FIRST LOOK: Kevin Smith’s Masters of the Universe series for Netflix looks and sounds great

For almost two years now we have known that Nerd maestro Kevin Smith was overseeing a new animated He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series that would pick up where the original 1980s series left off.

Called Masters of the Universe: Revelation, the new series is, according to Smith, “easily in the top five of my favorite, most satisfying projects.”

Smith is showrunning the series along with Mattel Television’s Frederic Soulie, Adam Bonnett, Christopher Keenan and Rob David.

The series will be split in two parts with part 1 (consisting of five episodes) debuting on Netflix on July 23rd.

One of the aspects of the original series that proved quite limiting was the contained story approach which saw every episode be a contained tale where we got to knew the characters and Eternia, but never really saw what the true mythology was; this really came over the years with comics, shows, toys and fans. However, Smith says that this series will be different.

“It’s not just simply like these two dudes [He-Man and Skeletor] have been trying to beat each other up for decades,” Smith says.

“We get to tell stories of abuse. We get to kind of tell stories of isolation, grief. We use these characters as long as they’ve been around — and most people consider them toys or action figures — to tell insanely human stories set in a very inhuman world.”

Smith says that Netflix’s director of original series Ted Biaselli said to him: “‘Do me a favor. When I used to watch the shows as a kid, I legitimately thought that He-Man was always on the verge of getting killed by Skeletor. I believed in the stakes. Just make me believe that again,'”

“People would see some of this as goofy IP, but this is a rich tapestry, a world full of characters. [Biaselli] said, ‘Please just don’t talk down to it. Don’t make fun of it. Don’t wink. Just treat it like Shakespeare.’ Those were our marching orders.”

Man, as a fan of He-Man as a kid myself, I love the sound of this.

Smith says the first episode picks up exactly as the original series ended but pretty soon goes in its own direction “which allows all the characters to go through these periods of growth”.

Of the story and the mythology, David adds it’s a story about “a hero who has to live under deception in order to protect those he loves, but it’s about how that deception rots at the core”.

All involved promise that the characters as they start out in this series will be forever changed by the time the get to the end.

It seems that it’s not just Smith and the creators who are excited.

Mark Hamill, who plays Skeletor in the show, is pretty excited too, according to Smith: “[Hamill] had talked about wanting to step out of animation, but he was like, ‘When you came at me with Skeletor, how could I say no?'”

And who can argue with that?

Check out some images from the show and the full cast (and what a cast!) below:

Supergirl’s Chris Wood plays He-Man/Prince Adam, Star Wars veteran Mark Hamill as Skeletor, Game of Thrones’ Lena Headey as Evil-Lyn, Buffy herself Sarah Michelle Gellar as Teela, Clueless star Alicia Silverstone as Queen Marlena, Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy as Mer-Man and the original voice of Skeletor, Alan Oppenheimer, as Moss Man, Liam Cunningham as Man-At-Arms, Griffin Newman as Orco, Stephen Root as Cringer, Diedrich Bader as King Randor and Trap Jaw, Tiffany Smith as Andra, Henry Rollins as Tri-Klops, Susan Eisenberg as Sorceress, Jason Mewes as Stinkor, Phil LaMarr as He-Ro, Tony Todd as Scare Glow, Cree Summer as Priestess, and Kevin Michael Richardson as Beast Man.

For all the images click the link: EW