Brooklyn-based illustrator Vermilyea's extremely limited edition project (Only 21 made!) is a particularly trippy take on the 1980s toy, filled with Porky Pigs, Bullwinkle Mooses and, yes, even Big Bird being strangled by the Eternian hero. What does it all mean? Is it a metaphor for cartoons and toys destroying childhood innocence? We have no idea, but we love it anyway.

He-Man and the 13 Trials of Eternia [Jon Vermilyea]

Reimann explained the idea behind his reimagining of the childhood icons:

I imagined them somewhere in the indie/hipster/fashion-scene, as if they were doing a photoshooting for some magazine. I'm a fashion-nerd myself, so I dressed them up in things that really exist and that I like.

We're unconvinced that Teela would really go for stockings, but apart from that, we're sure Tim Gunn would approve.

Masters of The Universe [Behance Network] (Via)

Mattel pulled the rights to the toyline from producer Joel Silver less than three weeks ago, but have already set up a new deal with Sony Pictures that'll see an all-new script and direction courtesy of Knowing and The Taking of Pelham 123 producers Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch's Escape Artists production company. As long as we get to keep Orko, I'm happy with whatever they come up with.

Barbie's a living doll at Universal [Variety]

The revelation came in yesterday's Hollywood Reporter story about the movie getting a new writer, as the paper explained the studio's take on the franchise:

Warners sees the big-screen version as a gritty fantasy and reimagines Adam as a soldier who sets off to find his destiny, happening upon the magical world of Eternia. There, Skeletor has raised a technological army and is bent on eradicating magic.

There is so much fail in those two sentences that I don't know where to start. A gritty He-Man? A guy with a skeleton for a head "bent on eradicating magic"? The whole "magic versus science" thing in general? It's all so wrong, and that's coming from a movie that was destined to be pretty wrong in the first place. Is it too late to stop this monstrosity?

'Grayskull' lands new writer [Hollywood Reporter]

John Stevenson, one of the directors of Dreamworks' Kung-Fu Panda, has been tapped to direct the new movie based upon the 1980s Mattel toyline, from a script written by Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li's Justin Marks. Stevenson was selected for the gig because of his love for the characters, according to Mattel's Barry Waldo:

John had such passion that we found ourselves running to catch up with his vision.

Stevenson's passion may come from the people who've handled the franchise prior; for all that He-Man may have a bad rep, a lot of talented people have been involved with the character in the past; animation living legends Bruce Timm and Paul Dini both honed their craft on the character when he first appeared, and J. Michael Straczynski was one of the writers of the original 1983 cartoon that accompanied the toys.

The project - to be produced by The Matrix's Joel Silver - will be Stevenson's first live-action movie as director, although his CV includes art department stints on movies like Little Shop of Horrors and Labyrinth. Who knows? Maybe the future of the planet Eternia is in good hands after all.

Flickr image by Phil_G.

WB, Joel Silver shaping He-Man film [Variety]

Yes, He-Man. Maybe it’s because of that fateful December 24 when I, at the tender age of five or six, snuck out of bed and discovered that Castle Grayskull had appeared under the tree, and the milk and cookies next to it had been consumed—despite the fact that my parents were still awake in the next room. “Holy fucking shit,” I thought. “Santa is fucking fast.” Or maybe it’s because of that same night, several hours later, when I woke up my mom and dad to ask if we could open presents yet, and my mother said something to me that I have never forgotten: “Joshua, it is four o’clock in the fucking morning. Get your ass back in bed and stay there.”

Maybe. Or maybe it is because I love both Christmas and He-Man, and yet both get hated on time and time again. The big complaint about He-Man, after all, is exactly the same one you hear about Christmas: that it’s a corny, mawkish fantasy camouflaging little more than an exercise in crass materialism. That whatever myth might surround it, its core reason for being is (or was) to get people to spend money.

Well, to that critique of both, I say: Bah. Humbug.

Oh, sure, both Christmas and He-Man do (or did) get people to part with their hard-earned; there’s no question of that. And I’m not going to deny the corniness or mawkishness of either. What I do deny, though—vehemently—is the implicit presumption that because something has commercial, corny, or mawkish qualities, it is wholly devoid of substance. Further, I’ll bite the bullet and argue that those corny and mawkish qualities are often exactly where the substance lies.

Take, for example, He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special, which I just watched for the first time in almost a quarter-century. The premise of the special—which would probably not qualify as “science fiction” under Harlan Ellison’s standards—is that two Earth children are accidentally brought to He-Man’s home planet of Eternia by his friend Orko, and then kidnapped by villains Hordak and Skeletor, whose boss wants them and the Christmas spirit they’ve brought with them (it clings to Earth children like the scent of pine needles) destroyed.

After a series of battles, the kids end up stuck with Skeletor, and a cyborg puppy, in a snow-covered mountain range. And as in so many of the best Christmas stories (Orko, incidentally, delivers the last line—“Merry Christmas, everybody!”—in perfect Tiny Tim intonation), the heart of the plot sees the bony ol’ grinch from that point on starting to redeem himself, at least temporarily.

Is it absurd? Not really—Skeletor has always smacked of being a softie (how else could his henchpeople have survived for so long, and why else would he have hired them in the first place?), and you always suspect that he’s secretly happiest on the rare occasions he deals with He-Man and the Masters as peers instead of enemies. (At the end of the special, when he protests, “I don’t like to feel good! I like to feel evil!” and everyone chuckles, the moment is much more Oscar the Grouch than Cobra Commander.) Still, it’s definitely cheesy.

Nonetheless, there is something very important, very substantial, about the lesson here, however clichéd, which is of course that there’s good in everyone. That’s not to say you should be overly trusting in the case of someone who has repeatedly tried to overthrow King Randor’s peaceful rule. But which lesson—“There’s good in everyone” or “Don’t be too trusting”—is ultimately more important?

Well, if the former is evocative of a He-Man cartoon, I’d say the latter suggests The Wire, that critically acclaimed HBO series that was anything but sentimental. But while the former is a straight-up moral of the story, I don’t think that’s true of the latter. No, although “Don’t be too trusting” is something I think most of the characters in The Wire would agree on, the message you take away from the series is that the only truly bright moments in a bleak existence come when people hew to the sappy ideals He-Man lurrrrves so much.

So, O jaded readers, as you go about your lives this holiday season, maybe don’t be so quick to dismiss the mushy, the maudlin, or even the trite out of hand. Immersed in the sickly sweet bathwater may be the Baby of All That Is Meaningful. And the baby’s name may just be Jesus. Or it could be Dylan—that’s a pretty popular name lately. Dylan, get your ass back in bed and stay there. Merry Christmas, everyone!

He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Commenter Moff’s real name is Josh Wimmer, and he can usually be found at scribblescribblescribble.com/blog.

It's... a Burger King Joker, I guess? Or perhaps an Emperor Joker? But what with a conference center full of Heath Ledger-alikes, it was nice to see a different take on ol' smiley.
And here's the Joker's Dark Knight nemesis, looking just as impressive as he did with millions of dollars' worth of CGI behind him.
You can just imagine the conversation here, can't you? "Okay, I'm gonna be Arnold Terminator. I'll look bad-ass and have blood all over me. You can be the other guy from T2. Here. Stick this on your hand and dress like a cop."
Dear DC Comics:
This is why a Question movie would look awesome.
Am I the only person who finds this Plastic (Wo)Man strangely sexy? If so, forget I said anything.
He may play a faceless hard-ass in the Halo videogames, but in real life? The Master Chief is a nerd just like you and me.
Hulk Smash! Or, if his plush muscles are anything to go by, maybe he'll just cuddle you to death.
The stars of Star Wars: Episode 2.5: When Those Clones Were Kids.
Sadly, when you tried to open up his chest in real life, it was already full of blood and guts and shit.
While I didn't see any Doctor Mrs. The Monarchs - and shame on all of you for that, collective Comic-Con attendees - this awesome Dr. Henry Killinger (complete with Monarch Henchman) almost made up for it.
No, your eyes really aren't deceiving you; that really is Teela and Evil-Lyn cosying up to the terrifying mascot of Mattel, "Matty". I'm telling you, Matty freaked me out last weekend.
Now that he's lost his main squeeze to a freakily-headed corporate mascot, poor Skeletor has nothing better to do than just hang around the con, heartbroken.
There are two children who are going to grow up to resent their parents. Do you think that when the little girl hits puberty and starts rebelling against her mom and dad, they'll make her wear the Dark Phoenix outfit instead?
You know what makes this Starscream so great? The incredibly happy, smiling face. He may be a murderous killing machine out to enslave humanity, but look at him - He's so cute!
Possibly the best outfits of the entire con - Human Tie Fighters. The only thing that would've made this better would be if someone had thought to decorate the entire con like the surface of the Death Star, so that at the end of Sunday, they could've run around it, while a gang of kids dressed as the Millennium Falcon pretended to shoot at them before shouting "You're all clear, kid! Now let's blow this thing so we can all go home!"

Four Days, Four Hundred Cosplay Photos. Welcome to the Ultimate Geek Gallery [Maximum PC]

You may be sick of superhero movies this summer, but don't worry, the zeitgeist is already shifting. What started with the success of last year's Transformers movie - and will continue with next year's GI Joe - is just the start of what Hasbro are hoping will be the next big movie trend: Toy Movies.

The effects of last year's Michael Bay explosionfest were definitely felt at Hasbro, America's second biggest toy manufacturer: International revenues were up 33% (and US revenues up 15%) in 2007, compared with the previous year, a fact that many within the company attributed directly to the Transformers movie (Some analysts even predicted 2008 profits would fall. as a result of the lack of Transformers movie). No surprise, then, that the toymaker has decided to try and see what other products they can get turned into movies ASAP.

First up are the two you already know about for next year: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen and GI Joe. Both of these are generally expected to be successful for obvious reasons - not only the success of the last Transformers movie, but also the in-built audience for both franchises who played with the toys, watched the cartoons and read the comic books when they were kids - but they're also the only two franchises of that nature that Hasbro happen to own. Is there really a hardcore fanbase out there clamoring for the big budget, live action My Little Pony movie, for example? Or George Clooney's Visionaries?

Not that that's stopping Hasbro, however; earlier this year, the company unveiled a deal with Universal Pictures for "at least" four movies based upon their toys and games. No actual titles were announced at the time, but some names bandied about included Stretch Armstrong, CandyLand and, for the second time in its career, Clue (It won't be able to reach the heights of the Tim Curry original, mind you).

Hasbro isn't the only company looking to get in on this action, either; Mattel have movies in various stages of pre-production for both Masters of The Universe (with John Woo attached) and Hot Wheels, and we've just seen (or, more likely, stayed well away from) the release of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, based upon the peculiar and expensive American Girl line. On the one hand, it makes sense; having exhausted the television and comic books of your youth, why shouldn't Hollywood move into your toy closet? But if we ever find ourselves reporting on the announcement of the Big Jim's PACK movie, then it really is time to get worried.