characters. And there's elements of MOTU that I love, and elements that I viscerally dislike on an almost elemental level. I doubt even the Doctor can make me not actively dislike certain things that have become part of the MOTU story over the years. But we shall see!

Hopefully this only makes me want to get out my Origins figures again. I swear to Grayskull... if I start buying Masterverse figures again, I'm gonna be pissed.


Zodac looks great here. Very fittingly poetic and I really dig the explanation for why the 'neutrality guy' is basically always showing up to help He-Man.
 
You crazy son of a bitch. You actually did it.

It's going to be really interesting (for me) to see where you go with this. Much as I love G.I. Joe, I'm way more flexible in how I see that franchise's story when it comes to individual characters. For whatever reason, I'm way more emotionally invested in MOTU as a franchise and in its characters. And there's elements of MOTU that I love, and elements that I viscerally dislike on an almost elemental level. I doubt even the Doctor can make me not actively dislike certain things that have become part of the MOTU story over the years. But we shall see!

Hopefully this only makes me want to get out my Origins figures again. I swear to Grayskull... if I start buying Masterverse figures again, I'm gonna be pissed.


Zodac looks great here. Very fittingly poetic and I really dig the explanation for why the 'neutrality guy' is basically always showing up to help He-Man.
The approach is so different for these franchises. With the Classified cards there is a timeless, perfect structure they created for their bios and I'm able to iterate off of that lore - the reason I can bang those out in a half our each is there's so much structure there and real-world stuff to tease out. (I love that I get to learn about like, the Falklands because of writing Wild Weasel's card, y'know?) But MOTU has that mythic thing happening, where the story itself has iterated over time and it's a child's fantasy where reality really doesn't have to apply. It's more like telling a fairy tale than a war story. But I also think it's always been approached with a bit of a wink and a nod BECAUSE it's so weird, and I want to try to get back to the grimy mystery of the old mini-comics.

Zodac felt like the best place to start because his background is a HOT MESS of lore. Good or evil? One man or many? God or mortal? Nobody knows and he ain't telling.

Also gonna experiment with the structure. Let them tell their own story a little bit then have someone else interpret it. Which feels very different from Classified where the structure perfectly sets up that they NEVER talk about themselves. Everyone's story is told by someone else.
 
Jesus, I only just saw this thread...

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I'm SO here for this!!!! With all the different versions of MOTU, with very different interpretations in different media, there is so much to draw from...for good or ill. Considering what you've done with Joe, I'm really looking forward to see what you come up with for this!

Zodac was a perfect place to start too. He's The Watcher, The Monitor, The Green Lantern Corps, Metron, and all sorts of weird sci-fi mixed into a blender.
 
Stratos:

Three, we were.

Men of the sea, men of the trees, men of the air. We were here before men raised that castle, before those empty eyes gazed out at Eternia and claimed it for their own. For an eternity, my people drifted on the thermals of forever. We watched over these lands. We were caretakers.

We were here before mankind and their petty wars. Before the first hero raised that mighty sword and declared that he, and he alone, possessed the power of Grayskull. We were here before that skull-faced fiend dredged scars upon the face of Eternia. We knew peace, once. For when my people took to the sky, there were no masters of this universe. We were not masters of the sky; we belonged to it, and the sky belonged to us.

But in this time, in this place where man raises sword against sword and axe against staff, we must take a side. The sky is on the side of good. For if it is not, will dawn ever rise on Eternia? We follow the sun into eternity.

*​

"Stratos has two driving forces in his nature: do what is right, and protect his tribe. In most things, those two tenets are aligned. I know in my heart if we asked him to choose between the two, he will choose his tribe, and I will do anything in my power to make sure he never needs make that choice. The sea is fickle and the the trees have sided against us, and so, if we are ever to know peace, we must make sure the sky considers us a friend."
 
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Good God, man, that is so beautiful. It brings up so many emotions. Like the Zodac one, it took me back to the Christmas when I got both these figures, and others, and got to play with them for the first time, examining the art and mini comics several times to get the stories set in my head. But also I love his connection with the sky and the very Native attitude of no one owning it, but it's a part of us as much as we're a part of it... I dunno, really really lovely. Made me want a figure more than anything else has in the last 40-something years.
 
Good God, man, that is so beautiful. It brings up so many emotions. Like the Zodac one, it took me back to the Christmas when I got both these figures, and others, and got to play with them for the first time, examining the art and mini comics several times to get the stories set in my head. But also I love his connection with the sky and the very Native attitude of no one owning it, but it's a part of us as much as we're a part of it... I dunno, really really lovely. Made me want a figure more than anything else has in the last 40-something years.
I was trying to figure out who was there when and realized you've got tribes of whatever Stratos is, Beast-Man, and Mer-Man and... hell, there's air land and sea, right? Anyway those two guys are next because of this concept...
 
When you said "men of the trees", my mind went immediately to Moss Man (who apparently was there in Preternia when He-Ro and Red Shadow and Sharella were running around?) Didn't realize you were referring to Beast Man and his tribe/race.
 
When you said "men of the trees", my mind went immediately to Moss Man (who apparently was there in Preternia when He-Ro and Red Shadow and Sharella were running around?) Didn't realize you were referring to Beast Man and his tribe/race.
When I write these I tend to write one character at a time for the deep dive - I always thought Moss Man was a singular creature, but Beast-Man we have some beautiful art of him with other beast-men climbing through the jungles, so that's where I went with it. The characters we've seen the most art of has being one of a larger species/population when I was poking around for ideas were the birdmen or whatever Stratos is, beast-men, and mer-men so I liked the balance of earth, air, and sky.
 
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