If you’re anything like me, at some point you were probably taken by surprise by the one-time existence of a regular Masters of the Universe newspaper strip. Even with proof, I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that somewhere, in some newspaper that wasn’t mine, He-Man was scrunched between Dagwood and Hagar, sharing space with Garfield and Prince Valiant.
Masters of the Universe media, when I was a kid, was limited to a handful of avenues. You either had the DC mini-series, the very brief Star Comics run, the FILMation television show, or the mini-comics. Eventually there would be a movie, and if you were lucky, there was also a magazine that would have a story or two snuggled between the covers. Of all of those choices, the mini-comics and the cartoon provided the most in-depth and diverse material. It wasn’t until the internet happened and I was introduced to the world of MOTU fandom when I found out that there was an entire chunk of MOTU media I had completely missed out on. There were newspaper strips and UK comics, neither of which I had ever had a chance to be exposed to.
Unread stories. New takes on familiar canons. This wasn’t like a handful of unread mini-comics or an episode of the cartoon you may have missed; this was an entirely new experience.
And here we are.
This collection of the newspaper strips continues a very strong line of fan-friendly Masters of the Universe offerings from Dark Horse, opening up yet another corner of the Masters of the Universe world to the uninitiated, a group I can absolutely count myself among. These stories are going to be entirely new to me. I literally have no idea what to expect upon reading these, which is kind of nice after having become extremely familiar with the more readily available media.
I’m a lifelong fan of comic strips, and I continue to read my favorites daily. In addition, the past decade or more has provided various opportunities to collect extremely handsome hardback collections of some very noteworthy comic strips from the past hundred years. From the just-wrapped collection of the entirety of Peanuts, to seminal collections of Popeye, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County and so much more, those three-to-four panel strips that once ended up discarded in numerous ways can now live forever and be enjoyed by brand new audiences. I’m always eager to add new collections to my … well … collection. It takes a very specific and underrated talent to sustain a comic strip. If you’re working a gag strip, you have to have a constant stream of new ideas, and if you’re working on a serial strip, you have to find the right balance of advancing the plot while keeping new readers abreast of what’s been happening — all while not stagnating. It’s not easy.
Having read so many other strip collections, I can definitely say that this is a very well-done book. The most important aspect (to me) of a collection of comic strips is allowing the art room to breathe while providing clear scans of the original material. Tiny, compressed and unreadable copies might as well not have been collected at all. While that is a more difficult challenge when dealing with older strips, the same challenges can be found in digging up niche strips that may not have had a large circulation, which is where the MOTU strip no doubt had to fall.
A quick read of the intro suggests just how much work went into the creation of this book, from visits to the original creative team to scouring the fan circles for help and even visits to the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, despite the vast amount of work put into tracking down scannable copies, the collection is 35 strips short of complete. All in all that’s not bad at all considering it seems like it would be a little like trying to collect Wendigo fur.
The strips presented here are a very nice size, easily readable while keeping their aspect so nothing seems stretched out or forced. As these are serial strips and not gag-a-day type strips you get several complete stories presented chronologically, featuring many late-in-the-line characters that didn’t get a lot of media attention due to both the comics and cartoons having ended. Just from a casual flip-through it seems as though Gwildor’s got a decent amount of strip-time (yeah, that term conjures up some unpleasant imagery, doesn’t it?), and it looks like Ninjor gets something to do. 
Poor Ninjor barely gets any attention. Not having read it yet, I don’t know if Scareglow makes an appearance, but I’m hoping he does. There are just not enough Scareglow stories.
Interspersed among the strips themselves are interviews with the various talent behind the strip.
As I said, I haven’t had a chance to sit down and really read the stories, but I’m going to assume that you already know if you’re the audience for this book and just want more MOTU stories. If so, and if you are, then I’d definitely recommend this book, as it looks like it does everything it needs to do: present the material in a clear and easy-to-read manner. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and do just that. First up: “Day of the Comet.”
Oh yes, and as with the other books, this one smells great.
