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.
 
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