Bringing Adora Home: The Story Behind Masters of the Universe Horde Saga

Since August of 2020, I've been working on a little somethin-somethin known as Masters of the Universe: Horde Saga. While I'm not a terribly big Masters of the Universe fan (my 80s toy loyalties are with the Transformers), I do appreciate the franchise for its characters, their design, their world, and many other aspects of the series. However, save for the collector-oriented Classics line (that lasted 15 years across two companies), it hasn't come close to the success it had back in its 80s heyday.

Much like the downfall of Thomas and Friends (see here for my discussion on the matter), MOTU owner Mattel has made many poor decisions that stunted the brand. From mistimed revivals to too many toy variants of He-Man and Skeletor being made while other core characters like Teela, Man-At-Arms, the Sorceress and Orko are underproduced to the wrong people being put in charge (looking at you, Kevin Smith and Noelle Stevenson), the franchise has taken so many hits it's hard to believe that it's still standing today. The series's history has also been hurt by the fact that... look, let's just say it's associated with "What's Up" by Four Non-Blondes online for rather silly reasons.

Despite this, I press on to craft a reimagining of the series, one that's free of the legal restrictions keeping it from its full potential, one that's truer to the source material, and one that honors all facets of the franchise regardless of their quality. I call it Masters of the Universe: Horde Saga. Care to join me as I discuss it?

Good.

PREAMBLE: Adam and Adora- Worlds Apart!?

One thing that casual fans of Masters of the Universe: Revelation and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Smith and Stevenson's modern-day revivals of He-Man and She-Ra; both are of debatable quality) may not know is that He-Man/Prince Adam and She-Ra/Princess Adora are verboten from appearing together in animated form. The story behind this is a touch long, so hold onto your hats. How this mess began was with Filmation, the company behind the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and She-Ra: Princess of Power cartoons.

Rather interestingly, Filmation (as well as DC Comics) added quite a bit to the original Conan-like premise of MOTU. DC added He-Man's Clark Kent-like true identity of Prince Adam and his parents King Randor and Queen Marlena; Filmation added the childlike wizard Orko, tweaked everyone's designs for ease of animation, created several new characters for both He-Man and She-Ra and established what many non-fans think of whenever someone brings up either show. However, when the original MOTU toyline was canned thanks to a multitude of factors (too many new characters and He-Man/Skeletor variants, not enough of the mains from the cartoon; a disastrous 1987 movie; the failure of the She-Ra doll range), the brand went quiet for a few years.

Sometime after MOTU went dormant, Filmation was shut down and its library was sold off to Hallmark (yes, the ornament company). Hallmark then sold what they inherited from the defunct studio to Classic Media, who were purchased in 2013 by DreamWorks Animation and were themselves purchased by NBCUniversal in 2016. For some strange reason, the He-Man and She-Ra shows were rendered separate brands by Hallmark despite both series sharing a universe and the latter being a direct continuation of the former.

The problem this creates for Mattel is that they're unable to make a cartoon where He-Man is able to check in on his twin sister or vice versa. Apparently, the "splitting" of the Filmation shows into their own brands resulted in complicated rights issues that keep the He-Man and She-Ra characters and concepts from appearing on screen together. Hordak and the Evil Horde, villains commonly associated with She-Ra, are in a strange legal limbo, being able to appear in both the 2002-2004 He-Man show and the 2018 She-Ra series. However, even they aren't without restrictions, as She-Ra-specific villainesses like Catra or Filmation-originated characters like Scorpia or Shadow Weaver aren't allowed in He-Man-centered animated media.

The results of this have been the new Netflix series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018-2020) and Masters of the Universe: Revelation (2021), animated shows that only represent one side of the whole MOTU series and suffer for it. Looking at both series from an outsider's perspective, it's painfully obvious that She-Ra 2018 wanted to do more direct shout-outs to the source material but couldn't due to both legal issues and the people in charge prioritizing virtue signaling over respect for the original series. Conversely, Revelation was advertised as a sequel to the original Filmation show, but was actually Kevin Smith's grimdark reimagining that killed off He-Man and Skeletor in the first episode (and then killed the former again in the fifth episode) and chose to focus on an angry Teela, bitter that she didn't know that Adam was He-Man.

Neither show felt like a sincere attempt to honor the franchise that inspired them, and both received a mixed response from longtime MOTU fans. Some loved them, others despised them, and I find myself looking at what good both series did. She-Ra 2018 had some good designs, curious reinterpretations of some characters (Entrapta is a particular standout in both departments), and good ideas that were squandered by poor writing, hypocritical messaging, and identity politics nonsense; Revelation... erm... it had good animation and it brought some obscurer characters like King Grayskull and Scare Glow to the limelight, I'll give it that.

I think that the problem at the core of why SR2018 and Revelation didn't work/haven't worked for MOTU fans is because of the forced division keeping He-Man and She-Ra apart affecting the scope of the stories. Regardless of how you feel about the original Filmation shows, their writers made a surprising effort to flesh out the series' world with interesting characters and made sure that both He-Man and She-Ra brought similar yet different brands of action, adventure and fun that complemented one another. And that's something that simply can't happen if an entire batch of characters and their associated concepts are barred from use.

In summation, legal issues broke Masters of the Universe wide open and now we have middling He-Man and She-Ra shows that can't cross over because of the aforementioned legal issues. Can Mattel sort this out with Universal? Will they sort it out? I honestly don't know.

But for now, I've decided to craft my own take on the series free of those limitations.

ORIGINS OF HORDE SAGA

I began work on MOTU Horde Saga sometime in 2020. As that year was one where many lost track of time due to being told to stay inside for so long, I found my time after graduating high school continuing work on my original series concept Eternity Kingdoms and trying to find inspiration outside of Steven Universe after its disastrous ending. When I wasn't drawing, I was watching videos discussing how to improve one's character design skills or analyses of why certain stories worked and why others didn't.

Whether by God's providence or the YouTube algorithm being smart for once, I found a playlist of videos discussing She-Ra 2018 from two twin sisters under the channel name of "mjtanner". Unlike many who critiqued the show in hyperbolic terms (calling it a woke nightmare or too unlike the original She-Ra), the twins who hosted these videos provided sincere and calm criticisms of the series. They weren't rooted in nostalgia-blinded hatred of anything that dared deviate from the Filmation show, but rather a basic knowledge of how good storytelling works and how SR2018 failed to live up to that.

Despite having never seen any of SR2018 (and I don't plan to; Netflix's debauchery doesn't deserve my family's dollars), I was impressed at how fair the twins behind the mjtanner channel were and was disgusted by how badly this show was treating She-Ra and her supporting cast. And yet, I was mildly intrigued by it. Sure, I don't hold a terribly high opinion of it as an animated series or as part of the MOTU franchise, but its character design was sometimes quite good and it had some good ideas.

Ergo, I began of how to remedy some of the problems of She-Ra 2018, such as 1) its hyperfixation on the character of Catra to the detriment of main character Adora, 2) the low intelligence of many characters, 3) the poor morals of the series's so-called "heroes", 4) the lore problems created by the absence of He-Man-specific characters and concepts, 5) the rather poor treatment of its male characters, and 6) a fixation on pushing an agenda over the well-being of its young audience. Originally, Horde Saga was a series of short rewrite ideas focusing on the trio of Catra, Scorpia, and Entrapta as they try to live their best lives under the Horde's reign. It would've leaned into what little good I saw within SR2018 and mended/mocked many of the series's shortcomings.

Eventually, I came up with the idea of Adam, Cringer (Adam's cowardly pet tiger) and Orko coming to Etheria in search of Adora, and from there I thought of more ideas. "What if 2018!He-Man existed?" "What would happen if this character was better?" "Should I write something about this?"

And in August 2020, I began work with a series of redesigns for Adora, detailing her transformation from Horde cadet to Great Rebellion defector to She-Ra. I followed these redesigns with reworkings of Glimmer, Bow, Catra, Perfuma, Scorpia, Frosta, Hordak, Entrapta, Sea Hawk, Mermista, and many others. Heck, I even threw in Modulok, an 80s Horde member who wasn't brought back for She-Ra 2018, making him look like a lost cousin of one of that show's designs.

Once I had the core designs in mind, Horde Saga bloomed into something much grander than I initially expected it to be. I started by writing little backstories for each character to accompany my LinkedIn posts of my designs. These bios help communicate my intent for each character within the project's larger narrative, showing off their personalities and histories. Much like Scott Neitlich (brand manager of the MOTU Classics range from its conception in 2005 to 2014), I found myself drawing from almost every corner of the franchise to make "ideal" versions of these characters.

Some She-Ra 2018 characters (like Glimmer, Perfuma, Adora, Mermista and Catra) were heavily reworked to better match my sensibilities; others were kept rather close to their reboot counterparts with some personal tweaks made on my end. And about a month after I began work on the project, I decided to throw He-Man and company into the series, adding another facet to the story I'd crafted. As of when I'm writing this (August 2021, almost a year after when I started this), I've come up with 89 character-specific redesigns for the combined He-Man/She-Ra cast within Horde Saga, with several other characters yet to be tackled (still need to do Tri-Klops, Adam and Adora's parents, and the Snake Men).

In summation, watching critiques of She-Ra 2018 led me to want something better than what I was hearing about and led to a sprawling project which saw me reworking characters from MOTU media past and present into one cohesive mass. But what of the story? What's Masters of the Universe: Horde Saga even about?

SYNOPSES

The narrative of MOTU Horde Saga is split in two to reflect the legal shenanigans that prevented He-Man from being in SR2018 and vice versa for the 2002-2004 He-Man show. Sure, they're part of the same universe, but I wanted to start off with Adam and Adora's journeys separate before having them converge and seeing their supporting casts unite to stop some huge threat like Horde Prime. Here's the She-Ra half summary since I wrote it up first-

"Adora thought she knew how the world worked. She was a loyal soldier for the Horde Empire, defending its rightful territory from those meddling princess insurgents who undermined Lord Hordak's rule with her surrogate sister and best 'friend' Catra at her side. There were times she doubted Hordak's wisdom and the Horde's right to rule over the planet Etheria, but she kept those doubts to herself.

Life in the Horde had gotten her this far, and she was okay with that. She had food, family, and friends. Things seemed right to an extent.

And then came the Sword of Protection and those rebels she captured.

Something changed that day. Adora's doubts about Hordak and the Horde were proven true, and for the first time, she saw the rebels as people who were hurting under the Horde, not as a faceless enemy to trample. Horrified by the thought of these rebels being executed, she unknowingly triggered the fabulous secret powers of the Sword, transforming herself into the warrior goddess She-Ra. She saved the rebels, but had a rather rough encounter with Catra after doing so.

Now on the run from the Horde and welcomed into the Great Rebellion's ranks, Adora finds herself in a world unfamiliar to her. Magic? Ancient destiny? Princesses? It's all so unlike how Hordak and Horde witch Shadow Weaver raised her and Catra, and yet she can't help but find herself attracted to being more like the rebels. She wants to make up for her dark past- she has to. With the help of her new friends Glimmer, Bow, Perfuma and Angela, Adora starts anew and works towards being the best "She-Ra" she can be!

Meanwhile, a devastated Catra begins scheming with the help of clueless but well-intentioned Force Captain Scorpia and energetic tech prodigy Entrapta to bring Adora back to the Horde. Even if it takes burning down everything Adora's found with the Rebellion, she will get her surrogate sister to come back. And if she can get promoted to the rank of Force Captain while she does so, that's a nice bonus."

As you can see, the narrative for the She-Ra half of Horde Saga is fairly similar to what She-Ra 2018 had in mind, except with a considerably larger focus on the character of Adora and her transition from Horde zealot to champion of Etheria's oppressed. I personally love seeing well-written redemptions unfold (as a Christian, it's a key tenet of my faith), and the concept behind Adora's arc in both the original 80s show and the reboot (mostly the 80s show, surprisingly; the reboot undermined Adora in favor of Catra being a self-destructive pile of kitty litter) smacks of similar beats to the story of the Apostle Paul. A persecutor of the innocent finds themselves convicted of their poor behavior and given a second chance by a divine figure, transforming them into an advocate for those who they once hurt?

That screamed "Christian allegory" to me when I was doing my early research for Horde Saga, and I knew that was the angle I had to take with my take on the series. Adora, in my take, is a young woman thrown from her comfort zone and challenged by the revelation that she has done genuinely bad things. It's devastating for her upon her initial realization- everything "good" she did for the Horde was harming the rebels and what few free towns had survived the Horde's takeover.

But Adora's story does not end there. She is shown grace by Princess Glimmer (daughter of the Rebellion's leader Angela), who takes on a very Barnabas-like role to her proverbial Paul. Granted, Glimmer's not terribly wise, but her warmth and energy helps break Adora's initial skepticism about the rebels in a manner that leads to the ex-Horde member learning important values about kindness, meekness, generosity, selflessness and heroism. Bow and Perfuma also play a role in Adora's redemption, keeping her from biting off more than she can chew and acting as grounded counters to Glimmer's energy.

(Then again, Perfuma has her moments of leaning into hippyisms, so Bow might be the only truly grounded member of the main quartet)

In addition, I wanted to make her story within Horde Saga a story of a woman reclaiming her femininity. A common critique of Adora (and also her She-Ra form)'s design in She-Ra 2018 was that she didn't look terribly feminine. My response to that was to make Adora as a Horde member look somewhat gender-neutral, something that I attribute to Hordak liking his foot soldiers to appear somewhat uniform. Ergo, Adora grew up with few feminine attributes- her hair was always braided up, her outfit lacked any gender specificity, and her face was rather plain.

But once she joins the rebellion, she starts letting her hair grow out and begins tweaking her Horde outfit so that it better fits her identity as a woman (she only added a skirt and poofier sleeves to her jacket, but she's proud of what progress she's made). Not only is this genuinely feminist instead of the post-modern faux-feminism of the 2010s, but it makes Adora's arc visible in her design. She's no longer a Horde yes-woman in the identikit armor and uniform as her former friends, but rather a woman who made a choice to be herself in a world that was conquered by a tyrant who wanted to press his monochromatic image onto a diverse, colorful world.

On the other side of things, here's the He-Man side of things and its summary-

"Dark days have come to the planet Eternia. The self-proclaimed 'overlord of evil' Skeletor has returned from his banishment with a cadre of crooks, criminal masterminds, and conjurers at his command. His goal? Conquer the planet and pilfer all the power sealed within Castle Grayskull. In response, King Randor has assigned his Man-At-Arms Duncan and his daughter Teela to train up a new royal guard to protect the throne jewels.

Among the guard's members is Prince Adam, Randor's lackadaisical son... at least, that's what he thinks. Truth be told, Adam is far more competent and knowledgeable than he lets on. That's because Adam is in fact He-Man, wielder of the Sword of Power and the most powerful man in the universe!

Only Duncan, clumsy royal wizard Orko, and the mighty Sorceress of Castle Grayskull know Adam's secret. As He-Man, he leads the mighty Eternian royal guard (an eclectic bunch in their own right) into battle against Skeletor's evil warriors. However, he's beginning to tire of keeping He-Man a secret from his parents.

Who will wield the Castle's awesome power in the end? Will Adam tell anyone outside of his inner circle of his true identity? Is there a grander evil facing Eternia in the future? Find out in Masters of the Universe: Horde Saga!"

Ironically, despite being based on the series which originated most of Masters of the Universe's supporting media, the He-Man half of Horde Saga is less developed than the She-Ra portion. This is something I'm slowly remedying as time goes on, don't worry. Regardless of how much work has gone into it, my take on the He-Man side of Horde Saga will be familiar yet different.

For starters, I tried to avoid the secret identity conundrum that the Revelation series put at the core of its narrative. I'm still baffled by modern writers' failures to realize the practicality of a secret identity. Not only does it keep the hero's loved ones safe, but it's a great source of drama for the main character themselves as they balance their everyday life with their responsibilities as a hero. Just ask Spider-Man! Unfortunately, most modern writers just use it as an excuse to make it so other characters can whine about the fact the main hero "lied" to them or throw it out once one character learns their secret.

Ergo, I wanted to show Adam struggling to make it appear as if he and He-Man are separate people in a realistic manner, with some of the royal guard's members learning his secret over time. There'll be some surprise and shock when they learn the truth, but not enough to, say, disillusion Teela from wanting to serve the royal family. (That was a jab at MOTU Revelation, BTW)

I want Horde Saga!He-Man to be something of a modern equivalent on the Filmation show, not an edgelord reimagining. While not every aspect of the Filmation continuity will be carried over, I wanted my version to have a similar tone. Like it or not, the most recognizable version of MOTU is (or rather, are) the Filmation shows; as such, I tried to use that as the primary basis for my take.

Of course, I wasn't going to be all "GEEWUN" (as the Transformers fandom would jokingly call it) and deny later interpretations their place. Horde Saga's portrayal of the He-Man side of things draws quite a bit from the 2002-2004 show and the Classics line's own efforts to make almost everything MOTU fit under one banner. Examples include the backstory of Skeletor as Randor's brother gone bad, Mer-Man has his freaky prototype head, and He-Ro (an unproduced character from the original range who gained new life in the Classics line) is one of Adam and Adora's long-lost ancestors.

So, yeah. Both halves start off separate, but halfway through their respective stories, a crossover event begins with Adam learning of his long-lost sister at the same time Adora starts wanting to learn more about her own history. What will follow is a narrative bringing together the royal guard, the Great Rebellion, and even Skeletor's lackeys in a battle against the Horde Empire and its true ruler Horde Prime to protect the magic of both Eternia and Etheria. I haven't planned everything out to the same level as I would with my original work, but it's still quite a gargantuan effort on my end.

CONCLUSION

In summation, Masters of the Universe: Horde Saga is my attempt to create my own take on a franchise that's been through quite the legal wringer. There's still some work to be done (I need to fill out the He-Man side of things more), but even then, I still have quite the impressive batch of redesigns and reinterpretations so far. I'm honestly surprised that a few reworking of She-Ra 2018's mediocre designs led to such a huge thing.

Granted, Horde Saga isn't my "main thing" I share here on LinkedIn. That honor goes to Eternity Kingdoms, my original series concept with a touch of MOTU influence here and there. However, it's still been quite fun for me to work on, as it's helped me to break out of the "Steven Universe style imitator" box by establishing a visual trademark that I can call my own and develop day by day.

In fact, I spent June of 2021 filling out the He-Man half of Horde Saga while also throwing in a few She-Ra characters that I hadn't tackled yet and tackling my relative unfamiliarity with the male form. I've always had a difficult time of drawing male characters (unless they're robots or semi-humanoid animals), and I'm just now starting to figure them out. Why I didn't really tackle the male form before last year is because many of the works which inspired me had female characters that I identified with and liked the looks of.

Ergo, I had a very good grasp on the female form (and still do) but my attempts to draw the male form mostly looked flat at worst and overly feminine at best. This was something I knew I had to change for MOTU Horde Saga (and also Eternity Kingdoms, but that's not the topic of this article), as drawing male characters was something I had to do. So with some cautious initial steps that involved revising She-Ra 2018's scant male characters, I began work on improving my knowledge of the male form.

These initial redesigns were followed up by my first iterations of He-Man and Skeletor, and Eternity Kingdoms was soon given an overhaul to make its male characters match up with what I'd learned from my experience tinkering with MOTU's male characters. Rather ironic, given that Horde Saga was born from an attempt on my end to better a middling reboot that had a predominantly female cast. There are still growing pains for me to work out in terms of my artistic renderings of the male form for my characters, but that's really the beauty of being on a creative journey.

No matter where you are, there's always an opportunity for your work to improve. Some find it in anatomical studies, others find it in drawing from life. For me, though... I found it through reimagining the world and characters of an 80s toyline/cartoon combo. A bit unorthodox, sure, but it's been one heck of a ride for me and those who frequent my posts.

That's it for this article. I hope you left this discussion well-informed about what this Masters of the Universe: Horde Saga thing I keep sharing about is. God bless!