Written by Adam McCombs
It’s poetic that the Masters of the Universe movie is coming out on June 5, the birthday of He-Man and Skeletor creator Mark Taylor, who passed away in 2021. Without Mark there would be no Masters of the Universe. Before you see the movie, you should get to know the man most responsible for the world of He-Man: T. Mark Taylor.
Mark was born on June 5, 1941. As a child he had a passion for fantasy and science fiction in both comics and novels. He was influenced by Tarzan, Prince Valiant, Mark Twain, John Carter of Mars and Conan the Barbarian. He read and drew compulsively and created his own sword and sorcery fantasy character as a child, called Torak, Hero of Prehistory.
In the mid-1970s Mark and his wife Rebecca Salari Taylor were hired as contractors for Mattel to do packaging artwork for Barbie. Later Mark was hired on as a permanent employee, working on packaging design and illustration. He was still primarily a packaging designer when he was tasked with creating the new Masters of the Universe line, which had been sparked by none other than his Torak character!
In the upcoming Masters of the Universe movie, there is a scene in a comic book store that makes reference to Torak, as a statue that Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) encounters.. The statue of Torak is actually holding Adam’s Power Sword! It seems the creative team behind the movie did their homework.
The genesis of He-Man happened like this. Mark had one of his drawings of Torak up on his cubicle wall when two preliminary designers, Roger Sweet and Derek Gable noticed it and asked if they could take it to present it as a proposed theme for a line of boys toys. Mark’s boss insisted on Mark’s involvement in the pitch so that he would get credit for the idea. So Mark was tasked designing a barbarian figure in support of the product pitch, using Torak as a jumping off point. This would have been around the summer of 1980. The team had to be ready in time for a product conference in December of that same year. Mattel was of course looking for its own boys toy line IP because it had famously passed on producing toys for Star Wars, and their competing boys action figure lines (Clash of the Titans, Flash Gordon) had struggled to compete.
Meanwhile, Roger Sweet was busy thinking up attributes for the new toyline, such as a power punch waist and a crouching stance, and of course the name He-Man. Roger’s other contribution to the pitch to management was to mock up three rough prototypes, made by packing clay muscles over a Big Jim figure. Roger used the prototypes to represent three different action figure themes. The first was a Barbarian He-Man concept, based on the designs Mark had done over the summer and fall of 1980. Roger had the idea to also include a military and a space themed version of the character, so he kitbashed together two alternative versions of He-Man using parts from a 12 inch Boba Fett figure and a model tank kit. The prototypes were shown along with Mark’s concept art at the Mattel product conference at the end of 1980. Both Mark and Roger were named as creators in the presentation at the conference, although of course Mark had created the Barbarian version of He-Man, while Roger had created the military and sci fi versions.
Mattel’s CEO Ray Wagner chose Mark Taylor’s Barbarian He-Man to move forward into further development. No doubt because it was Mark’s design that won out, Mark was then put in charge of designing the entire toyline, while Roger was officially taken off the project. Mark worked late nights in the first months of 1981, sometimes staying in his office until morning. Not only had he taken on the work of designing the figures, the playset, and the vehicles, he was also the art director for the packaging for the large items for the line.
Mark soon realized he needed help, so he brought Ted Mayer on board to do the vehicles. Ted had an engineering background and so was an ideal choice. Masters of the Universe (originally called Lords of Power, before the name was changed to avoid religions connotations) was an unknown line that was deemed risky, and Mark had comparatively little interference in the direction he chose to go with the toys. Most of the limitations he faced had to to with meeting a price point.
Since He-Man had come out of Mark’s personal character Torak, he reached back into his pre-Mattel material for Skeletor as well. In the early 70s Mark had created a character called King of Styx for a story he had written in college, which he had also illustrated. The character was partially inspired by seeing an actual mummified corpse at an amusement park that was used as a prop for a scare ride. Mark developed the design further and came up with Skeletor:
Mark designed all of the figures in the first year of the line: He-Man, Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Beast Man, Mer-Man, Teela, Stratos and Zodac. He created the color scheme and accessories for Battle Cat (using the Big Jim Tiger mold) and designed and sculpted Castle Grayskull. Veteran Mattel sculptor Tony Guerrero turned Mark’s figure drawings into 3D works of art in wax clay. Mattel designer Ted Mayer created the vehicles and Mark’s wife Rebecca did decals for the Battle Ram as well as for Castle Grayskull.
Mark Taylor’s Concept Designs:
The first year of Masters of the Universe was a surprise success. It officially launched in May of 1982, and even getting a late start and missing almost half a year of sales it made $38 million, with no cartoon or movie, and only commercials and a short series of DC Comics to support it. However, when it came time to design the second wave of figures, Mark found that the success had brought more outside interference into the line, and he faced increasing pressure to design toys around pre-determined gimmicks. Those gimmicks included Ram Man’s spring-loaded legs and Man-E-Faces’ face changing feature. Dissatisfied with the way things were going, Mark left Mattel. After Mark left, Roger Sweet returned to Masters of the Universe and was put in charge of design for the line, with a team of designers, including Ted Mayer, working under him.
Mark eventually wound up at Playmates where he designed the toys for the launch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Soon after that he came back to Mattel as a Vice President within the boys department, where he had oversight of Hot Wheels and the “New Adventures” He-Man relaunch. Mark also worked on Street Sharks, Starship Troopers, Micro Machines, Men in Black, King Kong and more.After retiring from the toy business, both Mark and his wife Rebecca taught as senior lecturers with Otis College of Art and Design, in the Toy Design department.
Sadly Mark passed away December 23, 2021. Mark was a visionary who touched all of our lives, directly or indirectly. Thank you to Mark for making all of our childhoods more magical and for sparking our imaginations. I know of a number of people who are now great professional artists and designers in their own right, inspired by Mark’s indelible work.
So now that you know where Masters of the Universe came from, I hope you’ll enjoy the Masters of the Universe movie with perhaps a greater appreciation for the history behind the creation of these characters.
