In the style of the Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths event, Masters of the Universe: Revelation is canonizing a number of forgotten He-Man characters. The Netflix series, which acts as a continuation of the original 1980s cartoon, has found some interesting ways to make lesser-known names in the He-Man franchise part of its continuity.
There have been a number of installments under the Masters of the Universe brand, but the show is unconnected to most of them, including the 2002 animated series. Instead, it only acknowledges the events of the original show. Over 30 years after the first show ended, Masters of the Universe: Revelation has delivered a long-awaited continuation of He-Man’s battle with his archenemy, Skeletor. To the disappointment of some, Revelation veered off in a direction that distanced itself from its predecessor with the tragic sacrifice of its main hero. It’s also made significant changes to characters like Teela and Andra from the He-Man comics. But as different as Revelation is from what came before it, it’s worth noting that it actually draws a lot of its material from established concepts.
Masters of the Universe: Revelation has managed to incorporate several characters who many would assume have no place in its world, not unlike the way that the Arrowverse made old versions of its DC characters canon in its “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover. Though they don’t fit into the Arrowverse’s world canonically, it still featured fun cameos from Robin (Dick Grayson) from the 1960s Batman show, Smallville’s Superman (Tom Welling), Brandon Routh’s Man of Steel from Superman Returns, and the heroes from Birds of Prey. They were able to make them all mesh together through the existence of the multiverse and this idea that each DC show and movie has its own separate world.
Revelation doesn’t have the luxury of a multiverse that would help it use old He-Man characters, but that didn’t stop the show from pulling off a similar feat. It found room for characters with weird relationships to the franchise who would typically feel out of place in He-Man’s original continuity. One of the best examples of this is Wun-Dar. Previously, he was a promotional product of a partnership between Mattel and Wonder Bread. He even came packaged with a loaf of bread. For obvious reasons, there was no expectation that Revelation would include him, but the show made him work anyway by making him of one Eternia’s former champions living in its take on the afterlife, Preternia. It did the same with King Grayskull (the original champion of Eternia from the 2002 reboot). Also, there were He-Ro and Vikor, who were action figures in the He-Man toyline, but not characters in any of the TV shows.
Since all of the above heroes are tied to different eras in Eternia’s history, using them sounds like it would be too great of a narrative challenge for the show to overcome, but Preternia gave Masters of the Universe: Revelation the tools to make it happen. So not only are these characters finally getting brought to life on the small screen, but they're also serving the purpose of expanding Eternia lore.
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