MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: THE SUNBIRD LEGACY

Written by: Roger McKenzie
Illustrated by: Adrian Gonzalez & Fred Carrillo | Cover by: Earl Norem

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As a child, this was probably my favorite of all my MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE comics and storybooks. As an adult who recently unearthed it at his parents' house, there's still a lot to appreciate about it. Published in 1983, the second year of the MASTERS toyline's existence and the same year the classic Filmation cartoon series debuted, THE SUNBIRD LEGACY is an odd hybrid of the pre- and post-cartoon continuity. It's also an oddity in the realm of MASTERS storybooks, being a hardcover comic book rather than a traditional storybook with blocks of text and a single illustration per page. To my knowledge, this is the only book of its kind created for the MASTERS line out of the many books produced by Western Publishing, a division of Golden Books.

The story, set on planet Eternia as were all iterations of MASTERS, follows He-Man and his allies, Man-at-Arms, Teela, and Stratos, as they attempt to stop the evil Skeletor and his henchmen, Evil-Lyn, Beast Man, and Mer-Man, from assembling an ancient missile called the Sunbird, created in a long lost era by an Eternian warlord named Dyr. Our heroes split up, each traveling to a different corner of Eternia, where they then each battle an enemy counterpart. But the villains are successful, capture the heroes, and launch the missile. He-Man and company break free and defeat Skeletor and his cronies, and He-Man hops aboard the Sunbird as it takes off, defusing it before it can destroy Eternia's royal palace.

Though not exactly sophisticated, the story straddles a line between the simplicity of a children's book and the slightly more advanced nature of a comic. The story is very straightforward, good versus evil, and follows the common kids' show trope of splitting up the "team" to fight their enemies one-on-one, but this also allows for some exploration of various parts of Eternia and gives us a look at each character's strengths, both good and evil.