Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Welcome to Dear Watchers in Omniversal comic book podcast, where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.

We are traveling with you through the stories and the worlds that make up an omniverse, a fictional reality we all love. And your watchers on this journey are me Gido uh, o.

And me, Ron snarf. Snarf. And we have the spirit of our cat ancestors fading into view. It's Jaga. Wait, no, I mean it's. Mike from multiverse of Badness. Hi, Mike.

Hello. How are you doing? I love the intro of your show. If you're ever lucky enough to be a guest, like I am. Um, and I love the show. It's amazing because they actually put the music in while we're recording, so it feels like you're it's not like me that does everything in post. They do it, like, live. It's amazing. I love you guys. Um, I'm, um, super excited to be on here. Thank you for having me.

It's a fully immersive experience.

Yes. We need to incorporate, like, the morning zoo sound effects for next keto with boing. Exactly, Mike.

Exactly.

Mike is a returning guest and a friend of the show and the host of the deviously fun, uh, Multiverse of Badness, where they look at the bad, the ugly, and the weird funny book, so you don't have to. Mike, can you tell us anything else about mob?

You know what? I am, um, one of your hosts. We have another co host, zach from Swansea, Wales. So you get the hillbilly in me. You get the deep, rich, plush voice of Zach. We don't take any of this seriously. We are just literally reading books and having a good time. We'd love to have anyone that wants to listen to us, but you guys do an actual good job of reviewing books. We're just over there acting like jerks. That's all we do.

Well, I think everyone should get into the mob mentality. Mike, you can use that if you want. Have you ever used that?

Not the mob mentality. We've got the Mob squad, but yeah, we'll use the mob.

There you go.

Yes. I like it.

And now, before we begin today's travel, itinerary Gito. What's new in our little section of the multiverse?

Well, I'll keep it short. We're just counting down to 100 episodes, and we don't even know that we're going to be doing anything all that special for 100. But it's still exciting that we reached 100 episodes. I was looking at the timeline or the plan I used to sort when we're going to cover stuff so that we can alternate between, like, Marvel, DC, other stuff. And I had stopped numbering at 100, so I guess I didn't anticipate that we were going further. But I think we are. So here we are. So, as we said last week, just want to keep growing as we approach 100. So if you didn't yet post about this episode or text a friend about this episode or tell your local comic shop about us. Please do that this week.

You guys are not allowed to stop. You've got to keep going. I don't care what your paper is.

We started during the Pandemic, so maybe we thought the whole world would no longer be around by the time we hit 100.

I live in Tennessee.

There's still time. We still have a few episodes, so it could still be the apocalypse. If you are joining us for the first time, we have three parts of our journey today. Origins of the story. What inspired this other reality? Exploring multiversity. We dive deeper into our alternate universe and pondering possibilities. We examine the impact and what's followed or coming in the future.

And remember, you can support us over on our coffee by visiting dearwatchers.com. And you can support multiverse of badness over on their patreon by searching for that. We are patrons and happy to be yes.

And with that, Dear watchers, welcome to episode 93, and let's check out what's happening in the Omniverse with our travels to today's alternate universe. Ho. There's so many great ThunderCats quotes.

Yeah, ThunderCats is more quotable, has more, uh, of that kind of stuff we can insert than that's.

True. Today, as we proceed through customs, we will visit a place where the question that gets answered is, what if He Man teamed up with the ThunderCats? Or more importantly, what would happen if Skeletor and Mum RA amalgamated and had the Sword of Power?

And this is an Earth of an unknown origin from DC. It was seen once in this 2016 miniseries, which we'll get into soon. And before we do that, Mike, you suggested we cover this. Why?

Uh, different reasons. Primarily because I wasn't aware of it. And a friend of mine who also collects comic books, come to find out, I haven't seen him in years and he started collecting comic books. I got back into comics and he came by with some boxes that I kind of helped him with. And he had that miniseries in there and I was like, M, I didn't even know this existed. This is amazing. So, yeah, it was just a wild. It makes sense, though. I mean, really, when you think about it, the ThunderCats are technically just cat versions of heman. When you read it together, it made a lot of sense. But when I first saw it and the covers of the books are amazing. I really love the artwork. Crude is the wrong word, but it feels like, uh, something not as funny as you think it would be and a little more, uh, in depth than you would expect.

Yes, for sure.

Let's kick off our first segment and we will have a chance to share our own origins in our origins of the story.

Right now, on this very show, you're.

Going to get the answer to all your questions. Our amazing story begins a few years ago.

All right, kitty cats. So you want to talk He Man and the Masters of the Universe and ThunderCats give a little background on these franchises and find out each of our own backgrounds with them. And first up is he man and the Masters of the universe. Starting as a toy line in 1982, it became a television show in 1983, lasting for 130 episodes, followed by the spinoff Shira, a live M action movie in 1987, a reboot New Adventures in 1990s, another reboot show in 2002, and more and more toys over the last 25 years than probably any toy line ever. A very good reboot of Shira in 2018 and an also very good recall or reboot sequel series in 2021 and a new CGI series that same year end. A constant, constant. Rumors of fits and starts in development of a new live action film, which maybe is in production or development. Who knows? It changes day to day. We first discussed He Man on episode 67. So go listen to that when in his full size comics appearance, his first full size comic appearance, he met up with Superman. So now Guido, speaking of comics, is going to give us a little history of heman in comics.

So we did some of this in episode 67. I'll be brief. The toys originally came with mini comics and still do. So He Man really started with a comic universe built around him. DC had the license briefly. They were publishing the mini comics, and so they did a few issues. Then Marvel got the license for their star imprint, which is where they had all their kids television shows, uh, licenses in the 1980s. And during this, the mini comics are still coming out, so there are dozens and dozens of them. London Editions in the UK is releasing heman comics original to that run. They're oversized, beautiful color, totally original stories, great art. There are over 70 of those. And there's a daily newspaper strip for five years, disappears for about a decade, until the early 2000s, when MV Creations does some publishing image and then Dark Horse all get the license a little bit till 2012, when DC picks it up again, does it for a pretty substantial run with a couple of dozen issues, including the miniseries we read today. And now Dark Horse most recently has the license. They published a, uh, Revelations tie in, and they're currently publishing the master verse miniseries, which is a perfect series that we will one day cover because it's zodak and sorceress basically glimpsing into alternate Heman worlds. Every issue there's two different worlds, two different artists. Cool concept. And one day we'll get to it.

That sounds exciting. And let's talk a little bit about our backgrounds with Heman. Mike, what about you? What's your background with Heman and the Masters of the Universe?

Not nearly as deep, apparently, as Guidos. I had no idea a lot of this stuff happened. You guys are talking well, even Rob too. You guys are talking series and comic books. And me, I'm sitting here employed with the action figures. When I was a kid, I could honestly say this about the action figures. They were amazing. And not so much heat, man. And the good guys I love the bad guys.

They all had like a little shtick.

They had the guy, like, with the Multifaces. They had a guy with a triclops. They had a snake that would spit. They had a guy named Webstore. Uh, the bad guys were just badass. And they were just swollen, buff as shit. I mean, this is what action figures were supposed to look like. I wasn't even big into I'm not sure exactly what it was. I guess at the time it was the action figure. So maybe I was. But yeah, just fun action figures to play with. And, uh, as a kid that grew up in the South, I was big into wrestling. So they were always doing wrestling matches against one another. So yeah, they were just a lot of fun. A lot of fun. And then, of course, um, the cartoons were fun. And yeah, they're just stupid. But the original cartoon was just stupid. But, uh, predictable. But hey, I loved it. So yeah, uh, I was there for the beginning. And I'm here for this because yeah, ThunderCats are part of that too. But we'll talk about them later.

Did you ever, as an adult, get back into your heman fandom? Like, do you have a toy sitting around on a shelf or anything like that?

I bet you I have a box of Heman figures. It's probably still my parents basement.

I'm the guy.

I'm 50 plus years old, and there's still a box in my parents basement that has shit in it. So I bet you at one point or another, I'm going to go in that box. I found some of my old Heman. Not my heman. I found some old Star Wars action figures a few months ago. So I found the old Boba Fett I sent off for and a couple of those. Ah, I'm sure that they exist. Where, who knows? But no, I never got back into them.

Now, M, you might be sitting on a gold mine somewhere.

Now, the thing is that you learn and I learned this, sadly, is first off, my mom was particularly one of those people that love yard sales. So she would make me go through and get rid of any toy I wasn't playing with. So I sold the majority of my shit at yard sales. There's a handful I kept. That meant a little bit here and there to me. But all the good stuff, especially, uh, one called JJ Arms. If you don't know, you got to look up JJ Arms. He's amazing. He's like you'd swap out his hands based on a real life detective. That's kind of an asshole. But yeah, as a kid. He wore a leather jacket, had a red suitcase, like the epitome of cool ass toys. But yeah, I don't know where he's at. But yeah, uh, I was hard on my toys. I played hard. Like I said, I wrestled with them. We were talking about those old, um, superhero, uh, action figures. Every one of mine had broken legs and things, so they had a full body outfit, but you could still cram the leg in the bottom and it would spin around because it was broken. So, yeah, all my action figures, not worth anything. They're just more fun to look at because they are just hot garbage now.

Yeah, that's how my Heman toys are. And my shiras, which I loved because they had the hair. All of them have, like, braided hair. Or I cut all their hair off. They would have, like, a nice crew cut. So they are worthless. But I love them.

Yeah, I made that mistake again to go back to wrestling. I had a couple of action figures with hair, and again, back to wrestling, which was a big thing when I was a kid, part, uh, of a wrestling match. There was a loser get their haircut match. So if somebody with the hair lost the wrestling match, they got the haircut. So I had a whole bunch of bald people, too. So, yeah, I'm feeling yaquito.

I guess I'm a little too young for the actual original Motu action figure line. I really came to the series, to the franchise, mostly through the live action movie. I taped it off of WPIX famous station in the New York area. And I just watched the heck out of that, uh, constantly. Once a month, probably. I watched that, and I think it's underappreciated as a movie. I really like the key man, master of the universe movie. And then I watched also the Christmas special a lot. I didn't even watch too much of the original animated series, too, because I think it was again, I was slightly missed it. I, uh, watched some of the new adventures, and I had some of those action figures. So I was a really big fan. But through these things that are not really the fundamentals of what most people who are Motu fans are, that's a nice thing.

And there's many points of entry, right? That's why, even as our listeners know, heman is one of my top things, top franchises. I love it. I have loved it for 41 years. As old as He Man is, I am, and it's cool. Like, even the CG series in 2021, I didn't watch it, but people loved it. And, uh, I have no problem with it. It's cool to me that there are these different versions of it, and that that was running parallel to Revelations, like, did not taint my experience. It just meant different people were able to get different things out of it because it's such a cool world. It does have these quirky characters that Mike was describing, and they did a lot of story building, even though the show is not great at story most of the time, possibly, uh, all of the time. It's just the potential is there. So that's why it's cool to see all these different versions.

And I do have to say this. Whoever thought to put a skeleton face on a buff ass? Dude, you couldn't have paid those guys enough money. Say what you want to about Skeletor being a chump in the cartoon series, he is one of the baddest ass looking villains there is. There's just no question about it.

Yeah. Well, now I'm going to have Sight Beyond Sight move into our next franchise. So let's get into thundercat. Thundercat.

Thank you.

I guess you have to say it after every time. Well, maybe we shouldn't. That would be too much. But ThunderCats began as a syndicated animated TV show and ran from 1985 to 1989 for four seasons in 130 episodes. Created by Ted Tobin Wolf and developed by Leonard Starr. It featured Japanese animation, but was written and produced in the US. By Rankin Bass. The Christmas special fame, people that you've seen, Rudolph and all those things. Yeah, it was given a, uh, one season reboot with a slightly different origin story on Cartoon Network in 2011, 2012, and then Cartoon Network tried again in 2020 with a more kid centric Teen Titans go kind of version titled ThunderCats Roar, which lasted one season of 50 211 minutes episodes. ThunderCats has also had a toy line, a video game in 1987, plus later web games, a board game, various merch, and kind of like Hemaz. There has been a film version in development on and off for years. Most recently, Warner Brothers announced a version that was going to be directed, or will be directed by Adam Windgard, which would be kind of cool. That's kind of neat. And at one point circuit 2014, there was a ThunderCats Museum, but their website no longer works. So Mark the curator, if you're listening, and out there, if the museum is still around, let us know. But they have also had a long history in comics, which Gita will tell us about right now.

Well, it's actually not that long. Uh, so it starts as a Marvel title, also under the Star imprint, running for 24 issues, actually more than Marvel had the Heman license for. Interestingly, though, there are very few comics for the ThunderCats in the US. The longest run is marvel. UK. Publishes ThunderCats. Totally original stories to the UK issues. Hard to find. High value for 129 issues.

See, that's long.

That is long.

But it's specific to Marvel UK.

Like, no one knows about it. They're not collected anywhere. They're quite hard to find. If you go on ebay, there's maybe, like three issues at a time up there for ridiculous, uh, money per issue. So it's not until 2002 that Wild Storm starts publishing, in part because Wildstorm is then an imprint of DC, which is owned by Warner Bros. And Warner Bros. Owns ThunderCats. They bought the company that owned it in the 90s. So they do a few minis and one shots, including a Superman crossover that we do need to cover one day. But all of this just lasts for two years till 2004. There is a new UK strip that they try, uh, in 2012 with the new show. And then, shockingly, the only other American comics since 2004 is what we are covering today from 2016. And then the creator, though himself, has some neat connections to comics that Rob is going to share before we get into our backgrounds.

Yeah. Leonard Starr, who developed the ThunderCats TV series, he wrote the Bible, wrote most of the episodes. He actually wrote it at the age of 60. He's actually an Ink Spot Award winner and a comics legend. His long history in comics includes drawing the original Human Torch and Submariner for Timely Comics, working for Joe Simon and Jack Kirby on young romance, providing art for Morbius, DC's, uh, Who's Who, and Action Comics in the taking over the comics trip, little Orphan Annie from 1979 to 2000. So really a comics legend, mostly in the art world, who also happened to be the main writer of this 80s kids TV show.

Yeah. So, Mike, what was your ThunderCats background?

Well, first off, I have to say it's a shame you can't find those ThunderCats because you can find plasma that, uh, UK imprint Marvel everywhere. And you've got this cool ass UK ThunderCats run. You can't find, um I know. Yeah. My experience is similar to the Heman, the Masters of the Universe experience, not quite as detailed. I did not have the action figures for this, but the cartoon was on quite regularly. What? Actually, this is completely a dumb thing to talk about. But in the precursor to the Internet, you had local. You could get on a small group where, like, four to eight people could get on a server together. And we played games. And one of the games was Galaxy Conquest, and another was Deck War, which is pretty much like a Star Trek thing. But we all, for some reason, used Thundercat names. I was snarf of course. But yeah, pretty much. My experience is literally not as deep. But the ThunderCats cartoon, to me, was a lot more fun. I guess. It was like, don't get me wrong, I had the power kind of cheesy. But man, when, uh, Lionel would get going with his fucking sword, he was like, the ThunderCats are on the mood. The music was so much better. It was more of a mood than, um it almost like just drew you in with the action. And at times, Masters Universe not as action packed as you would think. The ThunderCats were very much more action packed and just a more interesting watch, I thought, as a cartoon for a kid.

Yeah, I agree. I liked Thundercats a lot as a kid. I had all the figures and I would watch the TV show. It never had the place in my heart. He man did. I didn't watch ever the reboot of ThunderCats. And I've never really been back into the franchise. We rewatched a few of the early episodes in preparation for this and they are again, nothing will ever chop Heman for me. But they are better story, better action. The music is awesome. There is cool, like mystical world building, which is heman has some mystical stuff in. Sorceress but I think the fact that ThunderCats didn't feel that they needed to do standalone episodes, which He Man is 100% standalone episodes.

And not to interrupt, but I believe that to me, Mumra always felt like more of a threat in the cartoons than Skeletor. Mumra, you always felt like this guy's going to kill somebody, whereas Skeletor, this guy's just bumbling around like a moron. So yeah, there was a great watching.

His first appearances, which is in the second episode, just to prepare for this. He's generally scary. As you said, mike Skeletor looks really cool. But of course, the Alan Oppenheimer depiction on the cartoon is mostly pretty comedic. Bumbling fool.

Yeah, um, bumbling. He's fun.

Yeah, he's fun, but he's not scared. But M, when you first see Mumran, he's coming out of that coffin, he's pretty scary. I think even the Decrepit version of him is so much scarier even than the macho, giant, bulky version. There's something very creepy about him.

That's part of it.

The voice is great. And the series as a whole too, I think, is so, uh, much darker than the Heman series because it really starts with the genocide of a whole or the destruction of a holocaust of this whole people when their planet explodes and we don't even know are more ThunderCats even still alive. And then Jaga dies on the ship. I don't think you would ever see anything like that on the Masters of the Universe TV series.

Yeah. So what was your experience with Undercuts, though, Rob?

I mostly watched it on the Tsunami block on Cartoon Network when I was probably in middle school or early high school. And it was beyond with Voltron and Gundam Wing and Dragon Ball Z, stuff like that. So I saw it periodically. But I was not something I ever really grew up with when I was young. And that it seems like it had a big resurgence in the early 2000s. Uh, you would see it on TV t shirts and stuff like that. And you would see references on Family Guy and things like that. So it really kind of seemed to come back. But I think I mostly missed ThunderCats for the most part.

Yeah.

ThunderCats, for some reason. Again, not to poo poo on Masters of the Universe, but from kind of an, uh, advertising. It just grabs you more. And maybe it's because the cartoon did such a good job with the action, but even the characters, don't get me wrong, master universe villains, awesome. But the cat kind of they're sleeker kind of design. There's something a bit cooler, more smooth and sexy about the way that the ThunderCats are portrayed in the Masters of the Universe. I think I can see that lending itself a little better to the mainstream. If you're walking around with a Heman shirt on, people are like, Skeletor, you can get by with but you walk around with a Lionel shirt or especially, uh, a Pantheon shirt, people will be like, that dude's a badass.

Totally. Well, I think this segment is about to explode, so let's crawl into our suspended animation pods. Mike, I'm sorry, you might have to just pilot the ship. I hope you make it. We're going to crash land on Earth Three, also known as Exploring Multiversity.

I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question what if?

And today we, uh, are asking the question, what if He Man teamed up with the ThunderCats? Or more importantly, what if what would happen if Skeletor and Mumra amalgamated and had the Sword of Power? So this is the comic book Heman ThunderCats issues number one through six from DC Comics from December 2016 to March 2017. The six stories are Swords and Omens when Thunder Strikes. Swords and Sorrows. A lot of things with Swords, clash of Titans, the Fall of Grace, skull and a Beatles reference across the universe.

So the whole series is written by Rob David and Lloyd Goldfine. Rob david works for Mattel as VP of Content Creation. He's really been the modern shepherd of Heman a lot, though. This and one other issue of the DC run are all that he's written. But he was the EP on the Heman Revelation series and co creator of the Heman CGI reboot. Lloyd Goldfein, also working for Mattel's Story and Entertainment Branch, and co plotted the Heman series with Rob David, published by DC and worked on a lot of other TV like Tmnto, et cetera. This series was entirely penciled and inked by Freddie E. Williams II. So Freddie Williams started working with DC in 2005 on Seven soldiers. Mr. Miracle. He's illustrated Batman. Teenage Mutant Turtles has done additional, uh, work for DC. Like Flash, Blue Beetle, Green Arrow, Robin JSA. Some work for Marvel IDW Dark Horse image and has even done some hallmark cards in his distinct style. The coloring is Jeremy Caldwell lettered by Darren Bennett and edited by Christy Quinn. And so we will go issue by issue there's six. We'll give a quick summary for our listeners who aren't too familiar with the series, and then we'll talk about what is going on in these. So, kicking off with issue one, setting up the ancient spirits of evil from ThunderCats, tell mumra the Everliving to get the power sword from Eternia. And in disguise as the sorceress he stabs Prince Adam, who's really a major doofus in the series, through the chest. And when he becomes Heman, the wound is gone and Mumra is defeated by Skeletor, who secretly allied with the ancient spirits of evil to get the power sword from a now evaporated Mumra. So that's our first issue. What did you all think of the setup of this series?

I was shocked that Prince Adam literal, like, this guy's dead. How's he getting over this? I mean, it was gruesome.

Uh, and it's like, lodged in there too. There's multiple pages and panels where there's Adam with just the sword of power through his jazz.

And that is a little ridiculous because he lives an awful long time with it. He just keeps going panel painting, uh, but he eventually gets over it. And I don't know if it was Mumra and Skeletor. I know what happens and I know how it happens. I can't remember if it happens in the second book or the first book. How they become amalgamated.

No, not yet.

Okay, don't worry.

I'll mention that I got things to talk about.

M, no.

Not yet.

The stabbing. And spoilers alert. Spoiler alert for Heman Revelations. But it actually brought to mind Heman Revelations. I don't know if that did for you too, Gito, where there's this stabbing of the Prince Adam character and it was like, oh, I wonder if Rob David recycled that idea later for the Revelation series. Because that and really the overall tone of this whole series, which we can touch on throughout, reminded me a lot of the tone of the Revelation series, where it was not quite adult, it wasn't quite super serious. Skeletors like, say it's still a little jokey, but it's also got blood and got this stabbing. It's much more gruesome than the original Motu animated series was.

Yeah, I agree. I felt the tone was similar. The one complaint I'll mention here, so that I don't have to mention it again, I don't love the narration device. So every issue has a narrator that's a character and they're different. And, uh, I found it taking me out of the action to read caption boxes that were actually a character's narration. That then is a surprise. Like, the first issue is being narrated by Skeletor and you don't realize that until Skeletor defeats Mumra at the end. So I found that device distracting.

I agree. Uh, the other thing about this first book, especially, is and they have to set it up. They only have six issues, but they go through a lot in this first book, and there's just a lot of dialogue, and it's hard, especially, I think the thing is, there's a lot of dialogue, and then you have the narration boxes on top of it. So you're bouncing back and forth a whole lot. You never feel like even with. A lot that happens in this. You never feel like you get into the flow of the action. You always feel like you're distracted. Uh, I am a very visual reader and probably my raging ADHD, but I want to get down to the blood and guts in the action. And there's, uh, little too many words for a simple mind like mine.

Yeah, agreed. All right, so moving on issue two, heman fights Evil Lynn and his other enemies, who are now allied with the mutants from Thundera. And the ThunderCats enemies like Monkey In and SlyThe, and they're kind of fun and weird, too. Uh, and meanwhile, Skeletor drinks Mumra and uses the power sword to become a new Amalgam. And by pulling the power sword power into him, he man reverts back to Adam and is now dead, and the ThunderCats come to confront Skeleton at this point. He has his own name later, but I'm going with Skelet Man at this point. So that is issue two. And yeah, Mike, why don't we talk about let's get right to it. Let's talk about Skeletor and Mumra here.

He drank the damn corpse. I read that and I was like, Holy shit, he just drank Mamra. This is crazy. Yeah, I think that took me through the entire book. It's like the whole Prince Adam being dead and stuff, that was secondary. It was like, he just drank the corpse of a dead mummy, and the mumra is still kind of banging around. He's like, hey, I'm still here.

It's like, this is wild.

Well, Skeletor, I mean, there is a humor with the Skeletor mumra stuff that develops that is sometimes a little annoying. And sometimes I love. And in this one, I love it because Skeletor is holding this beaker of Mumra's corpse, and he says, Bottoms up. And the beaker is screaming, no. It's so weird.

It's so good. I think that was it was it was things like that that really I enjoyed the most about this is there was a gravity at times, but there was this ridiculous kind of come on, man, who wrote this? I mean, when you write that and you take it to your editor and you're like, I want Skeletor to drink Mumra, but I want Mumra to be screaming when he does. And they're like, I'll allow it. So it's like, okay.

Yeah. This Skeletor in general, going back to what I was just saying, too, it reminds me a lot of Mark Hamill's portrayal, Skeletor, on the Revelation series, where he's not the silly doofus that the Alan Oppenheimer version is on the original animated series. He's more serious, but he's not the serious Frank Landella no comedy version of the live action film. He kind of straddles both worlds. And we get a lot of this, as you were indicating Gito in the scenes here with Mum Raw, where Mum Raw is kind of the straight man, and Skeletor has a lot of the uh, Skeletor is constantly putting him down for being a mummy. And it's like, Wait a second. You're a skeleton. How are you constantly saying this?

The best line of this series has to be, I've rendered him never living. I mean, Skeletor calling Mumra the Neverliving when he's known as Mumra the Everliving is pretty hilarious. So, yeah, the character of Skeletor is great here.

Yeah, they're all great. I do miss Mumra. I feel like not to ruin anything in the series, but Skeletor kind of takes center stage. I mean, Mumra is still there in the background, but, like, we were talking about how badass Mumra looks and how visually intimidating, uh, Mumra is, even though he's not as physically strong, I guess, in his big formulas. But, yeah, I am a Team Mumra fan. I would have liked to have seen more of Mumra.

Especially with Freddie Williams's exaggerated art. I think that works for Mumra. Um, we'll probably talk more about the art throughout because I have some different feelings. But, yeah, the Mumra depiction works with all those scary muscles and the things flowing off of his face and stuff. All right, so, onto issue three, mumra and Skeletor fight about inhabiting the same body, but Mumra concedes because Skeletor is like, Well, I'll fight the ThunderCats for you. And he's like, okay, fine. So the Mumra aspect, though, is defeated by Lionel holding up the sword and causing the reflection to make Mumra revert. So Skeletor and Mumra end up having a bit of, like a Three Stooges, right? Is that the best reference?

Yes.

Raw. Definitely Three Stooges fight where, like, he's punching himself and choking himself, and then Skeletor ends up poking his own eyes out. It's very, ah, slapstick. And then Lionel arrives to Adam's funeral and the ancient spirits of evil attack Eternia. But really, it reminded me of Tor show.

Yeah.

It reminded me of all of me with Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, or any of those movies where you have someone possessing somebody else's body and sometimes the one person is in control and sometimes somebody else is in control. Any of those kind of movies.

Yeah. My feeling was more just because I'm a big horror fan as Evil Dead Two with Ash. As soon as I saw him poking himself in the eye, I was like, oh, yeah, this is straight up Ash Williams. Yes.

And it gets so ridiculous because he ends up being able to because Mumra has more control. I guess he actually will physically transform. And there's just this page where he goes back and forth from Mumra to Skeletor, and it says Transform, and they're just arguing. And we get some great lines like Skeletor calling him you decomposing dolt. And then Mumra says, like, with what army, jackass. And then Mumra calls him Skeletor. And then Skeletor calls him Dumra the Ever. Drooling. So there are some real lines in here that stand, uh, out as forever.

Legends and to talk just a minute about the actual heroes of this story. We do have the reveal in this issue or the previous issue where King, uh, Randor does find out that Prince Adam is he man, which is also something they did explore on the Revelation series. So I think another thing that they kind of said, oh, we're going to actually do this on the TV series, too. But one thing I had a question for you, Guido. Maybe, you know, but the queen is not around, I guess. Is she dead?

No, she's in the first issue when they do some of the, like, adam coming to court late and he's a bumbling fool stuff. She's standing there. But it's weird because she.

No, because the king has king Randor has tons of stuff to do. He's pretty big presence throughout these issues. And I was thinking, wait, is she dead? If she's dead, like, why is there no mention of this? But I guess they just were like, we've got enough women.

Yeah. Uh, I'll mention that in a few.

Yes, definitely appealing to a male audience as comics and cartoons of this nature tend to. Yes.

All right. So issue four, the epic battle ensues on Eternia. Uh, we have Lionel turning Cringer into thundercat. I guess we just call him Thundercat to beat the mutants who are just stealing a lot of gold for themselves and revives Heman using mumra's sarcophagus. So Heman is now evil, which of course, sets up the classic hero versus hero fight with Lionel until he shows Heman the site beyond sight and they become friends.

Yeah, we have to talk about how badass Cringer was when he became a Thunder. He was a bad ass.

I did a cool design.

I did not expect that at all. And then all of a sudden, it's like, holy shit. I mean, I know he's battlecat, but this is like battlecat on steroids. It was just amazing.

I loved it.

Yeah, he has a cool amalgam, too. We'll see more amalgams later on. But it's a nice kind of foreshadowing of the amalgam of these two worlds.

Yeah, because they like, anthropomorphize him so he looks like the ThunderCats. And they bring out the yellow stripes more. And of course, put the ThunderCats logo on his chest somehow in his fur, it grows the logo, but who cares? Because it looks cool.

Let's not let logic get in the way of a good story here, Guido.

No, definitely not here. And the battle between Heman and Lionel, it's got that bloody edge that this whole series has. I mean, there are moments they cut each other and they bleed a little, and Heman is a little stronger for most of it. And then, of course, Lionel invokes power. Beyond power. And then I love when they're just both holding giant granite statues and hitting each other with them. You can tell they're equally matched.

Then you need to have this scene in these we saw it also in the heman Superman issue that we covered on our previous episode. And really, any superman, spiderman, anytime these heroes meet, they have to have that one moment where they fight and then, oh, no, okay. I'm okay again, we're friends.

It felt like, to me, went on just a little too long. But yeah, I mean, it was still.

Good, the whole issue.

Yeah, the issue was very, uh it was filler a little bit compared to some of the other there was stuff going on, don't get me wrong. But yeah, I felt a little more fillery than the first three.

Yeah, well, speaking of filler, let's go to issue five, because this is an epic attorney in battle, though, it's not very exciting because it's just basically a device to give you the team ups that make the most sense. So you have just man at arms and panther do something together. And you have orco first with Wiley Kit and Wiley Cat, and then with Snarf, and then you have Tela and Chitara, because women and then Jaga and Sorceress and Jaga and Sorceress end up giving the power to everyone in the battle so they can push back the ancient spirits of evil. And then at the very end of this issue, we get what he has named himself the skeletor mumra and ancient spirits of evil amalgamation. Mammator.

Not good.

No, I think he could have done much better on that name.

You had five issues to come up with a better name, and this is what you like. I can say this about Chitara and Tela. You know what? I kind of liked those two together. Yes, it is girls for the sake of being girls and girl power, but they seem to have a little more at least on panel chemistry than the rest of them. I would buy a miniseries of those two. Fun and around.

Yeah, well, it is fun. Like, Chitara gets to use her powers, use her acrobatics, use her speed a little while. Tela sort of just flies around and is like the vehicle for her to do what she needs to.

And they have the antagonistic relation, well, slightly antagonistic relationship between the two of them while everyone else is kind of just getting along. They do have a bit of a prickly relationship.

I don't know about that. I think you're imposing a little bit of a, uh, cat fight.

Ha.

Uh huh. They're working together. Chitar even says, I do believe you and I are going places.

Tila I'm going to say this, it actually reminded me a little bit, and I'm going to bring both of your points together. It felt a bit like the exterminators run where they were a little prickly with each other, but was almost in jest. Like they were kind of buddy buddying together. And that exterminators run is fabulous with that, with those girls just ripping into each other.

And I loved your coverage of that. I think love, uh, you covered it and then you talked about it when you were on Comic Bookkeepers, and I love that series, too. It is very similar, actually. You're right. It's the same tone. Um, I think the problem I have with this issue and why it feels like filler is like any one of these team ups would have been fun, but they get like a page or two at most, because they're just going rapid fire through this epic battle. So it almost feels like they could have used some of the previous issue, reduced the heman Lionel battle, and given us more of these character moments, I think.

Yeah, I think, uh, that is the saying, because issue four definitely has some filler. Issue five is literally just like, eating, like, a bag of cheetos or something. I mean, it's got its points, it's got its fun, but after you read it, you're like, what did I do? But for a series that is so compact, especially early on in the story, where it felt like maybe if you drugged that out an extra issue or two, you could cut these and make this a little less filler and kind of drag the stories out, uh, the pacing of this overall series felt a little too much. It was too fast and then too slow all at the same time.

Totally.

Agreed. So we get the spirits of ancient evil become Kaijuice in this, and they're huge and battling, and it gave me kind of a video game vibe, because what happens is they all have these golden discs around there, which is a.

True heman, uh, thing, the golden disc.

Okay, mhm because they're trying to defeat them, and then they realize then the Sorceress and Jaga come to them and tell them the death mahina of, oh, you have to destroy these discs. That gave me that very kind of video game thing where you're trying to defeat the boss, but then you kind of realize, oh, wait, no, I have to shoot that one thing that's on them. And that's actually how you get rid of their shield and destroy them. And the one thing I did love, I loved the Orco running bit here, of course, which is classic orco he can never get his spells right, and then he's trying to get one, and of course, it also turns out wrong, and it turns Snarf into a giant Kaiju size one. And Snarf is able to accidentally knock the golden disc off and defeat them. So, I love Snarf getting into that because those two are two characters that go really well together. And, uh, no Adam, no He Man, or Lionel in this whole issue, actually saving them for this final one.

Yeah, for the finale. All right. So in our finale, which really, we could have done a whole episode just on this finale. And we'll talk about why in a moment, because he man and Lionel confront Mummatur. It doesn't work. I don't know why. I guess it's skeleton, but it doesn't.

Roll off the tongue well at all. No.

And it sounds like a machine that you buy somewhere like oh, go get the mummy to fix that thing in the yard or.

Whatever.

All right, so they confront Mummatur at the nexus of all realities. Swiping that from Marvel, thank you very much. This is the place where the multiverse intersects. And so we get to see all too briefly DC Earth Prime, if we had Prince Adam be Superman. And it's uh, very brief, sadly, but it's in attorney Aville, we get about five panels of this world and we even get the reveal of the Clark Kent, uh, opening of the shirt to the heman sigil on, um, the costume.

And his name is Adam Grayscoll. Adam Grace because that's what Perry comes out and says, Gracekell. And we do have Lois and Jimmy.

So I guess Corp and they work at the Planet. So we have that moment and then we have a moment of the ThunderCats and He Man being just fully amalgamated. So Chitara tila one entity. Panther man at Arms one entity. They are called Chatila. And heo and Jagares. So jaga and sorceress are amalgamated. We have Orco and Snarf known as Snarfo. And so we get this full amalgamation universe and then ultimately though Lionel and Heman invoke their power beyond power, together they win. Lionel admits in the epilogue that he's actually only twelve years old. And uh, Mumra is the narrator of this issue and it turns out reminds us that as long as evil exists, so too does Mumra. And then we get the exchange of catchphrases with the masters of the universe saying ThunderCats ho and the Thundercat saying by the power of Grace Gull. So a lot in this issue alone that I wish had been more yeah.

Again, this issue was probably too much happened too quickly. Again, the pacing in this story, it's like they wanted to tell things at certain times. I think I do understand issue five, you've got to give the secondary characters a little bit of space to breathe. I think if you don't have them at all, it literally just turns into a heman Lionel story, which is technically the majority of this book and that's what we're here for. But yeah, there's a lot to digest in this one. Do mhm.

You get another Superman esque moment in this as well because another place that this orb, this Mcguffiny thing that just suddenly appears at like issue five or issue six also brings them to see Lionel can see the vision. Of thundera exploding. And he can see his father and himself as a little kid and his parent. And he's getting on the ship with Jaga. Uh, all the stuff that kind of happens before the first episode of the TV series really. So that's also giving such strong Superman Krypton vibes as well. And then Lionel could actually use the orb to go back and save his father, bring his father, um, onto the ship. And He Man says, well, you could do that, but it's going to change everything that's happened since then. And everything that's happened since then has made you the person that you are today. So it's also giving that classic multiverse Superman thing. But maybe to what we're saying is that seems so heavy and so much to it. And it's about four.

Panels.

Same thing with the heman. Superman amalgam. Um, clearly, they just wanted to do that. It has no ThunderCats in it. It's just some other world. But I would have read that. I would have read that for three pages. Like, give me more, or have that have something, which they did do this. There is a series called Heman and the Masters of the Multiverse, which was DC. And it was the last thing DC published under their license. And they pull in, like, the eight bit heman. And they pull in the action figure He Man. And they pull in Dolph Wong Grim. So they pull all the hemen together. It would have been kind of fun in this if the He Superman got brought in and actually contributed to the fight. Like, if they had used these multiversal versions for any purpose other than this glimpse.

Yeah, too many multiverses happening too fast. You got to have an entire show about what ifs and multiverses. And they tried to cram like, 17 into one issue.

Uh, yes. Yeah. I would have liked any of them fleshed out. I don't know. Other than the names. I don't love the character designs of the ThunderCats Masters of the Universe. It's very jarring to see, like, Tela as a Cheetah or man at Arms as a blue creature. But I like the names. It's really fun. Other than Heo, because Heo is, again, like, that's just a noise people make when they kick their when they stub their toe.

It's like lift a heavy box.

And I know I'm going to actually probably contradict myself a little bit here, but I do have to say, especially near the end, skeletor, Ah and Mumra together, they give off a very much like a death's head two vibe. And I love death's head, too.

Yeah, totally.

I really did like that.

But, uh, I would have liked it does look like that. Well, I also think for so much page time that they have, their defeat is just over in a panel. Suddenly, they grab the heroes, grab this orb, which has only really been introduced in the previous issue. And then the whole panel fills with blue. And then literally someone says, I think just the sorceress says they've been defeated. And it's like, wait, we kind of wanted to see these guys suffer. We wanted a funny final line from them. And it's just kind of one of those no, and it's done. It's like oh, okay. We kind of wanted to see a little bit more of a final battle here.

I could tell you this from the types of books we review over on our podcast. This is typical bad guy running the show up until, like, one page. It's like, oh, he just fucks right off. It's like.

Okay, all done well. And then they actually spend an enormous amount of time on epilogue in this, like, Ah. A ah.

Shocking.

Almost as if it's one of those movies that has, like, 20 minutes at the end where you're like, okay, come on, I'm done. Um, because they call back to the belt scene with Prince Adam and his father, and Lionel wants to know what the deal with the belt is. And you see, like Orco and Wiley kid and Wiley Cat and Cringer and Snarf exchange gifts with each other. You just have all these moments where it's like, I don't really need all these moments. You could have given me more battle.

Yeah. Either make this a four issue series and get rid of a lot of this excess, or make this twelve issues and spread it out and give us the good stuff. I'm fine with issue five being an entire issue of, uh, a twelve issue series, but not of a six issue series. But it's these little things. I'm fine with that when you have more time. But, like, we were just talking about pacing again. It's like, hurry up to slow down. It's just like, give us an even pacing, and I'm here for it.

Yeah, I totally agree. It could have been shorter or longer, but it's the wrong length where it is. I agree with that. I want to talk about my reaction to the art. And Mike, you said you really like it. I don't know how I feel about it, honestly. I'm unsure. And I know Freddie Williams's work, and so I know it's a very specific thing that he does. I don't know. It's jarring to me in some ways, the exaggerated Rob lifefieldness of it. It's almost like watercolored Rob lifefield. At times, I think. I think it sort of works because the heman figures are like that and the ThunderCats figures are like that. But then, on the other hand, I don't find myself appreciating it as I'm moving through it. Maybe just because stylistically, it's not for me. I don't know. So, Mike, do you like Freddie Williams's work? Do you just like this art in this series?

I think it's this art in this series I don't see as much. Uh, yeah, it doesn't come off to me as much. Rob liefeld, I see from the scratchiness of it, you get some of those vibes, but I think that he's not going pouches. He's not giving muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles. Because, let's be honest here, both sets of, uh, these characters are very muscular. But I don't think he goes overboard. I think it's very right for the scene, and, uh, it's not a perfect example, but this artwork, especially for a story like this, I think it makes it flow a little better. I think if this was very bubbly, very much like don't get me wrong, as a fan of John Byrne's artwork, regardless of what I think about the guy, personally, I think John Byrne artwork wouldn't be good here.

I think it would feel boring.

It would feel weird. And, uh, this has very much like, uh, an example of a newer series, is do a power bomb. I think that the artwork for that is not as clean as some people would think it should be, but I think that adds to the story. It's kind of like this kind of chaotic effect that keeps the story going a little bit. When you feel like that is the one thing, the artwork kind of drags you feels like it drags you to the next panel. I don't get stuck on one piece of artwork. It's like, I want to see what happens next. I like the artwork here. It's different, but I'm here for it.

And you're right. It is a very consistent feeling. Like a, uh, Daniel Warren Johnson. Sorry, Rob.

Go ahead. No, I really like the artwork, too. And I think one of the things that makes it stand out for me is Jeremy calmwell's colors as well. Everything is this kind of bright, super saturated colors. Guido. It actually reminds me of some of the coloring in Promethea as well. I don't know what you call this, but nothing's dull, nothing's super primary. It's like a lighter blue when it has to be a blue, and everything's a little more bright in that way. And I think that really makes it pop.

There. Yeah. So do we want to go back to this world? I guess Mike and I said we would have done another six issues, but do we want, like, a sequel series? Do we want to return to.

It? You know what I'll say? I think this was enough of this story. I think that you could bring these two franchises, uh, together again. Um, I think there's a lot of fun that could be had. Uh, even with the secondary characters, I don't think they were explored. I won't say enough because it was a short series. You can't explore everybody. You have to give front and center to Heman, skeletor, Mumra, Lionel. That's your main characters. You only have six issues to do it. So I think I, uh, would like to see more. Like I said, and I know it sounds ridiculous, you give me a chitara and tira tila. Sorry, I'm thinking shera you give me a chitara and tila combination.

Hey, she could be in the yeah.

Where is shera in this whole thing? In a way, yeah. I was hoping the first time I read through this. I was hoping shera saved the day, but she didn't, sadly. But yeah, there's some fun to be had here. Another crossover works for me. Just not the same world, I guess. Or just a little more fun, I guess. And whatever.

Who knows? Yeah, there's this weird little thing that you mentioned in your summary Gito, where right before he goes away, Lionel says, oh, by the way, I'm actually twelve years old. Bye.

Actually, weird moment.

And I actually think that could be explored more in a series because I didn't know that about Lionel until I just watched the pilot to prepare for this episode. Growing up watching Thundercats, I never knew, oh, he's actually a young boy, teenager and grown up. And of course, Prince Adam isn't quite that, but has those elements as well, where he's really somewhat immature and a bit of a scatter brain, a little that Clark can kind of thing, but is also he man. So I think there could be something that explores more of those. Throw in, uh, and it's DC, right? So throw in Billy back.

I was going to say have a Lionel.

Yeah. Have all those characters beat together.

Yeah.

Well, these sound like great possibilities. So why don't we ponder some more possibilities?

Yes, we will call down the power of Gray Skull and move into pondering.

Possibilities. Will the future you describe be averted? Diverted.

Diverted. So, Guido, what are we talking about for our pondering possibilities?

We're just going to continue this same conversation. So because since 2016, as I mentioned, there have been no ThunderCats comics and there have been Heman comics, but there was nothing that tied into this or was interesting to read in the context of this. So let's just keep talking about Heman and ThunderCats. Do we think they'll cross over again? Who else could they cross over with? Do we think we'll see more of this kind of thing or less or? Yeah, what do we want?

Well, we can't see much less because it hasn't been done. Again, I'm going to guess I'd take more. The one thing I would like to see is I want to see the ThunderCats do the cat's musical. I don't want a ThunderCats movie with the graphics of the Cat's musical, but yeah. Ah, I'd love to see that. A little song and dance.

I'm here for it, Mike. It's so funny because this is one of the questions I was going to ask you both as well. Going back to pondering possibilities. So the Cat's musical came out in 1981 and ThunderCats came out in 1985. Right. So I was wondering, do you think the cat's musical was an influence on ThunderCats? Because they look very similar if you look at the classic look of everything. And the Cat's musical, while, uh, critically mixed, was a huge box office thing that ran for many, many years. So do you, either of you think that the cast musical was. Actually an influence on the creation of Thundercats?

I wouldn't say a direct influence, probably, but it's very much like anything in pop culture. Everything influences everything else to some degree. I could see, obviously, as much as I think the ThunderCats are cool, they felt like a derivative work of Masters of the Universe. It's like, let's just take the same characters and let's make them cats, give them the same attitude. But I could totally see where the guys saw Cats on the news and later on that night, he's like, I need to come up with a Masters of the Universe rip off. He's like, let's do cats. Not even like just kind of a subconscious thing. So yeah, it would not surprise me at all. Subconsciously, the musical did influence ThunderCats to some degree. Yeah.

And I don't know the history of anthropomorphic cats. Were there other creatures or movies or things that had like that look?

Tigra tiger. Tiger.

Whatever you mean.

No.

In marvel universe, of course.

Yeah.

Although, uh, she's she's more a little bit like early Wonder Woman cheetah, where she's just a beautiful woman who has like cheetah spots. Whereas I see, like panther and tigra from ThunderCats. They're a little uglier, right? They're more like the cat's musical character, tygrow and Chitara.

Tigro and Chitara look very cat's musical. Having seen the cat's musical when I was actually growing up on Broadway, it's like, oh, wow, they do look a lot alike. But I think you're right, Mike. I think it's just one of those things where people are always taking from various things in the Zeitgeist at the moment. And maybe just if it's like, well, people like Cats, people like He Man, I'm just going to kind of put the two together a little bit.

Yeah. Music's that Way where you'll hear a band write a song that's exactly the same song as another band that Led Zeppelin gets ripped off all the time. But Led Zeppelin ripped off every blues guy before that. Sure. So it really is kind of a things influence you and you don't even know that you're doing it. And it's like, oh, I've got this great idea. It's like, well, somebody else had it. Or maybe you amalgamated it like you said. And um, yeah, that happens all the time. So yeah, I'm here for that possibility. Uh.

Rob? Yeah. I think both of these franchises are great team up franchises because they do have these interesting characters and they do have this whole world built around them. So I am surprised ThunderCats doesn't see more revival as much as He Man does. Heman has had a few Team Up miniseries. They've done a heman and the injustice world of DC. They've done Heman just with the core DC when DC was publishing. And then, obviously, the heman ThunderCats. But ThunderCats hasn't gotten the team ups. But I think any of them have any potential you could do. Not that this would happen because of company control, but you could easily do ThunderCats and the Avengers. ThunderCats and the X Men. He man and the X Men. He man and the Avengers.

Like any of these things, the team aspect helps. And I was always confused, surprised that you had this other classic team of GI. Joe and Transformers because Transformers always seems hard to pigeonhole fit into something else. It's like the Avengers and then also giant robots that also become semi trucks. That doesn't seem to be something you can put together as well as, oh, the Avengers and an Avengers like team that happen to kind of look like cats. That seems to be something that can work much better together. They are basically just superheroes that kind of look like cats, but they don't even really have cat. It's not like they suddenly start purring and wanting milk.

Chitara is the only one who like her powers have to do with a cheetah, but she's really it. Otherwise they all just have weapons.

And, uh, Tigro can make illusions. But that's also something I don't think nothing cat related.

I know I'm 100% here for cat Avengers multiverse.

Crossover. Yeah. And I, uh, hope we keep seeing this. I don't know. It does feel like there have been fewer. I wonder if in this era of massive content saturation, if IP, people are getting so much more protective.

I think that's it IP that is called intellectual property for a reason. I think people used to be fast and loose with it and they really wanted to tell more stories, but not to rip on capitalism. But everybody's out to make a buck now and they're afraid that somebody's going to kind of ruin their IP. So they're very protective and it's costly. It's, uh, just cheaper to make your own. That way you have it for the rest of your life. And like we were talking about, just take it and amalgamate it a little bit, change it a little bit. And then you have your own IP and you ain't got to worry about it anymore.

Yeah. And both of these things, as we've seen, have struggled in development hell in terms of becoming a movie. So they're both in that same way. And I think both for similar reasons because both of them, as much as I love the live action masters of the universe film, there's something about it that just does lend itself to drawing. Are you ever going to get an actor that looks as buff as He Man? No, probably not. Uh, do you want to see, like, the cat's musical movie? Someone who really looks like Lionel on film? Uh, maybe not.

Well, I think that about does it. Dear Watchers, thank you for listening. And special thank you to Mike. Can you direct our listeners on how they can find you, support multiverse of madness, and listen?

Well, first off, thank you for having me on. This is always a great time. Like I said, I love the live of action sounds, and it really is. This is an immersive show to be on. It's as exciting to be on as it is to listen to. I'm just pleased this punch to be here. But as far as where you can reach us again, multiverse of Badness. We're a podcast. You can find us in most podcast places. I'm not going to worry out with that. You can reach us on social media, on Mastodon, in the Fediverse, at Multiverse, uh, of Badness, at Toot Whales. Just look for the hashtag comics. And I'm out there posting almost every day. It's a fun little community. Hopefully, I can talk these guys into joining and shelving some other social, uh, media platforms that we all love to hate. But yeah, um, that's where you reach me. Uh, also, just send me an email. Anything in Multiverseabadness.com, you can send it to, um, mummatur skelara@multiversabad.com skeletor drankmumrason.com the delicious corpse of a mummy@multiverseobadness.com.

Well, thank you again for joining and suggesting I have been Gito.

And I have been Rob Snarf.

Our reading list is in the show notes. You can follow us at dear.

Watchers. Leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.

And in the meantime, in the words of Uachu, keep pondering the possibilities.

Oh.