Masters of the Universe: Revelations: Part 2 Review (TV Show)

As much as I wanted to hate it, the first half of Masters of the Universe: Revelations wasn’t as bad as people on the internet were making it out to be. Sure, it was very much “The Teela Show” at the time, but it did good things with other characters like Orko and Evil-Lyn, expanding those characters in ways that the original series, and even the great 2002 series, didn’t attempt to do. Now we hit the second half of Kevin Smith’s fanfiction version of the Masters of the Universe and wonder how he is going to either recover from the bad press or prove the haters right.

Title: Masters of the Universe: Revelations
Production Company: Mattel Television / Powerhouse Animation Studios
Distributed by: Netflix
Produced by: Rob David, Frederic Soulie, Adam Bonnett, Christopher Keenan, Kevin Smith
Written by: Kevin Smith, Eric Carrasco, Tim Sheridan, Diya Mishra, Marc Bernardin
Starring: Chris Wood, Mark Hamill, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Liam Cunningham, Lena Headey
Based on: Masters of the Universe by Mattel
Release dates: November 23, 2021
Running time: 26 minutes
Rating: G

The War Between Good And Evil Continues…

Episode 6: “Cleaved in Twain”

In a flashback, Teela’s mother gives her a magical marking before leaving her daughter and Man-At-Arms to assume her role as The Sorceress. In the present, Skeletor gloats over his enemies, but The Sorceress manages to teleport Adam, Cringer, Teela and Andra to safety using her remaining magic. Skeletor kills The Sorceress, transforming Evil-Lyn into her replacement, and imprisons Man-At-Arms. Arriving at the Royal Palace, Teela finds herself able to heal Adam’s wounds by tapping into her natural magic, before meeting Fisto and Clamp-Champ, who have evacuated King Randor, Queen Marlena, and most of Eternos. Tracking the heroes down, Skeletor unleashes his magic to turn the remaining citizens into skeletal minions. Fisto and Clamp-Champ are infected, forcing the heroes to destroy them; Skeletor then appears, showcasing his new power by banishing their souls to Subternia. As Skeletor prepares to kill him, Adam reveals that the Sword of Power is only a conduit for his true power, and calls upon his transformation to become Savage He-Man.

Episode 7: “Reason and Blood”

Savage He-Man battles with Skeletor and his minions, who manages to overwhelm him with his superior magic. Teela copies The Sorceress’ teleportation spell to bring her friends to safety, arriving in the Mystic Mountains. Skeletor becomes abusive towards Evil-Lyn and interrogates the imprisoned Man-At-Arms, obsessing over the source of Adam’s transformation. Teela, Andra and Cringer lose He-Man, only to learn that he is being drawn to Randor’s camp in the mountains. He-Man attacks the Royal Guards, directing his rage towards his father. Realizing his son is alive, Randor apologizes for his past mistreatment and declares his pride in his son, allowing He-Man to calm down and transform back. Beast-Man confronts Evil-Lyn in private, insisting that her power outmatches Skeletor’s, and that she should take control.

Episode 8: “The Gutter Rat”

Randor reunites with Adam, Cringer and Teela, and enlists Andra as a lieutenant in the Royal Guard. Adam spends time with Marlena, and learns that she and Randor have split up since his death. Evil-Lyn receives pity from Man-At-Arms and begins to doubt her relationship with Skeletor, who grants her a vision of the entire universe. Skeletor plots to use the upcoming Celestial Apex—the alignment of all the planets in the universe—to increase his own power and destroy He-Man, while Evil-Lyn grows nihilistic, believing that nothing in the universe has purpose. Beast-Man comforts Evil-Lyn, who reveals that she is indebted to Skeletor for rescuing her in the past and granting her purpose, but now realizes she must free everyone from him. Meeting with Adam, Teela reveals her knowledge that The Sorceress is her mother. Evil-Lyn tricks Skeletor into reverting to his normal form, and takes the Sword of Power for herself, becoming Dark-Lyn. Dark-Lyn announces her intention to end all suffering by destroying the universe, eradicating Preternia as an example. The Royal Family begins planning to defeat Dark-Lyn by having Teela become the new Sorceress, and is unexpectedly joined by Skeletor.

Episode 9: “Hope, for a Destination”

As Teela attempts to use her magic to send a telepathic message to the people of Eternia, Adam and Skeletor plot to confront Dark-Lyn. Dark-Lyn begins examining the universe, witnessing the death of the god Zoar at the beginning of time, further propelling her nihilism. Adam and Skeletor arrive at Grayskull, batting Dark-Lyn as a distraction while Andra and Teela sneak into the castle’s sewers, coming across Spikor, Webstor, Clawful, Blade, Goatman and Pigboy. They defeat the villains with help from Man-At-Arms, who reveals that he heard Teela’s message and encourages her to become the Sorceress. Outside Grayskull, Randor and Marlena reconcile, and witness the people of Eternia arriving in response to Teela’s message. At the Tide of Transformation below Grayskull, Teela meets The Sorceress’ spirit, learning that she must be prepared to let go of her former life to be transformed. Dark-Lyn defeats Adam and Skeletor, killing Panthor and transforming Beast-Man in the process, before lambasting Skeletor for his behavior towards her. As she prepares the destruction of the universe, Darl-Lyn witnesses Eternia’s forces approaching, and summons Scare Glow and his Subternia army.

Episode 10: “Comes with Everything You See Here”

While Eternia’s forces battle against Scare Glow’s army, Teela enters the Tide of Transformation, reconciling with her mother and becoming the new Sorceress without severing her connections with her friends and family. Orko is revived as a result of Dark-Lyn raising the dead, and uses his magic to defeat Scare Glow and free the Sword of Power from Dark-Lyn. Adam becomes He-Man once more, battling Dark-Lyn and Beast-Man alongside a transformed Skeletor and Battle Cat. Dark-Lyn obtains the power of the Celestial Apex, but is confronted by Teela. Believing they are fated to lose, Skeletor attempts to kill He-Man before the universe is destroyed. As they battle, Teela takes Dark-Lyn to the location of Zoar’s death, revealing that Zoar had been reborn, and that the universe is more than she believed it to be. Dark-Lyn relinquishes her powers and He-Man defeats Skeletor by flinging him into the distance. Together, He-Man and Teela banish Scare Glow’s army to Subternia. Orko begins to return to the afterlife as well, but is stopped by Evil-Lyn. Sometime later, Andra becomes the new Man-At-Arms while Adam and Teela confer that they will always need each other. Evil-Lyn travels to Trolla and abandons her magic staff there. On Snake Mountain, Skeletor rages at Tri-Klops and his cultists for abandoning him and attempts to destroy their Motherboard. However, the Motherboard instead comes to life and begins assimilating Skeletor, revealing itself to bear a Horde insignia.

Only a Few Others Share Secrets No Longer

The characters for Masters of the Universe: Revelations haven’t really changed since the first half was recorded, so there are not really many new characters to speak about here. So instead I’m going to mention that Masters of the Universe: Revelations does some good things with some characters, like Fisto who gets the line of the series, and Beast-Man who was very underused in the original Filmation series. However, there is so much character assassination in Masters of the Universe: Revelations that it really does undo all the good works that happened in the first half.

Honestly speaking, going back and watching He-Men/She-Ra: A Christmas Special recently as a part of my yearly 24 movies/specials of Christmas marathon, I can say that the voice cast used in Masters of the Universe: Revelations does an amazing job at making themselves sound a LOT better than the original voice cast… With exception of Gellar as Teela, Hamil as Skeletor, and Chris Wood as He-Man/Prince Adam, those guys can’t hold a candle to their original counterparts as the voices are so iconic that no one else should be doing them, much like Hamil is The Joker forever.

We Have The Power!!

There isn’t much in the second half of Masters of the Universe: Revelations that I’ve been interested in, nor would give any credit for Kevin Smith having something that makes sense at all in the series, but the idea of “the power” being something that anyone can have access to when they have the power sword is one of those ideas where Masters of the Universe: Revelations actually had me interested. I thought the idea of Skeletor becoming SkeleGod would be interesting since this is the power that Skeletor has been chasing for ages, and how it could change him or open his eyes to something more (which it did for a moment). Instead, we got a WCW 2000’s situation with the WCW World Heavyweight championship where so many people got the belt (or in this case “the power”) that the meaning and importance of the McGuffin lost everything it was meant to be about. In the second half of Masters of the Universe: Revelations we got Skeletor, Adam, and Evil-Lyn have the power at some point in the span of 5 episodes, making the idea of someone having the power mean nothing when one character actually accesses the power without the power sword, making the sword pointless. Yet the idea had some merit in its concept.

Outside of this one idea… I got nothing here.

Why Kevin, Why?

Oh god… Where to begin?

Masters of the Universe: Revelations concludes with some of the dumbest ideas and pay-offs that I have seen in animation for decades. After spending all this time building up SkeleGod, the character gets pushed aside because Skeletor wants to have sex with Evil-Lyn, and she uses that to take the power sword from him and turn into… He-Vil-Lyn? Basically, Evil-Lyn becomes this hulking muscle girl with the powers of a God and begins mowing down everyone, including destroying the realm where all the previous He-Man champions live. Why? Because she is all-powerful and hates men. Sure, there was a whole episode showing her backstory of abuse at the hands of her parents and later Skeletor, which led to her taking the power for herself, but it comes so late in the story (and a complete contradiction to the Masters of the Universe: Revelations comic book which told her origin story and made actual sense) that it just makes her look stupid. Then we have to contest with Teela getting the powers of the Sorceress (without any of the restrictions… why? Because I AM WOMEN!) in order to make the final battle all about Evil-Lyn and Teela while He-Man and Skeletor team up to face down the forces that Evil-Lyn summoned (But yes, we do get the Skeletor to backstab the good guys and a fight between He-Man and himself happens, but little care is given to that).

Basically, Masters of the Universe: Revelations looks like it took all the criticism from Part One and tried to change direction mid-show. I know this is not the case as the animation takes time to do and all of this would have been approved from Episode One. So knowing that this was Kevin Smith’s plan from the beginning really makes me wonder how much he has distanced himself from the fanbase in order to think that any of this was a good idea. While I’ll given him credit (and did above) that sharing the power of Greyskull is an interesting concept, but giving only the women unrestricted access to all the power only makes things sound and look stupid. Not to mention that once again, in a show where He-Man is usually the main character we really didn’t have much of the character in the show, and when we did, we got that Savage He-Man bullshit that made no sense at all… And that’s the overall problem, nothing makes sense.

Masters of the Universe: Revelations has been a mess from beginning to end, upsetting everything that fans have wanted out of a rebooted or sequel series for decades. Hell, even the other Netflix Masters of the Universe cartoon that was made with CGI actually looks and feels like a real Masters of the Universe series than anything Masters of the Universe: Revelations did, and that’s sad to say since once upon a time Kevin Smith was one of my favorite film makers, but he has been exposed as a shill for money, and not giving a shit about the fanbase like he once did. Masters of the Universe: Revelations should stand as a warning for future writers who want to reboot or follow up a classic TV series: Either listen and talk to the fans or just don’t accept the proposal. At this point, it would be better if there were no more Masters of the Universe projects than what we got here.