I love both series, but I have a question on He-man's origins. I have a very old comic from 1981 in which He-man is like a "barbarian" and wandered from his tribe. He already had great strength and was given a shield and large battle-axe instead of a "magic" sword. Has any one ever seen this story before and was this the original story since it is two years before the series or was it just a non official comic?
Thanks
He-man is derived from Conan the Barbarian.
More precisely, He-man originally started as the toyline to be made for the Conan the barbaraian movie. Molds for the main charathers had already been made (Conan, Red Sonya, Thulsa Doom, Thulsa Dooms' lair, Toth Amon and Toth Amon's lair) when the script was revised, so Red Sonya was taken out, Thulsa Doom and Toth Amon were combined into one characther called Thulsa Doom but whith the appearence and traits of toth Amon, and their lairs were written out. It was also becoming clear the movie was adult oriented, not fit for a children toy line.
Mattel pulled out of the project, but slightly reworked the existing molds and created He-man, initially a Conan esque barbarian. The skull faced Thulsa Doom became Skeletor, and Red Sonya became Teela. You know the lairs of Thulsa Doom and Toth Amon as Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain. You wonder what happened with Toth Amon? I'll get back to him later.
The first batch of the toyline included the minicomics, and the Conan influence was, as you can tell from the comic, clearly present.
Later, in 1982-83, the mythology was reworked for the TV-show. Only now was Prince Adam created, along with what has become the official mythology today. The comic you have, was from then no longer canon.
Conan's Toth Amon, high priest of the snake God Set, wasn't released until much later in the He-man universe, under the name King Hiss. The snake men storyline in the 2002 series is vaguley inspired by an early draft of the script for the Conan movie.
Hold Brillan!
I have always been told this. But doesn't Matel to this day still totally deny that He-man was inspired by Conan the Barbarian?
I believe it was, too many coincidences.
If they were Pinocchio, there noses would reach half way around the world by now, to put it that way.
Hold Brillan!
There is sooooo much evidence that He-man was originally supposed to be a Conan the Barbarian toyline let alone just being "based" off of the film. During the production of Conan, it became evident that the film was very violent with graphic sex scenes and Matel didn't want their company associated with such a film. Things were quickly revised and that is still why the minicomics share many similarities with the origins of He-man and Conan. After the film came out, a year later the cartoon had new mythologies to distinguish itself even more so from Conan.
There are sites and Wikipedia even states many similarities between the He-man franchise and Conan the Barbarian. Thulsa Doom was the basis for Skeletor and the Snake Mountain lair was based off another Conan character that was later called Thulsa Doom as well.
Matel still denies that He-man has no relation whatsoever to Conan and all are coincidences. I myself do not believe this one bit!
I don't believe them either. Hell, Arnold Schwarzenegger himself didn't seem to happy when he first saw He-Man.
What about that time I found you naked with that bowl of jello?share
I don't know if it is outright denial... I understood it to be a matter of semantics because of amount of time and multiple "retcons" between 'Conan prototypes' and the HeMan Figures arriving on Toy Shelves
the time line also gets hinky in that Conan was in Theaters in 82, the first HeMan Toy hit shelves in 81... But a Teaser Trailer for Conan was sent out in 1980
BUT IF Mattel was recovering their investment they would have had to have been making the decision Conan was too adult based on a shooting script, with no way of knowing the final Rating or content