Kevin Smith's MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: REVELATION Series Has Inspired a New Line of Action Figures
It looks like Kevin Smith’s Masters of the Universe: Revelation animated series, which is coming to Netflix, is going to come complete with its own line of action figures. These figures will be inspired by the designs that were created for this series.
On a recent episode of the Fatman Beyond podcast, Smith shared some updates on his new He-Man series and that’s where he dropped the info on the toy line:
"That show is absolute magic, I adore it, I can't wait to share it with you. They'll tell me when that's going to happen soon. We're getting to a place, a very important milestone in our production process we're about to hit, and I can't even give you that information because it spoils too much. We're in a very, very excellent place, and I've seen the toy designs. Their doing like toys, not just He-Man toys, but toys literally based on the Powerhouse designs like from our story. Shit that we wrote is resulting in fucking new versions of these figures, that is like *mimes head exploding*."
Well, it’ll be cool to see how all of this turns out. I’m actually pretty stoked about this show as it picks up where the classic original 1980s series came to an end. Here’s the synopsis for the show:
A radical return to Eternia, Revelation is a direct sequel series to the classic era of Masters of the Universe. Featuring fan favorites He-Man, Orko, Cringer, and Man-At-Arms, the story pits our heroic warriors and guardians of Castle Grayskull against Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Beast Man and the vile legions of Snake Mountain!
But after a ferocious final battle forever fractures Eternia, it's up to Teela to solve the myster of the missing Sword of Power in a race against time to prevent the end of the Universe! Her journey will uncover the secrets of Grayskull at last. This is the epic He-Man and the Master of the Universe saga fans have waited 35 years to see!
This series has a great voice cast with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mark Hamill, and Chris Wood headlining the series. Gellar will voice Teela, with Hamill perfectly playing Skeletor, and Wood will be He-Man/Prince Adam. Headey will voice Evil-Lyn, with Liam Cunningham as Man-At-Arms, Griffin Newman as Orko, Stephen Root as Cringer, Diedrich Bader as King Randor, Alicia Silverstone as Queen Marlena, and Susan Eisenberg as Sorceress.
It’s been said that the characters in the series will have the same classic designs as the original cartoon series. The animation is being done by Powerhouse Animation (Castlevania, Seis Manos), and it will have an anime style. When talking about that, Smith shared, “Powerhouse Animation absolutely killed it...This artwork is amazing. The design work that Powerhouse has done...absolutely spellbinding.” He went on to talk about the style, saying:
“It's in the style of an anime...what Netflix calls an anime original...but looks exactly like our classic characters. Nobody's been redesigned to where you're 'Oh that's the 2020 version.' They all look like they're supposed to. And the story functions as essentially the next episode when [the 1980s original animated series] stopped.”
He also spoke about the tone of the show and how it will start off like the tone of the original show, then shift gears into something new:
“We begin where they ended, the same tone like that, and then our tone shifts as something cataclysmic happens. That's where our modern story kicks in. Even then, it's not like 'Everything you know about He-Man is wrong. We're gonna upend the universe. Everything you knew about He-Man you need to know in order to watch the show because we play thick and fast with mythology.”
The series is being produced by Mattel Television with Rob David, VP of Mattel TV and author of He-Man: the Eternity War, and the show is being developed by writers Eric Carrasco (Supergirl), Tim Sheridan (Reign of the Supermen), Diya Mishra (Magic: The Gathering), and Marc Bernardin (Alphas).
Masters of the Universe: Revelation will likely premiere on Netflix in 2021.