WHO NEEDS SUBTLETY?:

The most important person in the world of Eternia is He-Man. Giving him that name follows a naming convention beloved by the people of that very literal land. In Eternia if you have the face of a skunk you will be called Stinkor and if you have the face of a skeleton you will be called Skeletor and if you have the head of a bee you will be called Buzz-Off. If I lived on Eternia, I would be named BeardFace and most people on planet Earth would be called, by default, Toothless-Screaming-Babyhead. Luckily on Eternia lots of people are born with freakishly distinctive heads, keeping confusion to a minimum.

He-Man is arguably the walking thesis statement of the whole series, a character so male they've put two masculine identifiers in his first name, and who gets his power by hoisting a large magic sword in the sky until a shower of lightning flies out of it. Frankly, they couldn't have been clearer about the gender anxieties of the 1980s if they had given him completely anatomically accurate genitals, and, looking at some of the original action figures, I imagine they tried.

It's possible the original Masters of the Universe was a post-feminist reassertion of masculine power, an attempt to turn the boys of the Eighties into hunky men of action. But I don't think they thought that much about it, to be honest. I think it was largely just a way to sell plastic junk to those famously credulous idiots, children. And thus a lot of the original viewers of the show are now middle-aged cranks who collect toy dolls and get angry on Twitter when children's cartoons are remade in ways they don't like. You know, just like the tough warrior menfolk of yore. Currently, for example, some online fans of the original Masters of the Universe cartoon are angry that the redesigned female characters' costumes aren't sexy enough for them. Yes, critiquing a children's cartoon by revealing you're having problems masturbating to it is most definitely a win for traditional masculinity.

The only thing most of these fans really have in common with He-Man is that they spend lots of time in their pants and sometimes sit on their cat.

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