Dark Horse Comics have released the latest Masters of the Universe books as part of their growing collection, which is the most comprehensive guide ever published, covering all things Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power from 1982 through today. The universe of He-Man and She-Ra is full of mystery, and much of the original material was only published to select markets back in the 1980’s. Thanks to over four thousand individual entries covering characters, beasts, vehicles, locations, weapons and magic, you can learn the secrets of this entire universe.
The book features 698 pages, and is organized by 7 main chapters. The chapters include characters (chapter 1), beasts, creatures and monsters (chapter 2), fraction, organizations, species and more (chapter 3), artifacts, devices and weapons (chapter 4), spells and magic (chapter 5), locations (chapter 6), and vehicles and transportation (chapter 7).
Thank you to Dark Horse Comics for providing their He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe: A Character Guide And World Compendium book for review.
Availability: May 2017
Chapter 1 of this book focuses on characters, and is organized by year of first appearance, and covers all the primary highlights about the character, and some of the more popular characters such as He-Man, Skeletor, Beast Man use multiple pages to cover all aspects about them. The entires begin at the start of Masters of the Universe, which was 1982, and takes us through the history (including television and MOTU movie, publications, and other) right up to 2012 with the DC MOTU Comics. In addition to this, pictures of some of the vintage toys and Masters of the Universe Classics (2008) are shown (there are even entries about Super 7 (2016). The images for Classics are not complete, and we noticed that some characters are missing such as Broom (included with Madame Razz), Tuskador, and various other characters. In addition, the bio’s are reprinted next to the figure.
The book also includes every aspect of Masters of the Universe, which includes beasts, creatures and monsters (chapter 2), fraction, organizations, species and more (chapter 3), artifacts, devices and weapons (chapter 4), spells and magic (chapter 5), locations (chapter 6), and vehicles and transportation (chapter 7). Each entry is alphabetized, as well as organized by year of appearance and in which publication that they appeared. For the most part, this looks to include every aspect from 1982 to all of the mini-comics and bio’s in Masters of the Universe Classics that were published until 2015/2016.
One of our personal favorite sections in this book are the vehicles and transportation chapter. All of the various vehicles of all factions are shown, and dated by order of appearance going back from 1983 – the DC MOTU comic. Included in the gallery are almost all of the Masters of the Universe Classics vehicles, including the Talon Fighter. What is missing however is an image of the Roton’s entry, which was released by Mattel in December 2016 (by that time it must have been too late to include it in this book). The vehicles and transportation chapter covers every vehicle for each of the factions, including all of the various Evil Horde vehicles and transports, which are more than you would realize once they are organized and displayed in the book. This is quite an extensive guide, and just looking at all of these vehicles makes you want to see Super 7 offer them in the Classics line.
Overall, out of all of the books that Dark Horse has published in recent years, this one is our personal favorite. Not only does it cover every aspect about the franchise, but also has toy images of both the vintage line right up to Classics (but not for every character). Masters of the Universe fans will definitely want to add this one to their collections.
Purchase:
