Written by It’s new comic book day!
And today, in the depths of Castle Grayskull, the taut confrontation between the Sorceress and Zodac over her champion’s worthiness (with the multiverse as their evidence) reaches its tense conclusion!
With three variant covers to choose from, Issue #4 of this four issue anthology series (written by Tim Seeley with art by Eddie Nunez, Daniel Lopez, and Fico Ossio) features two multiverse tales: The first story features the heroic warriors from the Netflix CG animated series “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” as they confront their own doppelgangers and figure out the things they dislike most about each other to win… in Unfakeable.
Then in The Megabeast Matrix, the legendary He-Force has returned to confront a threat to the entire multiverse!
So what are you waiting for? You can pick up “Masterverse” Issue #4 at comic book and digital retailers everywhere, today!
We’ll see you next time!
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Just finished the last issue, AJ and pals! 😊
Much like the other three issues, this one was quite a mixed bag. I’ll begin by sharing with y’all the things I liked
[Spoilers Imminent!]
“Un-Fakable"
I really enjoyed seeing Tim Seeley’s take on the CGI-verse. Characters were all very much en pointe, Krass was brass, sis did NOT go easy on Fakor Duncan OR real Duncan (srsly, she didn’t have do our boy like that with those comments she made about his figure! 🤣) Dorky Duncan was quick with a quip as well as his mace. He-Man was in equal parts gung-ho and kind-hearted (what he did for his dad made me melt 🥰 so cute!) Teela was the stern, steadfast and soft-hearted sorcereress and thanks to Teela, the Masters were able to see through the Fakors guise, given Trap-Jaw and Evil-Lyn their only appearances in this issue too!
But it was Ork-0 The Great who turned the tide of the struggle, (“RANDOR_ROCKS" 😜) and brought the Fakors down!
Daniel Lopez expertly brings the 3D world House of Cool’s Eternia to the page with lush, airbrushed coloring and a dynamic fight sequence worthy of the screen. I adore “Un-Fakable’s" humorous bookends, The Sorceress and Zodak are watching alternative versions of the Masters through a portal…..who themselves are ALSO watching alternative versions of the Masters through a portal. Brilliant! 🤣
If I have one criticism of this otherwise fully satisfactory tale, it would be that Cringer simply wasn’t used enough. I really do like CG-Man’s Battle-Cat and I would have loved to see more dialogue given to him, but at least I still have Scholastic’s sweet Legends of Grayskull graphic novel for my Cringer fix. 💚🖤💚
okay, and now on to the things I didn’t like so much with this issue.
“The Megabeast Matrix"
I’m sorry but I didn’t really like this story. Fico Ossio makes the saving throw (and scores!) with gorgeously realized art, that astonishing double page splash gives us a moment to drink in that delicious establishing shot. His attention to detail on full display in that epic shot of Eternal Castle Grayskull and the tens of warriors at battle, I saw no two poses exactly the same. (Oh and wasnt that such a cool looking 1987 movie Skeletor that He-Sol fought at the beginning of the story? 😍) Fico has the power! I would be so game to see him return for a future MOTU book.
As for the storyline of “Megabeast Matrix", God love Tim, I CAN tell that he tried here, it was certainly an ambitious story but I couldn’t help but get the feeling that he was burned out by this stage.
“Megabeast Matrix" feels a little too stuffed. Sure, it’s ambitious but it’s overwrought. It’s clear that good ol Tim was still bursting with ideas but had only one story left to let us see them. I mean, “Megabeast Matrix" actually involves characters jumping between universes. That concept tells of Tim’s want to continue this anthology series. We begin with He-Sol socking an aforementioned cool movie Skeletor before leaving Canon film’s Teela and Duncan to deal with him as He-Sol vanishes into another Eternia.
In this Eternia, He-Sol joins up with King He-Man’s noble alliance, the He-Force and we spend only JUST enough time with them to know that He-Ra is the group’s resident girlboss as she so bluntly answers He-Sol’s question with a feisty one-liner before calling for a tussle. The rest of the members sadly don’t get fleshed out as individual characters, most of them go unnamed in this story.
He-Sol and co (with King He-Man in tow) bondly flee through the interdimensonal superhighway to a third Eternia, just so that the rest of the plot can happen through Cringer’s exposition. He explains that Modulok, in his quest for supremacy, has left a trial of destruction and decay across the mutiverse. We see a pocessed Hordak get the jump on He-Sol but that ultimately goes nowhere. Again, pocessed Hordak is a legit cool idea that would have made a swell antagonist in his own story….almost like a “HAVOK Hordak" if you will.
Apart from Tim’s usual cool ideas that he hasn’t the page count to fully utilize. “Megabeast Matrix" also suffers from the biggest prat fall we were hoping to see ironed out by the finale – that is the big set up with little payoff. Modulok has become so powerful by this point, yet a quick broadsword backhand compliments of Cringer was enough to take him out? At least, King He-Man should’ve been the one to do it. I mean, that WAS the whole point of this 4-parter, for Zodak to see how each He-Man saves the day. Just imagine King He-Man, now fully charged up with all the power of Grayskull, defeating Modulok live in front of Zodak, not from behind a multiversal screen. I think that would have been a cool way to end the series.
But we couldn’t have that so that He-Sol and Cringer could have their buddy-cop moment, complete with an exchange of cheesy quips at Modulok’s expense.
I just finished reading this issue. I think Masterverse finished well. The artwork for the first story was spot on. It felt like an extension of the cgi show yet Krass talking about how hot her butt looked felt out of place.The second story was just as good maybe better but more complex. I was confused at first but a re-read helped. Both stories still would be better if they were each a full issue long but this was a good ending. 9/10
@he-dad I’m right there with you on the second story, Sir. It comforts me to know that I wasn’t the only one who had to read over it twice. 😅
“Megabeast Matrix’s" angle of an interdimensonal fighting force, I felt, was Tim’s attempt at tieing The Sorceress and Zodak in with the stories they were watching. Throughout the miniseries, Zodak and The Sorceress are simply sat there as spectators, channel-surfing through the Multiverse. “Megabeast Matrix" was the first time we saw anybody stepping out from the Nexus of Realites and interacting with Zodak and The Sorceress. Modulok declared to personally bring about the end of all realites (until he stopped, that was)
Then we had Zodak realizing that as he spent the afternoon in Castle Grayskull, he had no idea that a whole multi-dimensional war was going on!
I think this was Tim’s attempt to make the framing story a part of the action, instead of the framing story just being two old friends catching up for some tube. lol
In theory, this is a really cool twist to cap off the miniseries. It’s a cool idea but it could have been better executed by having Modulok lurking in the background of the issue 1 stories, like a shadow. He would take a slightly bigger role in issue 2, what if Modulok was the Guardian of Naga-Wani, the seabeast that attacked Captain Duncan’s vessel in the first story? We know that Modulok can change his form. What if Modulok was responsible for creating those (frankly contrived) mysterious, randomly magical trapdoors in the second story of issue 2. He IS a technological wiz, after all. What if the first Teela story in issue 3 actually HAD a proper ending, what if we actually got to see what happened when Teela, He-Man and Shaman Beast-Man followed the black gunk, discovering that Modulok was actually behind the ambiguous apocalypse that claimed THIS version of Eternia. It’s here that Modulok would reveal his quest for power and knowledge (basically what Cringer told He-Sol in the final issue, but here Modulok himself is the one telling his own backstory) PLUS it would be cool to see what an Eternia conquered by Modulok would look like. Then in the 2nd story of Issue 3 (the drunken D&D party story) replace Skeletor with Modulok here and have He-Man defeat him (but NOT kill him, have him flee to the next universe) this to show the readers that Modulok CAN be defeated and what it takes for a hero to do so. I LOVE the Fakors story in issue 4 (it’s possibly my personal favourite story in this whole miniseries) but I would replace the team of Fakors with Modulok to fight, just imagine Modulok in the artstyle of the CGI series? It’d be such a treat seeing is how we didn’t get him in the show itself. Modulok has been known to split his being info separate bodies, essentially cloning himself. So instead of the Masters fighting their Fakor counterparts, they fight a gaggle of Moduloks instead.
The final story of Issue 4, I would leave this one largely unchanged as I think this story would work quite well IF, like I said, Modulok was intended to be the main villian from the very start. Just take out the part where Cringer explains to He-Sol Modulok’s plan because (in my version) Modulok already did that himself in Issue 3. With the few extra panels you’d now have, you can cut to that final scene in Castle Grayskull in much less time and make it much bigger too! Have Modulok go hand-to-hand with Zodak, at this point in the story, Zodak has sat there and watched Modulok’s shenanigans across the multiverse and he’s had ENOUGH. So Zodak and Modulok fight, The Sorceress naturally comes to her old friend’s aide and we get a little scrap between Modulok and The Sorceress before King He-Man comes through the Nexus and clobbers Modulok, saving them both. I said in my earlier post how I thought that King He-Man should’ve been the one to beat Modulok and to do so live in front of Zodak, thus proving to him the worth of He-Man. Think about it, up until this point, Zodak’s spent the whole series watching He-Man save the day, now he’s seeing He-Man do it, live and in person.
@adoralovely I am so confused. 😿 Did King He-Man give Modulok the power to show mister evilness that it was too much for him? I think Moddy said He-Man gave it to me. Then what happened? Did he still have the power at the end? I am so confused 😭
@eternianbunny we’re confused together sis 👯🏽♀️ lol
But I will do my best to help you out 😊
Yes, the story did end when the whole squad surrender their powers unto King He-Man.
Now, for how exactly King He-Man USED this ability to defeat Moddy COULD have been made more clear, I felt, had Tim and Occio included another panel or two, showing readers exactly WHAT He-Man did to Moddy after super charging up!
We went from King He-Man explaining to the He-Force how going to Modulok with ALL the power of Grayskull would win them the day, next we see He-Man glowing at full power, then….
we just see a frightened Modulok clamouring out of the Nexus on his all sixes, proclaiming that he shall bring about the end to all worlds….and gets immediately yeeted out of the story, never to be seen again.
So yeah….what did King He-Man even do to Moddy anyway? There couldn’t have been a fight, as I recall, there wasn’t a scratch on Modulok. So there likely wasn’t an epic thrashing of any kind.
Did King He-Man just transfer his powers unto Modulok, like how the He-Force transferred THEIR powers unto He-Man. Probably not, as Moddy didn’t look any bigger or stronger (or brighter and shinier) than his usual self. Also, don’t worry Bunny, He-Man knows better than to really hand over all the power of Grayskull to a villian and let him run loose out into the Multiverse. So I don’t think He-Man gave Moddy his powers.
So if King He-Man and Modulok didn’t fight and if Modulok didn’t actually get He-Man’s power, then what actually went down? I guess he simply walked up to Moddy and give him a piece of his mind.
This is my fan theory.
I think He-Man just straight told him all the secrets of the Universe and it was a lot more knowledge than Modulok could take, a sorta “beware of unearned knowledge" situation for Modulok.
He-Man, being the one chosen by Grayskull in ALL universes, was essentially built to carry this knowledge, to pocess such power is He-Man’s birthright. Modulok has no such destiny, he was never meant to know the secrets of Grayskull/the universe. So when He-Man told him, it was all TOO much (“no man should have THAT much power!" he said)
Also, I think my theory fits into the last part of Zodak’s arc. Zodak wanted to fully understand the worth of He-Man in all worlds and the worth of He-Man is that he is the only one strong enough to be Guardian of Grayskull, that’s what all the different He-Men have in common. Besides being brave, kind and compassionate, of course.
So basically, He-Man told Modulok off, albeit in a fiercely epic way involving lighting strikes, shooting stars, thunder and tremors. He-Man’s plan was to scare Modulok into a more vulnerable state were he could be more easily apprehended by Cringer and He-Sol. (Although I STILL think it would’ve been a better ending had King He-Man himself been to one to Shrzak Moddy 💁🏽♀️ oh well lol)
That’s just my own personal theory anyway, after reading the story twice AND going over the last few pages of it again in order to help me answer your question as best I can. ♡♡
Just read. Was fine. I’m not into the CGI show but thought that first story was alright. The second one was enjoyable enough even if it did feature Seeley’s bootleggy looking squad (I like the diversity, not so much that they’re all just He-Man armours, and the always goofy looking ‘battle cat man’). They looked kinda neat rendered in the Revelation style when they visited that universe at the end too. Also was nice to see the ’87 Teela, Duncan and Skelly even if briefly. I’d forgotten He-Sol took over as the hero of that universe cos Dolph-Man got killed in Masters of the Multiverse.
I’m hoping for Revolution comic. I’ve reread the Revelation 4 issue comic in it’s collected form a lot since it came out in mid ’21 so I would like that. Again by Smith rather than Seeley if that ok.
I love this idea bro. Another prequel comic series would be amazing. I’d be ok if the artist changed but right keep them same writers!
So for me this was my favorite issue out of the four! I really enjoyed reading this comic. The art was spectacular and the story was fun and exciting.
Now I did experience a little confusion regarding which were the Fakers and which were our heroes in certain panels of the Unfakeable story and perhaps the Fakers could have been surrounded by a mild blue hue to help differentiate them, but I really enjoyed that story, especially Adam reassuring his father at the end.
The second story was just thrilling and I adore the idea of Modulok being the main villian in such a multiverse threatening event and infecting anyone he touches, except the artificial beings of course. I really smiled ear to ear reading this and was a superb way to conclude this miniseries!
I loved reading all of your posts @adoralovely and you truly are a treasure! And what you wrote above, is so brilliant. 👏 When I read the Modulok story I said to myself that this story deserved its own miniseries! 🙂. And the way you laid it all out would be a terrific way to do it. It would still be an anthology of sorts but cleverly read like a single narrative as well. Zodac and Sorceress can still start their debate in the beginning and resolve it at the end (once the Multiverse has been saved) but open up more real estate for the main stories in the middle. Just bravo!!!
So to me @eternianbunny, I saw the Megabeast and the Multi-Modulok as two separate entities.🙂 We were told that connecting all the Modulok brains in the multiverse was too much for him. He had to “offload" brain power so he started infecting other beings with his genes. That fixed Modulok’s problem apparently so he left to go learn the secrets of the universe and all those infected people became the Megabeast. Now we don’t know how He-Man defeated the Megabeast, but by – destroying, healing or whatever-ing it – with the full power of Grayskull, Modulok would learn through his connection to the Megabeast that the power is too big for him. The secrets of the universe is too big for him. At least that’s the way I read it. 🙂
@admin Awwwwww AJ 🥹 I can’t with all your sweetness and compliments 😭 I certainly feel like a treasure now, thank you sooo much 🥰
Issue 4’s thoroughly put me in the mood for more Modulok! I don’t know when next we will meet up with the “beast of a thousand bodies", but whenever it happens, I know for He-Man it will feel too soon! He could turn up in Revolution or perhaps as part of a future Masterverse wave. It might be a cool way of linking the toyline and comic together, maybe we could get Modulok as a Build-A-Figure! 😂
Also @admin and @eternianbunny I would just like to apologise to you guys for posting the same reply twice to Eternian Bunny’s question. I responded to her question but when i posted my response, I didn’t see my response on my computer screen (must have been my slow internet) so I wrote her another response, trying to recreate the first one from memory. An hour later, I return to this thread to find two posts of similar content 😅 so I just deleted the first one and kept up the revised one. I just wanted to explain myself and let you guys know I’m sorry. 🩷
@adoralovely No apologies necessary! 🙂
@admin 🫶🏽🩷🩷
@adoralovely You are sweet. 🐰
@eternianbunny 🙈 thankies! 🥰