Written by Adam McCombs with additional commentary by Jukka Issakainen
One of the most persistent areas of contention about the history of Masters of the Universe (particularly in online discussion) is what connection He-Man has, if any, to Conan the Barbarian. In this article I will explore the historical connections and separate fact from speculation or outright fiction.
I got into the Masters of the Universe fandom as an adult in December of 2012. While I frequently read through old articles and discussion threads on places like He-Man.org, I was not there when many of them first came out. Jukka Issakainen, who was involved in the fandom since the 1990s, recalls what the atmosphere was like in the early days:
“The information on He-Man and Conan connection was more… hazy back in the older times if you were a fan stepping online for the first time as early as 2001 or 1999 and looked up any web-pages dedicated to He-Man. Looking back now, we as a fandom have been able to uncover a ton of information and history about the concepts for figures, evolving character designs on cartoon series and more. But back then the information was sparse, and the few websites that were out there had the potential to share faulty information. Certain sites perpetuated the idea that ‘the toy mega manufacturer Mattel reportedly was working on a line of “Conan the Barbarian” action figures. Somewhere along the line, however, somebody in the Marketing department must have decided that an uncivilized pagan sword-wielding barbarian might not be the ideal role model for children, and so the toy line was converted into the “Masters of the Universe” series of toys.’
“The other, similar myths spread online talked about how Mattel made a deal to produce Conan toy line and had gotten as far as making the first couple figures, when the film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was released May 14th, 1982 in North America and the Mattel people went to see the film, only to be shocked how much blood, violence and sex was in the film. So as a result, they quickly “changed the hair color from brown to blonde and called it Masters of the Universe”. And these types statements can be met even now in 2024 online.”
Jukka Issakainen
To really understand why those fan theories are not correct, we first need to understand the relevant timeline. Below is a section from my MOTU Timeline research, based on dates from concept art, Mattel documents, and the CPI vs Mattel court case filings. This research was published in the Dark Horse book, The Toys of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. However, I’ve added more items since the book was published as I’ve continued to document more dates from additional sources. The He-Man related items are in blue, the Conan related items are in red. Update: an additional piece of Conan-related artwork by Mark Taylor has surfaced, which is dated to 1980. This predates Mattel actually negotiating or getting the license for Conan. I’m not sure why Mark was working on it so early, except perhaps someone in Marketing wanted to explore the idea first before going to CPI.
He-Man and Conan Timeline
- 1971: “The King of Styx” (precursor to Skeletor) concept, by Mark Taylor
- 1979: First Castle Grayskull sketch, by Mark Taylor
- 1979: Torak (precursor to He-Man) sketch, by Mark Taylor
- 08/15/1979: Category Management Teams memo
- 05/22/1980: Fantasy Make Believe idea disclosure form
- 06/11/1980: Male Action Figure attributes list
- 09/08/1980: Figure Attributes list
- 09/21/1980: Space/Monster/Fantasy Figures budgeted hours form
- 11/03/1980: Megaton Man project request form
- 11/??/1980: Work started on “He-Man trio”, Roger Sweet; Barbarian He-Man based on illustration by Mark Taylor (late November)
- 12/??/1980: He-Man trio presented at Mattel Product Conference (mid-December)
- 12/30/1980: He-Man Characters & Accessories idea disclosure form
- ??/??/1980: Early Conan-related design by Mark Taylor, pre-CPI agreement
- 1981: Bird Man (Stratos) concept, by Mark Taylor
- 1981: Mer-Man concept, by Mark Taylor
- 1981: Castle Grayskull concept, by Mark Taylor
- 1981: Battle Cat concept, by Mark Taylor
- 1981: Sensor (Zodac) concept, by Mark Taylor
- 1981: Battle Tester/Combat Trainer concept, by Mark Taylor
- 1981: Heroic Figure (He-Man) concept, by Mark Taylor (early 1981)
- 1981: Heroic Figure (He-Man) battles plant monster concept, by Mark Taylor (early 1981)
- 01/06/1981: He-Man Vehicles and Accessories idea disclosure form (modular vehicles)
- 01/23/1981: Drawing by Colin Bailey depicting Mark Taylor working on He-Man project
- 03/30/1981: De-Man (Skeletor) concept, by Mark Taylor
- 04/01/1981: Man-At-Arms concept, by Mark Taylor
- 04/02/1981: Tree Man (Beast Man) concept, by Mark Taylor
- 04/06/1981: He-Man (tan boots) concept, by Mark Taylor
- 04/07/1981: Battle Ram (tank treads version) concept, by Ted Mayer
- 04/24/1981: Memorandum urging negotiation for Conan license
- 04/27/1981: Revised Battle Ram concept art drawings, by Ted Mayer
- 05/03/1981: He-Man (red/yellow boots) concept, by Mark Taylor
- 05/05/1981: CPI (Conan Properties International) draft licensing agreement sent
- 05/20/1981: Skull Castle (Castle Grayskull) Weapons Rack & Weapons by Mark Taylor
- 05/28/1981: Female Warrior (Teela) concept, by Mark Taylor
- 05/28/1981: Battle Ram control drawing, by Ted Mayer
- 06/03/1981: Sorceress concept, by Mark Taylor
- 06/05/1981: Battle Chariot concept, by Ted Mayer
- 07/??/1981: He-Man designed by this month, per CPI vs Mattel lawsuit
- 07/09/1981: Draft Skeletor toy head design document
- 07/14/1981: Memorandum discussing Mattel’s presentation of He-Man to Toys ‘R’ Us
- 07/23/1981: Tony Guerrero worked on Conan toys from this date until Sept 11, 1981
- 07/31/1981: CPI and Mattel entered license agreement to manufacture toys based on Conan movie
- 09/16/1981: Mer-Man sword design concept, by Mark Taylor
- 09/30/1981: “Proprietary Line Concepts” document (Megaton Man, Kid Gallant, Robin & The Space Hoods, Monster Fantasy/He-Man)
- 12/08/1981: Filmation animated commercial retakes shot
- 1982: Gargo/Gargoyle dragon concept, by Mark Taylor
- 1982: Ram Man concept, by Mark Taylor
- 1982: Man-E-Faces concept, by Mark Taylor
- 01/??/1982: Mattel requests termination of Conan license agreement
- 02/17/1982: Mattel introduces new “Masters of the Universe” toy line at Toy Fair
- 03/01/1982: Rebate offer date in first mini comic (earliest purchase date)
- 03/04/1982: Attak Trak control drawing, by Ted Mayer
- 03/23/1982: Attak Trak concept, by Ted Mayer
- 04/08/1982: DC Comics: From Eternia With Death! street date. Cover date: July 1982
- 05/??/1982: Masters of the Universe toyline released this month, per Mattel EVP Joe Morrison
- 05/13/1982: Earliest known newspaper ad for MOTU
- 05/13/1982: First Skeletor newspaper ad
- 05/13/1982: First Man-At-Arms newspaper ad
- 05/13/1982: First He-Man newspaper ad
- 05/13/1982: First Beast Man newspaper ad
- 05/21/1982: Trap Jaw concept, by Colin Bailey
- 06/03/1982: First Battle Ram newspaper ad
- 06/03/1982: First Battle Cat newspaper ad
- 06/03/1982: First Castle Grayskull newspaper ad (“Castle Grey Skull”)
- 06/03/1982: First Stratos newspaper ad (pictured, not named)
- 06/03/1982: First Zodac newspaper ad (pictured, not named)
- 06/09/1982: First Teela newspaper ad
- 06/18/1982: First Stratos newspaper ad (mentioned by name)
- 07/05/2022: CPI and Mattel entered into a termination agreement
As you can see from the above timeline, Mattel and Mark Taylor seem to have been developing He-Man before they began work on the Conan toy line. Conan was of course created in the 1930s by Robert E. Howard, first published as a series of stories in the Weird Tales magazine. Conan would not see an official comic adaptation until 1970, in the Marvel Conan the Barbarian series. A decade later, Mattel sought out the Conan license in 1981 based on the fact that Universal Pictures was working on the Conan the Barbarian film, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Given the explicit nature of the film, it was decided to not go through with the toy line after all.
He-Man has his roots in Mark Taylor’s childhood. Inspired by Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars and Tarzan, Mark started drawing a heroic warrior character from the age of 11, which would have been sometime around 1952.
“When I was inside at Mattel… I was so bored because it was so slow. I started… taking some of the stuff I had started when I was 11 years old and just drawing it for fun because they had all the supplies I needed. And so I started going back to drawing this character I had drawn… Torak.”
Mark Taylor, interviewed by Matt Jozwiak, 2006
Later, when Mattel was looking to create a new boys action figure line to compete with Star Wars, Mark’s Torak character was used as a jumping-off point for the creation of He-Man. After it was presented to management by both Mark Taylor and Roger Sweet, Mark was tasked with designing the initial 1982 series of toys.
The Mattel Conan Line
While Mark was busy working on the He-Man line, Marketing decided to reach out to CPI (Conan Properties International) about making a line of Conan toys based on the upcoming movie. If Mattel had gone forward with the Conan license, what would the toys have looked like? Well, they would have looked nothing like the hyper-muscled 5.5″ He-Man figures. Instead, Mattel was planning to reuse their Big Jim figures for the Conan line, but with new heads, outfits and accessories. How do we know that was the plan? That was the finding in the CPI vs Mattel lawsuit. In 1984, CPI unsuccessfully sued Mattel because they believed He-Man to be too similar to their Conan character. From the lawsuit:
“CPI and Mattel consummated their deal on July 31. In the meantime, Mattel’s employees had continued work on a Conan doll. Mattel’s marketing department decided early in June that Mattel should attach the Conan heads to the torsos of Mattel’s “Big Jim,” a doll with less exaggerated muscles, and a body closer to that of the average weightlifter (though not, apparently, to that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, see Affidavit of Mimi Shapiro ¶¶ 7-9 (May 19, 1988)). Memorandum from Joe Morrison to Mark Ellis (June 3, 1981). Guerrero then worked on the Conan doll from July 23, 1981, to September 21.” Conan Properties, Inc. v. Mattel, Inc., 712 F. Supp. 353 | Casetext Search + Citator
Incidentally, He-Man’s body was influenced by Schwarzenegger’s build, but the directive was to sculpt a figure that would “make Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a wimp.” Years later Roger Sweet reiterated that the plan for Conan was to reuse Big Jim as the basic building block of the figures:
“I’ll tell you there’s another factor in relation to Conan. When Mattel got the Conan property they were going to take a Big Jim figure and put Arnold Schwarzenegger’s head on it and dress it in plastic armor reminiscent of Conan, and so that would have been Mattel’s idea of a incredibly strong figure.”
Roger Sweet, Masters of the Universe Chronicles, July 2010
Mark Taylor thought the idea to do a Conan line was foolish. He said:
“We didn’t want to get into a lawsuit with Conan, which of course we did anyway because some marketing guy screwed up and went to the Conan people and offered to do their their toy line after we’d already started He-Man. It was a big flap…
“I’d read the Conan, of course, but I was no more influenced by him than I was Mark Twain or Hal Foster or any of the people that have written these kind of adventure stories. Conan was just another one that I read. And I read John Carter of Mars too. I was probably at least influenced by that Burroughs story as I was any other one.”
Mark Taylor, 2006 interview with Matt Jozwiak
Having said that, the same two key figures designing and sculpting the He-Man line (Mark Taylor designing, Tony Guerrero sculpting) also worked on the ill-fated Conan line. My understanding for the last five or six years has been that the drawing by Mark Taylor below, commonly called “Vikor” by fans, was actually Mark’s design for the Mattel Conan line. It has so many hallmarks of Conan, and very few hallmarks of any of the various concept versions of He-Man. As I recall, a Facebook post on this topic by preeminent MOTU historian Emiliano Santalucia years ago is what first made me reconsider who this character was really supposed to be.
The So-Called “Wonder Bread” He-Man
Earlier Jukka alluded to fan theory about “Savage He-Man” or “Special Edition He-Man.” (Side note: this figure is often called by the misnomer “Wonder Bread He-Man,” based on a debunked theory that the figure was a giveaway through a Wonder Bread promotion.) The theory goes that the figure’s brown hair indicated that it was really supposed to be a Conan figure, but it was repainted after Mattel decided to drop Conan. Supposedly Mattel then quickly created the He-Man character, changed the paint colors, and et voilà, He-Man was born. We know from the timeline and the information about the Big Jim reuse that this theory can’t be true.
There’s another reason why this theory isn’t true. The physical characteristics of “Savage He-Man” are more consistent with the late 1982 Taiwan He-Man figures (and to some early Prince Adam figures), and not consistent at all with the very first Taiwan He-Man figures from Spring 1982, which had a few idiosyncratic artifacts. They were idiosyncratic because the factory was still getting up to speed on Mattel’s specifications for their MOTU line. The artifacts of the very first “Test Market” He-Man figures include an irregularly painted boot top using a paint mask, and a very irregularly molded belly button. Savage He-Man has the straight line of paint on his boots from the updated paint dipping process, and a corrected belly button, which are hallmarks of He-Man figures released in late 1982/early 1983. And indeed we know from internal Mattel correspondence and newspaper ads that this figure was promoted in the Spring of 1983 and shipped by Summer 1983.
A related theory goes that Mattel lost the court case with CPI, and so had to dump their leftover “Conan” figures. That’s obviously not true either. In addition to the facts already discussed, Mattel won the case, and the lawsuit was in 1984 – the Special Edition/Savage He-Man came out in 1983.
Influence from Frazetta, Conan and others
Despite everything written above about the distance between Mattel’s efforts on Conan and their efforts on He-Man, Conan was definitely one influence on the He-Man toy. In fact, some of the early documents related to the creation of the line specifically call out that influence!
And indeed, once Mark’s Torak drawing was developed into a new action figure called He-Man, elements frequently painted by Frazetta were brought in, including the horned helmet, which appears in early He-Man concept art and in the first Tony Guerrero He-Man prototype:
When I recently addressed the semi-popular fan theory that Masters of the Universe was a kind of revamped Jack Kirby line, I reached out to Ted Mayer (designer of the Battle Ram and Wind Raider who worked on MOTU from the beginning) to ask if anyone had been talking about Kirby when creating He-Man. Ted said that Jack Kirby wasn’t mentioned, but that everyone was talking about Frank Frazetta. Frazetta of course painted Conan and similar adventurers with a dynamic and dramatic style.
“I never heard anyone mention the comic series while we were working on He-Man. The only subject that came up was Frank Frazetta, but that was only in the background, his books were out and every designer was looking at them. All this of course was in the visual design area, I cannot speculate if marketing was looking at this, but I doubt it!”
Ted Mayer
In fact, the Frazetta influenced wasn’t just on He-Man – it was also on the packaging art. Mark Taylor specifically hired Rudy Obrero for his ability to produce Frazetta-style box art:
Then soon after I got a call from Mark Taylor to do some “Frazetti” (his words) type of packaging. It was like, let’s not totally do Frazetta, but sorta like maybe “Frazetti”. That’s how it began. To be clear, I love Mr. Frazetta’s work. If you look at my body of work you will notice that the only time I went “Frazetti” is on the MOTU stuff. And because it was a fitting style for it.
Rudy Obrero
So, to sum up:
- He-Man did not start out as a Conan line
- Mattel started developing He-Man well prior to thinking about doing a Conan line
- The Mattel Conan figure, if it had been made, would have been much taller and lankier than He-Man figures
- So-called “Wonder Bread He-Man” has no connection to any Conan line
- He-Man was definitely influenced by Conan, especially as interpreted by Frazetta
- He-Man and Masters of the Universe were also influenced by Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, John Carter and other properties
- There was a deliberate effort make the box art resemble the style of Frank Frazetta
Hopefully this has been helpful! I’ve gotten a lot of comments about this topic whenever I bring it up online and several people have requested I cover it in an in-depth article. Please feel free to ask any questions you have in the comments!
Post script: Jukka has some fun Conan/Frazetta related trivia below:
2002 Masters of the Universe comic Trivia by Jukka Issakainen
When the good folks over at MVCreations were working on the Masters of the Universe comic, Val Staples put in a lot of effort to acquire many talented artists, and “invest the money” to do the variant covers for He-Man [check out the cover collection in this post]. Among them included Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell, Drew Struzan, Frank Quitely, J. Scott Campbell and many others.
One artist that fans would have loved to have seen, was naturally Frank Frazetta. Accordingly Val Staples did reach out and managed to speak with Frank’s son about doing a cover illustration. It was mentioned in the Roast Gooble Dinner-podcast episode #74:
“I talked with Frank’s son about it, and he talked to his dad about it and Frank Frazetta was interested. But the problem was that at that point… his health was not in that great condition. He just, he couldn’t commit because it was just too much of a project, and I almost made it happen.”
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