Creator Interview: Scott "Toy Guru" Neitlich Discusses His Creation- The Mighty Spector!

As you may recall, I recently posted an editorial focused on my shifting feelings towards "The Mighty Spector". I received a lot of positive feedback on that posting- including some from Spector's creator, MOTUC Brand Manager Scott "Toy Guru" Neitlich. Scott contacted me to say that he really appreciated the writeup and offered to do a special interview for the site focusing on Spector (he even snapped a few pics of his sample to accompany this posting). So, without further ado, let's hear what Scott has to say about "The Mighty Spector"...



By now, most fans know that “The Mighty Spector” was a character created by you during your childhood… but can you tell us if he was created directly for the vintage Masters of the Universe Create-A-Character contest or was he floating around inside your mind before then? Was he always intended as a MOTU character in your eyes or was he first invented for play in some other franchise?

Spector was a character I created when I was very young and was made for nothing more than my imagination. Over the years he has been a bounty hunter, cyborg, space commander, and other roles. I even used him as a background character in another toy line I pitched to Mattel and when I was a writer in Hot Wheels (I used the name for a basic car and a Modifighter transforming robot). The only thing that has remained consistent is the visual look. Now that I am introducing him into MOTUC he received a revised origin that is actually a bit closer to his original one, that of a time traveling secret agent!

What came first in Spector’s design- The look or the name?

The name came first with the design second.

Was Spector always intended as a time-traveling hero, or did you have other scenarios in place for him?

He was a time traveler/teleporter first, but over the years he changed to many different roles such as a Space Captain (like Wedge Antilles) and a cartoony character (like Freakazoid) with loony toon like powers. For MOTUC I brought him back to his “roots”.



A real jack of all trades, eh? Speaking from personal experience, many of my childhood character creations were derived from other media influences. I remember creating a character called “Dogman” when I was a kid… which was strangely similar to Batman, with the exception of basing his crimefighting look on a, umm, dog. Did you have similar influences when you came up with Spector?

The “eyes” (it’s a mask like Spiderman) came from the ghosts in the opening of old Scooby Doo shows where two white ghosts with big half moon eyes fly at the camera. The yellow belt and chest harness was a swipe from Batman. As a time traveling secret agent, I wanted Spector to have a ton of gear in a utility belt and the idea was to give him as many “belts” as possible for the most amount of gear. That is why his belt expanded to a chest harness. More belt means more gadget storage! The purple suit is because purple is my favorite color and the spade symbol was a symbol I always felt was very mysterious. How we are working this symbol into the MOTU lore will be revealed in time. Keep in mind that symbols mean different things to different cultures, so in the MOTU world this is not a “playing card symbol” but rather the organization that Spector works for. (much as He-Man has an Iron Cross but he not a member of the German army from WW2!)

I often used “stand-in” figures for my personal creations during playtime as a child. Did you do something similar with Spector? If so, which figures “became” Spector for you?

When I used to play with Construx (a girder and bolt building toy system that Mattel actually still owns) it came with several astronaut/space men figures to pilot the vehicles you could build. The one with the gray suit and silver vac metal helmet was “Captain Spector” and the leader of the other astronauts. But I never had a MOTU figure for Spector.

After MOTU died off in the late 80’s, did the Spector idea carry on into other toylines or playtime scenarios for you?

Since The Mighty Spector was never attached to MOTU specifically, he was always being reinvented for whatever story or project I was working on. I would also use the name for other things such as “Spector Productions” or “Spector Enterprises” whenever I was working on a business plan/film projects or something like that as I grew older.

For a while when he was a cartoony character (like Freekazoid) he had a bit of a different look and his purple outfit was actually skin and the spade was not on a chest harness but was a necklace charm.

When I came to Mattel I used him in several pitches as a background character (i.e. part of a team or something like that, not the star of the pitch). And as I said earlier I used the name on a few Hot Wheels toys in my first gig.



Let's talk a little bit about the Marvel submission. There’s been a lot of talk online about how the character was “rejected” by Marvel. Can you set the record straight on exactly what the Marvel/ Spector story is?

Ha! Yeah, I can set this straight.

So basically, like almost every other 13 year old comic fan, I put together a drawing and a story pitch for Spector and sent it into Marvel thinking they would love the idea and give me a million dollars. I came up with a new backstory and basically swiped Deathlok’s origin (who was in the middle of a relaunch at the time).

A few months later I receive a letter from Marvel on awesome Spiderman stationary saying that Marvel “appreciates my enthusiasm” but (much like Mattel) they have a “no outside unsolicited material policy”. Which means they never even looked at my submission (much as I must do when fans send in MOTU concepts, drawings etc…) For legal reasons Mattel can’t even look at them. Marvel had/has the same policy. So it is not like Stan Lee sat around, looked at my idea and tossed it in the trash. Marvel as a policy does not look at any unsolicited idea to protect themselves legally (much as Mattel does). So Spector wasn’t rejected as much as never even reviewed due to Marvel’s legal policy. So honestly, I don’t think it is fair to call him a Marvel reject since he was never even considered due to the way I sent him in. (hey I was 13! Can you blame me!)

Fast forward a few years to when you first start working for Mattel. Is Spector on your mind? Are you looking for ways to insert him into any Mattel properties? I know I would be…

I never really knew what I wanted to do with him and never in a million years did I think he would become an action figure from Mattel let alone one on the MOTUC line! Like I said earlier, I did use him in a lot of pitches as a background character and used the name on Hot Wheels product, but I never set out with the goal of making him a figure. I honestly never expected that to happen. But hey, when the opportunity came around, I wasn’t going to say no!

The “Masters of the Universe Classics” line begins in 2008. In the back of your mind, are you thinking about Spector when this starts up?

Not in the least. I was just grateful to get King Grayskull. I honestly never thought we would get past that one figure. Boy was I wrong! The line is doing so well and with fan support will hopefully go for years!



Spector ends up working his way into MOTU Classics as the name of an Eternian Palace Guard (which also carries your visage). You of course had no way of knowing that the fully realized Spector figure would make it into the line in 2012 when this decision was made. Hindsight being 20/20, would you have not used the Spector name on the guard pack had you known “The Mighty Spector” was going to be made?

Yes, if I knew “The Mighty Spector” was going to be made I would have NEVER used the name for the guard. But it actually worked out well since being a loyal guard worked perfect for the origin I wanted to give him. His ‘loyalty’ as a guard made him a good choice to become a Time Agent later in life. I used the name on the guard as a little joke (at the time) assuming this was my one “stamp” on the line. And since Mattel already owned the name (from the Hot Wheels toy) it didn’t cost anything. If I had known I would be doing The Mighty Spector one day I would have named the guard something totally different.

How did the 30th Anniversary line come about? Was it an upper management idea to expand the line by introducing new characters?

The 30th Anniversary line was my idea rooted in the concept of 1: finding celebrity designers to make new figures and bring PR to the line, 2: to celebrate current Mattel talent and 3: to recreate the feeling we all had as kids on finding new characters first as toys. That just doesn’t happen much anymore and there is such a cool thing about discovering new figures for the first time in the toy aisle (well okay, we sell these online now, but you know what I mean) vs. characters based on movie or animation first (like Carnivus or Faceless One who are new toys but introduced first in animation). So yes, the idea behind the line was to move the brand forward introducing new characters and new storylines for the 30th anniversary. Not to just keep pumping out updates of older figures which is what we had been doing up to this point. That is what made these 6 figures “different” from everything else we did at this point.

Many fans take issue with line being called the “30th Anniversary” when it doesn’t harken back to old characters or involve designers from MOTU’s past. Can you tell us why the line is called the “30th Anniversary”?

For the reasons stated above. When we were kids, many of us discovered new MOTU characters first and foremost when we went to the toy store and saw them on pegs. All of the figures released thus far in MOTUC already existed in some medium, be it as a vintage toy, in animation or even as concept sketches. But they did exist somewhere. The idea for the 30th line was to move the brand forward and for the first time since 1990 (with NA) introduce new characters first as toys. This was a big part of the emotional connection to MOTU. After all, it was a toy line first and foremost. And we wanted to recreate that emotional experience. No other current toy line is really doing this.

While I have heard some fans wanting figures that pay more homage to the history of the brand, all I can say is, the year isn’t over yet! We have big plans for this too…

Can you tell us how Spector ended up becoming a part of this line?

So originally the idea was one slot would go to Photog (to complete the promise made to fans and to Nathan back in 1987) and one slot would be for the new fan contest winner. That left 4 slots in the middle for all new characters. Management wanted to use this “sub” line to get both celebrity creators (Geoff was the only one willing to do it for “free”) and to celebrate current Mattel employees and recognize their contribution to the brand (much as we do for Hot Wheels with the “Larry Wood” line etc…). Giving a slot to the Horsemen was a no brainer and Terry was the obvious choice for a Mattel designer to submit a slot. When additional celebrity designers could not be found (who would create a figure and lets us use their name for free on package and for PR!) another slot became available and I was asked to submit a figure. Over the past 4 years I have become the public “voice” of the brand so it made sense that I would work on a slot as a current Mattel employee who is associated with MOTU by the customers.

It is actually quite common for brand managers and members of the marketing team to contribute creatively to toys. Mattel has a very open policy that good ideas can come from anywhere and are not limited to “designers” etc… Hey, after all, back in 1986, Tim Kilpin (Mattel’s current General Manager) had the same title I do now (Marketing Manager for MOTU) and he wrote several mini comics and created the Snake Men! So great ideas do come from all Mattel employees and management wanted very much to celebrate current employees with this sub line.

Once I was assigned a slot, the figure I wanted to do hands down was Spector. I thought briefly about creating an all new character but the chance to have my childhood creation as a MOTUC fig was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up!

How close is the MOTUC Spector to your original childhood vision? We know that it had to be tweaked a little to use existing parts, but are there any major changes in the design or is it a pretty close fit?

There were very few changes. When I was given a slot I went home that night and traced a MOTUC body (I think I used MAA without the armor) on paper and then drew Spector from memory. I brought this design to Terry and he rendered it as a control drawing and we tried out a few different shared parts. My new drawing including the furry shorts (to make it look “Masters”) but that wasn’t working. Terry was kind enough to do three different drawings trying out different parts such as Sy-Klone’s belt, Man-E-Faces parts and Roboto parts. Terry also redesigned the wrist time circuit controller. In my drawing it was just a box but to make it more “Masters” he made it a mini version of the Cosmic Key (a 2.0 if you will). So Spector remained very close, just adding in a few shared parts.



Were you prepared for the negative backlash that introducing your character into the MOTU line induced?

Over the years I have become the focal point for anything that goes wrong with the line, from shipping delays to QC problems. 99% of the time I have nothing to do with any of these issues, but as the public “face” of the brand, I still get the blame. (and I never mind it. As long as we are getting more toys fans and customers are free to blame me for anything they want! I just want more toys!!!!) So I was totally prepared for backlash. As a joke, I was almost not going to tell fans I created this figure so that people judged Spector as a character and not one associated with me. ;-P

But despite backlash from loud online fans (the very vocal minority), the vast majority of fans at convnetions have told me how much they love him, even a few young children telling me he is the coolest figure they ever saw. He of course will not be for everyone, but most hard core fans are resistant to anything new. I expected a lot of pushback and am surprised it has actually been as calm as it has! Everyone is entitled to their opinion! MOTU celebrates diversity, so there is room for Spector I hope!

How about filling us in a little more on how Spector fits into the MOTUC line? Many folks are afraid that he will end up being the “fix-all” for problems in MOTU continuity, since he has the ability to travel through time. Can you enlighten us a bit more as to what Spector’s place is in the overall storyline?

I don’t want to comment too much on his origin as that will be revealed in the bio, but I can confirm he is not a rogue agent going through Time to do what he wants. He was given his vortex suit because he is so loyal and is assigned very specific missions. Not necessarily to fix time, but rather to stop other bad guys from messing it up. He is trusted with the suit because he will not abuse it.

Speaking as a HUGE Gwildor fan, do you think introducing Spector as a time-traveler before adding Gwildor to the line detracts from Gwildor’s importance (since time travel is his primary gimmick)?

Not in the least. Think of Gwildor as Doc Brown and Spector as Marty McFly. Does having Marty use the Time Machine take away from Doc inventing it? Plus, by the time Spector gets the suit in the future, Gwildor (like most inventors during conflicts/war) is long dead. (kinda like the guy who created the super solider injections for Captain America). Bad guys are always trying to take control of new technology and bumping off the inventor is one way to do this. Spector does not have the original Cosmic Key. That has been long lost by the time Spector comes around. He has kinda a 2.0 version. See his bio for more.



Spector’s design has been criticized as not “fitting” into MOTU. How do you respond to this?

I actually think the exact opposite! Spector has things that almost all MOTU figs have. Chest harness – check, power weapon – check, mask – check. I’ve heard people say he looks like Deadpool, but if you are going to take that route, He-Man looks like Conan or Ka-zar or Tarzan. You have to apply this “standard” across the board, not just to one figure. In a line that has fighting cyborg elephants, mermaids, barbarians, demons and robots, how can Spector not fit in?

I see your point. :) Now was Spector the only option in your head for your 30th Anniversary spot, or do you have other personal characters floating around that almost made it instead?

There are a few other characters I’ve created but Spector was always far and away number one. While I briefly thought about creating an all new character for the slot, I pretty much gave up that idea and settled on Spector right away. The opportunity was just too good!

Looking back, is there anything you'd change about the way Spector was brought into the line?

Not in the least! Spector rules! I never really knew what to do with him or where to give him a home and the idea that he will live on forever as a MOTUC figure is the coolest thing ever. Plus his whole backstory about being a loyal guard and getting the vortex suit from worked out really well as a way to move the brand forward and explore new storylines.

Now that you have chosen the winner for this year’s Create-A-Character contest, do you feel the 30th Anniversary line comes across as a balanced mix of ideas and designs? Meaning that each character seems pretty unique in perspective with the others?

Yeah, it has been a nice mix. We did not require any designer to create a figure for any certain faction, gender or area of the brand. It was up to each designer/creator to make a figure for whatever they wanted. For fans/customers expecting the 30th line to span all of the areas of the brand (Horde, Snake Men, NA, POP etc…) they will not be getting this. Each designer created their figure in a vacuum and was not given any restrictions that they had to create, say a POP figure or a NA figure. We don’t hit every faction but there is some nice variety. Some good guys, some bad guys, some team members, etc… But in the end all are 100% unique and a great addition to the MOTU world! I can’t wait to own them all (especially Spector – the coolest action figure ever made~)

A huge thanks to Scott for taking the time to do this and getting it back to me so quickly! -James

Nathan Bitner Interview Part 1 "The Legend Of Fearless Photog" By John Atkin

In a joint posting between MOTUCFigures.com and He-Man.org, my buddy John Atkin brings us an interview with the man... the myth... the legend- Nathan Bitner, winner of the original Create-A-Character contest and creator of Fearless Photog! Take it away John!



In 1985, Mattel held a contest for children to submit their own character designs for the chance to have them become a "Masters of the Universe" action figure. Five finalists were chosen, and fans were able to phone and vote for their favorite character. In the Spring 1986 issue of the Masters of the Universe Magazine the winner of the contest was announced. That winner was an 11-year-old boy from Naperville, Illinois named Nathan Bitner. His winning entry was a heroic warrior named "Fearless Photog", who received over 40,000 votes in a one-week period! The character had a camera for a head, and his chest plate displayed silhouettes of his defeated enemies. His power was the ability to ‘focus in’ on his enemies and drain them of their evil strength, leaving behind only the good that they had inside them.

For his winning entry, Nathan was awarded a scholarship for $100,000 and a five-day trip to Disneyland. Despite the contest's premise, however, Fearless Photog was never actually made into an action figure. For years, many fans of this character have wondered why he was never produced. In part one of a two part interview, I talked with Nathan about the contest and his creation, and he shared with me some of his memories.

How did you find out about the "Create-A-Character" contest, and what made you decide to enter?

I found out about the contest when I was reading the Sunday comics in the Chicago Tribune. It was on the bottom of the back page. I vaguely remember my Dad kept saying "scholarship", "scholarship", "scholarship" at about 10-second intervals, so I can't deny that he had some influence in me deciding to actually enter. I had thought of a few ideas and entered three of them. Photog was actually my second choice. A character that was inspired by Thor, and held a lightning-bolt shaped sword, was actually my favorite entry. I named him Cloud Chaser, and he was an evil warrior. As far as deciding to enter, I knew I was not a great artist, so I tried to sketch a couple and realized how easy the bodies were to draw. You can see how simple my shield was. Once I realized it could be fun and not take too much skill (they were just pencil sketches), I couldn't resist taking a shot at such a fun set of prizes.

What was your reaction when you found out that you won the contest?

There were actually two sets of reactions: one when I found out I was a semi-finalist and a second when I found out I had won. My parents surprised me with the first by taking me out to dinner and then presenting me with the letter from Mattel. I think I went berserk. I looked like one of the people on Publisher's Clearing House. I was completely incredulous. And it may sound crazy, but I think at the time I won, I was more excited about being President of Mattel for a day (and a cool vacation, including a trip to NYC to be on GMA, and to Disneyland/Mattel) than anything else. I was overwhelmed, thrilled, amazed, stunned ... I never thought I had any real chance whatsoever, because I just didn't feel like I had the art skills to compete with others. Even when I go back and look at a character like Brainwave ... I don't think my artwork was nearly as good as his.

How did your family and friends react to the news?

They never said this, but I have a feeling that my parents were pretty relieved that I had just received a "college fund". We were very middle-class and lived a bit above our means, so financially it was a relief for them. At the same time, they were of course very happy for me; they could see how excited I was. My friends had a range of responses ... I got a good bit of razzing. My school at the time (Thayer J. Hill Junior High - now "Middle School") was very proud of me and did some wonderful things ... but it was hard to ever live them down. The art teacher there led a class to create a beautiful cardboard replica of Photog, and the Principal read a poem on the intercom at the end of the day about the contest (my face turned 8 shades of red). Perhaps the craziest thing is that they had a "Nathan Bitner Day" at my school. While I was very grateful for their incredibly kind words and actions, I was teased for years ... when I was a junior in high school, I had freshmen who I had never met coming up to me and asking me about it. 1986 was a crazy year!



Your story appeared in magazines and newspapers across the country. How did you feel about all the media attention you were receiving at such a young age?

I had mixed feelings about the attention. Not all of it was positive, and it created a lot of negative responses from people who barely knew me. On the other hand, it's a pretty cool thing for a kid to get the infamous "15 minutes of fame". Being on Good Morning America, in Newsweek, all of the newspapers, radio interviews, etc. – was very cool in a lot of ways. The day that I was on Good Morning America, I had just had interview after interview, and was horribly sick by the afternoon with a 103 degree fever. It was both fun and stressful at the same time. I learned then (and later) that no matter what you say, it will often get taken out of context and sometimes twisted, especially if it makes a better story. It's not easy to figure that out or deal with when you are 11 and 12 years old.

How did you come up with the name Fearless Photog?

I was very interested in sports as a kid, as were many of my friends. I liked the journalism side of it. When I was a kid, I would actually play some sports games by myself (Nerf basketball, football in the side yard) and "announce the game" to myself. Yeah, I know it sounds weird. I was a little bit of an eccentric kid. ;) Anyway, I knew that the guys with the giant cameras were called Photogs. I knew I wanted this character to be a good warrior with a humane side to him, and I wanted to somehow balance the goodness with at least some type of ferocity. "Fierce Photog" - even before the lingo of today - didn't sound right. "Fearless" was the word I finally settled on ... I was very much looking for the alliteration and wanted a strong word to balance him out.

Is Fearless Photog a man or a machine? Also, is the camera his head, or is it a helmet of some kind?

He is supposed to be a cyborg, in my vision, anyway. He is intended to have the exterior body of a human (skin) with the internal workings of a machine (no nerves or blood). At the time, I wanted him to have human muscles, but really didn't understand enough about anatomy to realize that it would be difficult to have muscle/bone without nerves and blood. Now that you ask it, it would be interesting to write a backstory to how he came to be. I honestly never considered it. He is intended to be cyborg - something like Data from Star Trek, or maybe more accurately, like Robocop. The camera is intended to be a mechanical head - an electronic brain and a device that drives the rest of his equipment (shield, chest) much like a central nervous system. It's not intended as a helmet. He is not supposed to have a human face under there. I wanted him to interact with others like a human (with emotions), but absolutely intended for his head to be a machine attached to other machines in his "body".

The camera itself that makes up Photog's head was traced (I could never draw that!) from a National Geographic magazine. There was an article in the 1980s about new miniature cameras (surgical endoscopes) that could go inside a person's body and take pictures of their tissues from the inside. Since it was blown up for the article, I could trace it at full size and barely had to scale it down.



Fearless Photog has the ability to ‘focus in’ on his enemies and drain their strength, and his chest plate displays silhouettes of defeated evil warriors. What was the inspiration for your character and his design?

Even at 11, I was kind of tired of the same old thing in cartoons. I loved guns and swords and battles as much as the next boy, but I thought something a bit more creative or different might have a better chance of winning the contest. So, I decided to pretty much rule out violence for Photog (but not for my other two entries!) In fact, I decided to make him as humane as possible. No guns, but a camera (little did I know how scary THAT concept could be until I played the video game Fatal Frame!) Come to think of it, ‘Fatal Photog’ could be developed as an anti-hero, but I'm digressing. I grew up near Amish country in upstate New York, and knew that some believed their souls were captured by cameras (or at least that's what I was taught).

This was the initial inspiration for Photog taking a "picture" of the enemy and draining the evil from them; leaving behind only the good. The evil soul from the enemy would be displayed on his chest, forever trapped, to remind others of his power, and as a "notch on the belt". Again, the chest was intended as a counterbalance to the sappiness of "draining the evil". He needed to be intimidating, and I tried to achieve that through the design of his head, his color scheme, and the concept of displaying "intimidating war trophies" on his chest for all to see.

You won a $100,000 scholarship. How long did you have to wait before receiving the prize money?

I won a "college scholarship" (which actually was just cash) that was to mature to $100,000 on the day of my 18th birthday. So, in other words, they put just over $40,000 in an account that would mature at a rate to equal $100,000 at that point. However, I went to college at 16 years old, at the University of Chicago. This wouldn't have been affordable without the scholarship money. So, we petitioned Mattel to release the money 2 years early, and they generously did so. This gives me an opportunity to thank Mattel for that and all that they did for me in relation to this contest. I never held any ill will against them (at all) for not being able to make Fearless Photog back then. They allowed me to start my college career at a great school and treated me wonderfully. They always have. So, at any rate, I withdrew the money at age 16 (it had to go to my father the first two years, because I was a minor). At that point it had matured to about $80,000. It was paid in 4 equal yearly installments (taxable), and the first 2 1/2 installments went directly to the University of Chicago, before I transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill, where I graduated many years later.



You also won a five- day trip for you and your family to Disneyland. Do you still have many memories from that trip?

I have more memories than I could ever list for an interview! The trip was amazing. I don't even know where to start; I probably have 15 stories I could tell. President of Mattel for a day ... I remember that I was wearing an almost identical suit and tie to the actual President. We sat through some meetings about Fearless Photog, and I was made to feel like I was "making the decisions" that the President made every day. I met "He-Man" (this guy literally looked like he had stepped out of the cartoon!) I got to see their company "store" where they allowed me to pick out a couple of toys. I chose Hordak's Slime Pit, much to my mother's discontent. I can assure you that everything from Transformers to calculators (oops) to Hordak himself got slimed in the next year.

I had never been to Disneyland - that was of course fun, and we went to Knott's Berry Farm as well. The trip to California was the furthest I'd been from home, and just the second time I had been on a plane (the first was the trip to NYC to be on Good Morning America). I met Rick Dees (of the Weekly Top 40 ... hey, to me, he was famous!) in a restaurant. One of the funnier things is that the limo company that was driving us around was Prince Limousine. We were in the 4th car in their fleet, so our license plate read "4 PRINCE". Remember that this is 1986. Prince also happened to be in Southern California that week, so the reaction from other cars and basically anyone that saw the license plate was insane! We were occasionally mobbed! I could never find anything purple to wave out the window, but I was looking!

...And that concludes Part 1 of the interview! Stay tuned for Part 2 as John delves further into the Legend of Fearless Photog!

Interview With DC Comics "Masters Of The Universe" Writer Paul Kupperberg!

Hey all! Thought you might enjoy this... Here's an interview I recently conducted with Paul Kupperberg, the writer of the 1980's DC Masters Of The Universe Comics!

Paul Kupperberg has had quite an illustrious career, writing literally hundreds of books, stories, comic books and newspaper comic strips. He's scripted comic's greatest characters like Superman & Green Lantern, created his own comic characters like Arion & Takion, and even served as editor at DC Comics for a time. Nowadays he writes for Archie Comics, but back in the early 1980's Paul worked as a writer for DC comics. Paul's previous work for DC made him the perfect candidate for the task of turning a new toyline from Mattel into a comic book. The line was called "Masters Of The Universe"...



1.) What was your job at DC at the time when the "Masters Of The Universe" was presented to you? What other work were you doing there that would have lead them to choose you for the project?

I was freelancing for DC at that time, writing a wide variety of things, including Tales of the Green Lantern Corps for editor Dave Manak. Dave and I always got along and worked well together, so when he was handed the Masters of the Universe license, I guess he decided I could do the job and do it without a lot of headaches.

2.) Take us back to how you got involved with the franchise if possible. How did Mattel present this to DC and what did they expect out of it? Were they treating this like it was a big deal or was it more of just a quick tie-in to help sell some toys?

I have no idea what Mattel expected. Other than preliminary discussions with Dave, my first exposure to He-Man and everything was when I got down on DC’s conference room floor with a big box full of prototype toys and accessories.



3.) Oh wow! To have been a fly on the wall at that meeting... Do you remember the name of the rep? Can you give us a little more detail on how this brainstorming session worked?

The whole session was pretty loose, as I recall. The Mattel rep was named Mark Ellis...there’s a little note about MOTU and that session in the text page of DCCP #47 that mentions him and the fact that we got to play with a million and a half bucks worth of prototype action figures and playsets. He did a little informal presentation to introduce the characters and their world, what ever they had come up with at that point, and then pretty much sat back and let Dave Manak and I play with the pieces and brainstorm ideas. The whole Prince Adam/He-Man dichotomy was, as I recall, already established, but since we were introducing the character next to Superman, we beefed up that parallel by giving him Clark’s ‘scaredy-cat’ cover.



4.) How responsive and free were they with the He-Man concept at this point?

They were totally free with the concept. They had the barest bones of a background story, little more than names and powers. Dave and I tossed around ideas with the rep and he seemed receptive to everything. I imagine they were happy to have DC not only pay for the license, but provide them with back story and origins as well.

5.) Were there any concepts that you presented that were deemed strictly off-limits by Mattel?

I don’t recall them having objections to anything we did.



6.) Instead of throwing He-Man into his own series right out of the gate, DC decided to introduce the concept in 2 crossovers with Superman. In doing so, the "MOTU" universe became tied into regular continuity instead of existing as it's own seperate entity. Do you have any idea what the reasoning was behind this decision?

I’m sure it was business, licensing decision. Mattel was paying big bucks for the promotional crossover and they wanted their guy standing next to Superman as much as possible. This was back in the day when there was still this belief that comics could actually drive merchandising dollars, or translate into actual sales from the promotional bounce the comics get from being tied to the merchandise. I doubt it was true then, and it’s certainly not true now.

Anyway, overall, no one was thinking about continuity when we did this. No one was going to reference Clark’s visit to Eternia in some story a year down the road; in my mind and I’m sure in the minds of the Superman writers in general in those days, this story was never meant to play into anybody’s continuity. It was just a licensing job, no different than a comic I’d written around the same time for Radio Shack featuring Superman plugging their home computers; ain’t no one trying to work the TSR-80 Computer Whiz Kids into the next issue of Action Comics, so why would we do so with a toy tie-in license?



7.) Were you playing homage to any specific genres or stories when fleshing out the He-Man concept? Many fans point to the similarities between Zodac and Metron and naturally assume that the character is loosely based on him.

None of the above! I don’t remember making the Kirby New Gods connection at the time, although I’m sure I must have seen it had it pointed out to me, but I’m not very big on the whole ‘homage’ thing. You call it ‘homage,’ I call it ‘cheating.’ Kirby already created Metron. If I need Metron, I’ll use Metron, not create a second-generation rip-off that’s not only NOT going to be as good but is going to make people point and see that I don’t have any ideas of my own. Julius Schwartz used to call a certain group of writers he worked with “archaeologists,” because all they ever did was dig up everybody else’s old characters and bits and use them rather than creating something new.



8.) Are you aware of how well the mini-series sold? Did DC have any plans beyond those issues that you were privy to?

No idea how it sold, although I imagine if it had done significant numbers there would have been more.



9.) The Filmation series bible written by Michael Halperin seems to include many of the concepts from your comics... but omits others. Many fans attribute a lot of the He-Man mythos to that bible, thinking it came first... but the dates for the comic work seem to point the other direction. Were the ideas of He-Man having a secret identity, the character of Prince Adam, He-Man's mother being from earth, and other story elements all yours or did those come from Mattel?

I don’t remember the specifics, sorry to say. But there was no bible around when I was working and, to tell you the truth, I never watched the cartoons to see how much of what I came up with is in them. I’m pretty sure the Prince Adam secret identity was a Mattel concept (two action figures for one character, a la Clark Kent and Superman). His mother coming from Earth might have been mine, but I wasn’t that invested in the character for a lot of the assignment to stick in my memory. It’s only in retrospect that it became a case of me having been involved in the creation, however tangentially, of a major pop cultural icon. I usually mention MOTU in the same breath as the Power Rangers, the proposal for which I passed on at DC before the show was on the air, dismissing it as one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read. I stand behind that assessment to this day, but it was one of the stupidest thing I’ve ever read that went on to make billions of dollars.



10.) Speaking as a fan, the DC Comics version of He-Man is one of my favorite interpretations of the character ever produced. You mention that it is only in retrospect that you see the part you played in the creation of He-Man... but what's it like knowing that you had a hand in creating something that still resonates with the fans nearly 30 years later?

I’ve had my hand in some of the great, maybe MOST of the great, comics and cartoon icons of my time, from Superman to Bart Simpson to Archie Andrews, and every time I get to play with any of these characters, it’s a thrill. I mean, how cool is it to have been one of the main Superman writers in the pre-CRISIS years? Or to see something you’ve created be revived to have a major impact on the entire DCU? Hell, look at all that’s going on in DC storylines these days; half of the concepts and characters those guys are building their major plotlines on these days seem to come from the stories guys like Bob Rozakis and I wrote in the 1980s.

But He-Man is kind of weird. It was, at the time, a paycheck. I was 27 years old when I wrote it, too old to really care about this stuff on a fanboy level, but I certainly took enough pride in my work that I wouldn’t have turned out the script just for the bucks. I guess that this commercial job turned out to contain something that endured is really just a bonus...and, yeah, it’s double-cool to be able to point to something so universally recognized as MOTU and tell people that you had a hand, no matter how small, in making it come to life.

Thanks very much to Paul Kupperberg for taking the time to talk about MOTU with us! For more about Paul, check out his website: http://kupperberg.blogspot.com/