Does She-Ra & POP Belong In MOTUC?

[Keldor/Skeletor73]

Dude, who would?

I would! Just married, u know.

[csc0709]

Yes, She-Ra and POP belong in MOTU. I wish we end this tired old debate. It is pointless and not going to change anything.

[Reboot]

I also like the idea of different planets in the MOTU universe. I just don't like the way MOTUC has made it, imo at least, a little confusing by putting Etheria in the same dimension that was Hordak's prison in the MYP toon. Unless Hordak is like Oscar the Grouch and hates anything that isn't "dirty" or "grimy", Etheria sure didn't look like a prison planet in the Filmation toon.

It's not THAT bad - think of it like the Garden of Hope in the centre of Apokolips (a hell-like planet in DC Comics).

That said, I would NEVER kick She-Ra out of bed.

Dude, who would?

I think I'd ask her to change back first... [Six words - "Woman of steel, man of kleenex" ]

What if the people of Eternia didn't forget about Princess Adora due to magic but because they are self centered narcissists? Out of sight, out of mind. That could also explain why the Prince Adam version of He-Man seems so great to Eternians even though there were plenty of He-Men before him(Vikor, Oo-Larr, Wun-Dar).

Inadmissable! [Adam was the only He-Man in the Filmation He-Verse]

Only problem I ever had with that is that the potential story lines you could spin off it were never exploited. Now that Adora was back, the population of Eternia is aware that the king and Sorceress erased their minds. A nice little wedge Skeletor could use to undermine trust in the royals and Grayskull; if they erased that little tidbit, what else might they have erased without anyone knowing?

There were a LOT of missed opportunities along those lines - the way Adora's suddenly the leader of the Great Rebellion after the SotS movie/SoSR five-parter being another, when she's only a recent turncoat.

There were two basic reasons for that sort of thing though - (1) In your case, that'd be a story for the Eternia-set He-Man cartoon, really... but the She-Ra cartoon replaced it, and (2) syndication contracts like Filmation's basically set in stone that the programmes should be airable in any order at the time. Hence, carry-over storylines as are common now just couldn't be done - the status quo had to be god, since otherwise you could have the equivalent of MYP's "Council of Evil" episodes airing before the introductions of Marzo & co...

[Alexx]

The answer to the question is pretty obvious (and stated a million times on here and elsewhere) so I'll skip it and just move on to my personal feelings on the matter:

I'm a fan of toys, plain and simple. I didn't know much about PoP, and when I heard they would be a part of MotUC I started checking out the archive here and looked over all the toys. I saw a bunch of cool action figures (some with interesting features; others without. Just like MotU). I wouldn't have been interested in most of them when I was little (save for She-Ra, since I've always taken anything that comes with a sword) but now, as I said, I'm a toy fan. They've done well with She-Ra (though I would have liked some more leg movement) and I'm very much looking forward to other figures from the franchise. The 4H have never let me down in terms of cool toys, and I know they'll continue to do so with the PoP designs.

[Muscle of Grayskul]

Yes POP belongs in Classics just like its always belonged in the MOTU universe, I'm glad we finally have 1 toyline that all the characters fit in together with the same look, so that the toys are coherent with a storyline that always has been together.

[npbaity]

[QUOTE=Darkspecter;2526171]Double Trouble is Man-E-Faces...with a better storyline...and costume...and colouring. [QUOTE]

Really? Seriously?!

Convince me.

Long Live MOTU!!!!
Now & Forever!!!!

[FAKER II]

I absolutely think that POP deserves to be part of MOTUC. That said, I'm not really a big POP fan. I have She-Ra and Adora but I might not buy any more. I don't hate POP. I just never had the figures as a kid and I have no nostalgic connection to it. For what these figures cost, I'd rather spend the money on Transformers, Star Wars, GI*JOE, DCUC, etc than POP. But I'm glad that Mattel is making them for those who want them.

[RockinHard]

Dude, who would?

Believe me, some guys on the .org would definitely kick her out. I would gladly take her, Teela, and maybe Catra if I was feeling real naughty.

[csc0709]

(2) syndication contracts like Filmation's basically set in stone that the programmes should be airable in any order at the time. Hence, carry-over storylines as are common now just couldn't be done - the status quo had to be god, since otherwise you could have the equivalent of MYP's "Council of Evil" episodes airing before the introductions of Marzo & co...

It is simply a matter of the type of syndication contract that was enacted. For example, Dallas and Knots Landing (because they were the among the first primetime shows to become serialized on a weekly basis), when they were packaged for off-network syndication for various markets, each show had a stipulation in their syndication contract that required both series to be shown in chronological order. Meaning, the episodes had to be broadcast in their original broadcast order. To this day, both of these shows, when broadcasted in syndication, have to be shown in chronological order, and have never been broadcasted out of sequence, except for a best of marathon. Thus, it could have been done back then, but had to be strategically executed. Granted this type of thing was quite rare, but necessary for certain shows.

[KnightDamien]

If you dislike POP, why?

- The toyline was geared towards girls?
- Disliked the She-Ra cartoon?
- Like Prince Adam/He-Man better as an only child with unique abilities?
- The characters take away from vintage, NA, and/or 2002 releases?

I suppose the 'dislike' side fits me best. But I want to qualify that by saying I don't really -dislike- POP so much as I'm extremely indifferent to it.


-- Not because the line was geared toward girls, but because it being geared towards girls had a mark on how the storyline played through and the themes of the stories. It being geared toward girls made it very girly, if the difference I'm implying makes any sense here. There's nothing inherently wrong with 'girly' -- it just doesn't appeal to me.

-- Definitely disliked the She-Ra cartoon, largely for the reasons above. Also, I've never been able to really 'connect' with a female hero character. And Bow was, in my opinion at the time, super-lame so I couldn't connect with what was really the one male character. Thus, dislike.

--Don't care about Adam being an only child or being unique. I think the idea of him having a 'powered' sister is pretty cool. In fact, I think as a kid I would have liked She-Ra a LOT more if POP had felt like it 'belonged' to MOTU. But for a TON of reasons it didn't seem to even belong to the same concept.

Totally different characters. Different 'dimension.' I mean, the only thing that really connected the two properties was He-Man showing up to give Adora the sword. I still feel that POP should have taken place on Eternia, or at least had a lot more crossover between the brands, with POP characters on MOTU and MOTU characters on POP.

But as a kid and growing up still loving MOTU - POP felt like it was as much a part of the MOTU mythos as Scooby Doo and Biker Mice From Mars were.

-- Don't care about 'taking away from X releases.' Mattel will get to most or all of it in time. There's no huge rush for me. And months without figures I want could certainly be a -good- thing.

[Lioncourt]

I've never differentiated much between PoP and MotU. To me, PoP was just another sub-set, like "The Horde", or "The Snakemen", etc.

I agree with the grumpy old dragon that without PoP, the mythos is incomplete. In my own personal mythos, I use a blend of mini comics, Filmation, storybook, and MYP to comprise the whole of MotU.

To answer the original question, PoP is MotU, so this question should not even be raised.

That is not to begrudge those who dislike it, though. I am not much of a fan of most of the Snakemen, either, but I wouldn't remove them from the Mythos,.

NA is really the only piece of MotU that I would totally not mind losing, but I would not advocate its removal as long as there are fans that enjoy it.

I think it is only a loud minority that really have a problem with PoP.

[bcrduke]

You all know how I feel about POP.

Vintage MOTU + POP + Filmation + POG + NA + MYP + MVC + 200X = MOTU for me.

There is no difference. Sure, the different sources have contradictions. I ignore them sometimes. Sometimes I try to justify them. Other times they don't matter.

MOTU is fluid for me, and while I am more excited by some characters and source material than others, I love them all.

Like, would I rather be getting Double Trouble in December than Buzz-Off? Sure, but I'd rather have that Buzz-Off figure than a figure from ANY other toy line.

Yes, you're right with Flutterina. I also tried to figure a counterpart for her several times, but I didn't manage. She's the only one of the PoP ladies that has no male "match".

Mekaneck. Questioning the worth of one's power, transformative origin, etc.

It's not exact, but they feel similar to me.

I'd love Flutterina to be more of a Siren type in MOTUC. She's beautiful and peaceful and sweet but if you're a bad guy, and she lures you in, watch out! SNAP, there goes your head!!

I wanted to get a She Ra, but family didn't get them for me--because they were girls toys. No one had a problem with me owning a Teela or Evil-Lyn, though. Is it just the rooted hair? (on a similar note: I also wanted a Huckleberry Pie figure when I was little --he was a girl's toy so I wasn't allowed). Long story short-- gendering things can limit what you get to enjoy in life. I have no problem with plastic ladies in my collection, though. Why should I? They're usually pretty hot.

See this is a great point. It was that mentality of separating the genders that messed with us. I'm sorry but playing with dolls or figures that have hair and clothes was not going to make litte kids change sexual identity lol. You're point about Huckleberry Pie is a great one. I remember going to my friend Johnna's birthday when was like 4 or something. We gave her Huck, and the whole time I was thinking, " I want this! It smells awesome and his hat is awesome." I mean that's my translation of what my 4 year old mind was thinking. I asked for one and my mom was kind of angry about it.

You're so spot-on about the gender thing. Thanks for this comment

[Reboot]

Different 'dimension.' I mean, the only thing that really connected the two properties was He-Man showing up to give Adora the sword. I still feel that POP should have taken place on Eternia, or at least had a lot more crossover between the brands, with POP characters on MOTU and MOTU characters on POP.

Well, a tenth or more of the She-Ra episodes were He-Man "crossovers" (even without including SotS or the Xmas Special). Some were pretty blatant - you could plonk He-Man into She-Ra's role in "The Greatest Magic" with only a minimal rewrite, and "Price of Freedom" sees He-Man take the lead role - HM didn't give Adora the sword and then bugger off never to be seen again!

Given that even a spin-off needs to make it's own identity, I don't really see that they could have spent yet more time on "crossovers" (and having She-Ra characters on He-Man, not counting the Xmas Special, was impossible since the SR cartoon replaced the HM cartoon - they never ran side-by-side. The closest they came was a glimpse of the Sword of Protection and a group of Horde scouts in the "Origin of the Sorceress" flashbacks.)

As for setting it on Eternia... if they'd planned She-Ra out from the start they could have done, but the retcons they needed to create Adora were heavy enough without having to create a kingdom on Eternia ruled by the Horde for years without any mention of that either!

And one of the scenes which sells the whole "never mentioned sister" retcon best for me is the Sorceress' behaviour at the start of SotS when she wakes up, the Sword of Protection leads her to the portal chamber and opens the portal to Etheria, leading her to go "Can it be? After so long..." It says so strongly that she's been searching the whole time, and it's finally borne fruit.

If Adora had been on Eternia, then they wouldn't have that sort of unbridgable gulf as a reason - Randor would have sacked the Horde's kingdom years before, or else himself have been brought down by them.

[SLO-MAN]

Yes, POP does belong in MOTUC, although I will admit I'm very torn when it comes to it. It's definitely my least favorite part of the franchise.
On one hand I'm glad that there are more women in the line than just Teela, Evil-Lyn and Sorceress and that He-Man has a twin sister, but on the other hand those kooky extra powers She-Ra has really bug me (which is why I'm infinitely glad Mattel seems to be shying away from them in the bios). Her usurping Teela's position as leading lady also makes me dislike her even more. Hordak being squarely a She-Ra villain is another thing I have a problem with.

[Reboot]

...on the other hand those kooky extra powers She-Ra has really bug me...

What, you mean like making tornados, superspeed, firing energy blasts from the sword and summoning lightni....

...sorry, they're He-Man's extra powers. My mistake

[SLO-MAN]

What, you mean like making tornados, superspeed, firing energy blasts from the sword and summoning lightni....

...sorry, they're He-Man's extra powers. My mistake

You're right, I should have been clearer. He-Man had all manners of idiotic powers himself.
Thankfully MYP wonderfully redefined him and his powers and he's a much better character for it.
Filmation He-Man and his kooky powers can stay lost for all I care.

[Lioncourt]

but on the other hand those kooky extra powers She-Ra has really bug me (which is why I'm infinitely glad Mattel seems to be shying away from them in the bios). Her usurping Teela's position as leading lady also makes me dislike her even more. Hordak being squarely a She-Ra villain is another thing I have a problem with.

Interesting. I always liked that He-Man's and She-Ra's powers were, in some part, facilitated by their genders. (i.e., She-Ra having the ability to heal, traditionally a trait supposed primarily of the more nurturing gender.) If they had exactly the same powers, or powers which were too similar, it would cheapen the She-Ra character in my mind. For example, although I am a huge fan of female super heros in general, I dislike characters like Batgirl or Supergirl, because they are too closely tied with their male counterparts. The fact that She-Ra stood well on her own solidified my attachment to the character.

I never saw She-Ra as taking Teela's place at all. Teela has her place on Eternia, and a role to fill there, much as the Sorceress does. In fact, Teela will be one day be taking the Sorceress's place, and serves as a love interest for Adam. I really don't see the logic here, any more than I would see the logic of saying you dislike Hordak for taking Skeletor's place. I treat them as different components of the same mythos, though I vastly prefer Skeletor over Hordak as a villain.

And, finally, I love the fact that they made Hordak a former Eternian villain, now hell bent on maintaining control of Etheria. It allows he and Skeletor to shine individually. That being said, I would have liked to see more of the rivalry between Hordak and Skeletor, but am quite glad it was put together the way it was.

JMHO.

[lorde trooper]

Im happy for POP and NA to be in the motuc canon, never collected N.A or POP as a kid and now have 2 daughters so will be getting all of the female characters for them. This is something new and if people dont want POP or NA then they dont have to get them, its there choice, but im happy for all of the fans that now can get them.

I would like to see some more N.A. and POP characters, especially N.A as we only have the one so far after over 2 years (as we arent getting anymore in the next 7 months) i think N.A deserves a few more characters done.

[Darkspecter]

Randor, Man-At-Arms and Adam aren't barbarians, but they have the furry boots and underwear. I saw that as a unifying trait.

Only because of parts sharing. MAA doesn't look very "barbarian" in Filmation:

I guess my problem is that Adam had a sister that he didn't know about. That no one knew about, except Sorceress, Randor, MAA and Marlena.

There are a lot of people that have brothers and sisters they don't know about and only find out about a lot later in life. Heck, some people have an entire separate family, but that's another story.

I mean, seriously, if your parents had twins and one was kidnapped basically at birth, do you think your parents would want to talk about it?

A lot of people don't want to relive that kind of trauma.

[QUOTE=npbaity;2526694][QUOTE=Darkspecter;2526171]Double Trouble is Man-E-Faces...with a better storyline...and costume...and colouring.

Really? Seriously?!

Convince me.

Long Live MOTU!!!!
Now & Forever!!!!

She's a double agent (or "secret agent"), working for both the Evil Horde and the Great Rebellion. She's their intel and usually lets She-Ra in on the Horde's plans. You can imagine how dangerous her job is and she might have to betray the Rebellion at times to gain trust! She's not in a lot of media, unfortunately. She's very similar to Loni in the cartoon though (She-Ra's friend that works for the Horde).

Man-E-Faces is an actor. In some stories, he's pretty much a party clown. He does cool things every now and then and does have some great storylines, but I feel Double Trouble's storyline is much stronger.

If Man-E got caught by Evil-Lyn while pretending to be Beastman, that would have been bad...but that's 1 villain. If Double Trouble is discovered, she's dead. She's in the enemy's stronghold which is far away from the woods and a challenge to get into, and they control most of the planet.

Costume and colouring:

Mekaneck. Questioning the worth of one's power, transformative origin, etc.

It's not exact, but they feel similar to me.

That's actually a good point! Fans/kids loved Flutterina, but the writers didn't use her much because they didn't know how to use her powers (flight), so they didn't. Good comparison!

They could have used her to help put out fires though...and such. lol

[KnightDamien]

Reboot:

You have to understand (I was unclear about this) that I'm coming from the position of why I grew up not liking POP. My not being a big fan of it now is simply an extension of that. I never got into it as a kid, and thus, am not much into it now. And I still feel similarly as I did when young, about POP being very 'girly' in style and therefore not really appealing to me.

But in terms of things like the lack of cross-over between the shows, and feeling like they're two completely different settings - that comes from the perspective of me as a child. I was really young during the Filmation days, so I had no idea what was out first, what was canceled, etc. Especially since MOTU proper was still in re-runs when She-Ra was airing.

So, from the outlook of a kid, this was just a spin-off being played at the same time, but with totally different characters and a setting that did not at all resemble the setting of the show it was "based on."

Again, it's the simplistic view of a child trying to figure out if these two brands are even related. And they barely seemed to be. In some ways, they still seem very at odds. Though MOTUC seems to be doing a good job so far of rectifying that and bringing POP into MOTU proper. And I'm absolutely in favour of that even if I will never have the kind of attachment to POP characters as I do to MOTU ones.

[yodafreakmaster]

Absolutely yes, POP belongs in the MOTUC's line!! Am I excited for all of the POP characters? Not so much.... BUT I am really stoked for a handful of them and I'm happy that all of the die-hard POP fans out there will be getting them in the line. Bring on: Catra, Frosta, Glimmer, and Bow!!!

[Reboot]

Reboot:

You have to understand (I was unclear about this) that I'm coming from the position of why I grew up not liking POP. My not being a big fan of it now is simply an extension of that. I never got into it as a kid, and thus, am not much into it now.

And that's absolutely fair enough - the Filmation He-Man cartoons played in the UK on weekday holidays until 1989 or 1990, and She-Ra as part of the Saturday morning block, which is how I got into them (I was only born in 1984!). Then, one holiday, instead of Filmation, they started playing NA He-Man instead. And although I watched quite a few, I took a visceral dislike to it, and still don't care for it.

So, yeah, I get the idea, I was just posting because you stated the lack of crossover as a fact rather than a childhood impression

[scott metzger]

There were two basic reasons for that sort of thing though - (1) In your case, that'd be a story for the Eternia-set He-Man cartoon, really... but the She-Ra cartoon replaced it,

Technically, yes, but it wasn't a case of He-Man's last episode was done and they moved on to She-Ra. They were already at work on She-Ra while finishing up MOTU. The last half of what's known as He-Man's second season actually paired up with the first season of She-Ra (the "Power Hour," as it was marketed around here). And elements of She-Ra were incorporated into those final episodes, most noticably in the origin of the Sorceress episode (the Horde's first jaunt to Eternia, both swords being shown). More of a cross-over was possible, but they might have passed on it for the second reason:

and (2) syndication contracts like Filmation's basically set in stone that the programmes should be airable in any order at the time. Hence, carry-over storylines as are common now just couldn't be done - the status quo had to be god, since otherwise you could have the equivalent of MYP's "Council of Evil" episodes airing before the introductions of Marzo & co...

They likely couldn't take a chance that an episode about the consequences of the forgetfullness spell might air before it was even revealed in the She-Ra show. "Sword of She-Ra" was the one big exception to this rule. Now, we did see some continuity in He-Man with returning characters and references to earlier appearances, but never to the point that the story itself wouldn't make sense if you hadn't seen the earlier shows. There were always a few lines here and there to give the viewer enough information to know who the characters were and what their relationships were to our heroes (or villains).

THat lack of a running story was unfortunate, because it held Filmation back in an area it tended to excel in: characterization. Being able to build the characters up in a linear storyline (as they did in their classic Flash Gordon series) could have elevated the show even more. Fisto as a reformed bad guy could have led to a lot of good soul searching stories, for instance, had they followed up on his origin. Same with Man-E as a former outcast.

[tmthor]

I like it part of MOTUC...
However I feel POP should Maybe be developed as its own collectors line running tangent to the MOTUC line I just feel the figures wuold be handled differently then (Also all the haters could stop complaining )


Question How did Hordak Kidnap Adora if he went to Despondos in the past?

[npbaity]

She's a double agent (or "secret agent"), working for both the Evil Horde and the Great Rebellion. She's their intel and usually lets She-Ra in on the Horde's plans. You can imagine how dangerous her job is and she might have to betray the Rebellion at times to gain trust! She's not in a lot of media, unfortunately. She's very similar to Loni in the cartoon though (She-Ra's friend that works for the Horde).

Man-E-Faces is an actor. In some stories, he's pretty much a party clown. He does cool things every now and then and does have some great storylines, but I feel Double Trouble's storyline is much stronger.

If Man-E got caught by Evil-Lyn while pretending to be Beastman, that would have been bad...but that's 1 villain. If Double Trouble is discovered, she's dead. She's in the enemy's stronghold which is far away from the woods and a challenge to get into, and they control most of the planet.

I appreciate your response. I follow your line of thought but color me unconvinced, especially on coloring and costume.

Admittedly, Manny's cardback art colors may be a bit bland but the color palette on the actual figures (especially the masterfully realized 4H figure and MVC's art) are quite striking. I find Man-E-Faces' riot of primary and secondary colors on metal and tubing to be much more visually interesting than Double Trouble's silver/gold on green on green on a standard POP body design. Plus, 3 distinct faces trumps 1 "friendly" face + 1 "evil" face every time, in my humble opinion. To each their own, I suppose.

As to his function as a spy, he possesses the capacity to be a spy but there's really no need. The Heroic Warriors already have 3 perfectly able spies in Buzz-Off, Mekaneck and Moss Man. Even Orko on a good day could infiltrate or help one of the others (Cringer in The Courage Of Adam episode, for example) infiltrate the Evil Warriors. The Sorceress could also conjure up a similar effect to get someone on the inside. Plus just like if MEF were caught, if her cover is blown even once, her espionage days are over. Once her one trick is exposed, what's left?

In terms of overall function, MEF is much more than that. He's 3 warriors in 1! He's Man-At-Arms, Roboto and Beastman combined! Easily as versatile in a war as a double agent.

Granted, my only media experience with DT is her single Mini-Comic appearance (Adventure Of The Blue Diamond) and I don't know her origin, but based on that comic, nobody was getting killed for anything. Catra would "capture" her for about a page and a half and then She-Ra would show up and that would be the end of it. Is there other media where she is actually connected with the Evil Horde or betraying She-Ra and her friends to maintain her cover? Barring the current uniting of all things under the MOTUC banner, is the Great Rebellion even mentioned outside of Filmation (where DT never appeared) or Filmation related comic adaptations (Secret Of The Sword)? I would very much enjoy reading it if there is. Please point me in the right direction for any other material that's out there.

MEF, on the other hand, had (in my humble opinion) a very compelling origin Mini-Comic and was very nearly killed in the process. Plus there was his temporary vulnerability to Beastman's control that put him in peril (MYP). DT may be in dangerous situations but MEF doesn't exactly have a safe or boring job/life either. I'd take my chances with Catra over Skeletor any day of the week.

For now, I'm sticking with Man-E-Faces, pending further evidence.

Long Live MOTU!!!!
Now & Forever!!!!