Star Comics cereal:geek article #13

As many of you will know I continue to self-publish cereal:geek magazine; the one-hundred page glossy magazine dedicated to the cartoons of the eighties. I have incredibly talented individuals write articles for the magazine. However, when I required an article covering the Masters of the Universe comic book published by Marvel's Star Comics imprint I knew I had to write this article myself, given that I have such strong views on this series! As I have rarely covered the Star Comics series on this Blog I thought it would be good to showcase the article I wrote for the magazine across a group of posts.

So here I present the thirteenth and final part of the article...

Even though issue thirteen would prove to be the final issue of the series it appears that plans were well under way for more stories. The splash page illustration you will see overleaf (see issue six of cereal:geek) is actually from the unproduced issue fourteen of the Masters of the Universe comic.

Under the title "War and Peace" it appears that the series was going to take a drastic new direction, as we see not only a fleet of Horde Batmex, but also He-Man wearing his costume from the live-action movie!

George Caragonne's arrival on the series was sadly too late, and Masters of the Universe became one of many Star Comics that would end up being cancelled in the space of a few months. Unfortunately under the banner of Marvel's Star Comics imprint, the writers would always be fighting a losing battle to command respect; the comics they were producing were seen as nothing more than comics for kids. And maybe therein lies the problem. Would Masters of the Universe have faired better outside of Star Comics, under the regular Marvel imprint?

I honestly believe that had the comic started with the quality of storytelling witnessed in issue nine onwards we would have seen a longer-lasting comic, and a complete lack of "crumb-bums".

Sadly George Caragonne is no longer with us, but his contribution to the Masters of the Universe comic is nothing short of spectacular. I'm sure that Masters of the Universe would have proven to be a small part of George's brief life, but with this comic he made a lasting impression on the fans.

He breathed life into an ailing book by actually taking the world of Eternia quite seriously and writing the characters as they were meant to be written.

Within the space of a few issues George Caragonne wrote some of the greatest He-Man stories ever told. And for that, I am eternally grateful to him.


(click on the image to see it at full-size)

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