I’ve been a Masters of the Universe fan since before I have memories. He-man and the Masters of the Universe debuted the September after I was born, and by Christmas of 1984, like so many 80s kids, I was hooked. Unlike many 80s kids, I never really stopped being a Masters of the Universe person – even when MotU had a hard time staying relevant in pop culture (outside of parody).
The author in 1985 and 2023.
It was adult fans like me whose lobbying (and spending) eventually convinced Mattel to bring back the power of Grayskull, to the point where a 2026 movie can clock over 1.7 billion minutes streaming and pique the interest of Hasbro, a competing toy company, for a card game collaboration. So what’s going on? Does this superdrop have the power, or is it a faker?
It’s complicated.
Artistically, this superdrop is gorgeous, with new art that reimagines and recreates moments from memes, the filmation cartoons, and some of the glorious box art, recalling the work of 80s pulp artists Earl Norem, William George, and Rudy Obrero. Tyler Walpole has painstakingly redrawn the FILMATION version of Skeletor and his evil warriors (including the very deep-cut Skelcons, originally from UK story books!), and Jack Hughes and Justyna Dura have given us outstanding paintings of She-Ra that may be my favorite pieces of the set. No one can say that the art in this drop doesn’t accurately and beautifully reflect some facet of Masters of the Universe history. It’s obvious the artists did their homework!
Castle Grayskull as Command Tower by Skinnyelbows
However, as soon as I looked at the cards, I was disappointed. MotU fans will notice some thematic awkwardness if not ludonarrative dissonance. I’m reminded somewhat of the Monster Hunter debacle: with the odd exceptions here and there, the card choices feel more like poorly-fitting costumes than tight “reskins.”
I know a thing or two about poorly-fitting He-man costumes.
For example, He-man’s color identity (Boros) doesn’t let him include his allies Teela (Naya) and Man-E-Faces (U) and the Sorceress (Bant) in an EDH deck. The Sword of Power (Sword of War and Peace) protects He-man from spells you’d like to cast to help him out. You can’t play the promotional Swan Song in a He-man commander deck either.
Most of the other creature cards have dubious creature types and color identities. Battle Cat and Panthor should be cats, but on these cards, one is a beast, and the other a frog horror… because they just needed pre-existing mounts, I guess. But you can’t run Panthor, Skeletor’s mount, in a Skeletor deck, because Panthor is green and black, and Skeletor is mono-black. Why is Skeletor a 1/1 Skeleton Rogue, when canonically he’s just a skull-faced human (and sometimes He-man’s uncle!) or a demon, and either a wizard or a warlock? Why does Skeletor’s secret lair include a blue card that you can’t cast in a Skeletor deck? (and I could continue)
Skeletor’s Villainous Glee, by Tyler Walpole
When I take a step back to think about why I’m disappointed, I’m left with two initial questions: “how do I (we / you) want to play with these cards?” And “who was in mind when this was designed?”
He-man fans (at least, the ones like me) expect He-man and She-Ra to transform. Putting aside transformation, many would expect He-man and the Heroic Warriors (possibly alongside She-Ra and the Great Rebellion) to fit into one deck, and Skeletor and his Evil Warriors to fit into another. It would be cool if the creature types were appropriate, if Swift Wind had flying, and so on. These cards let me and others down on those fronts. They do not translate Masters into Magic.
Of course, accurately representing He-man and his allies and enemies wasn’t necessarily the primary intention. We know Wizards can do that (like in the Sonic the Hedgehog drops or UB sets more broadly). We also know that sometimes they do not. In this case, Wizards of the Coast seems to have had two kinds of players in mind. The first group is made of players who are happy to splash a few cards for the memes (a la Spongebob?). The second are cEDH players: these drops include a number of staple cards from Sisay lists, namely Sisay, Derevi, Emiel, Ertai, Kutzil, Sakashima, Swan Song, and (of course) Sol Ring.
This is the start of a Sisay deck, led by She-Ra and her motley crew of heroes and villains.
These drops seem to be Masters of the Universe cosmetics for Magic: the Gathering fans, not Magic: the Gathering cards designed for Masters of the Universe fans (and I know I’m not alone in this reading). My feelings about this superdrop are fairly well summed-up by Wizards’ own words after they pulled the Monster Hunter drop: “[they] missed the mark on elements like card selection and faithfully integrating the world and mechanics of [Masters of the Universe].”
Unlike with Monster Hunter (which was worse, to be fair), I don’t expect that will change much, this time. As I mentioned above, plenty of folks will be perfectly happy with the art alone (and kudos to the artists!), regardless of the rules text that accompanies it. Others welcome these reprints – the card choices are strong, popular, and we’ve certainly had worse Secret Lair Drops in terms of their monetary value.
And lots of us will probably do as Teela recommends in the moral of “The Witch and the Warrior”: “I’ve been in a number of difficult situations, but none of them were tougher than trying to get along with Evil-Lyn. And yet, I found that if you make the best of a bad situation, you can come out a winner. So when things go wrong, instead of feeling sorry for yourself, try to work it out with a smile. You might surprise yourself when you see how well it works.
…Until next time!”
Sources for more He-man history and lore:
The Power of Grayskull Documentary
Why the 2002 He-man Reboot Failed
The 1987 Masters of the Universe Movie
Jake Torbeck is an ethicist and theologian and includes everything you see here. Library of He-man books and action figure collection each sold separately. From the Masters of the Universe collection by Mattel.