Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #824474 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Customer Reviews

A good case badly argued
This is an interesting read for any child of the early to mid-1980s when the He-Man craze was all the rage. Roger Sweet claims to be the man who invented He-Man, something I had not realised was contested until reading this book. Mr Sweet is at pains throughout to claim he originated the toyline, and involves the reader in a lot of office politics and apparent back-stabbing that is not the most interesting or attractive thing to read. Morever, it comes at the expense of explaining in detail the creativity behind the development of the line. We have a lot on its origins, but not much on how other characters were developed. Children, after all, invested these toy characters with meaning, helped of course by the comics sold with the toys (not mentioned at all here), and the Filmation TV series. The writing style, despite the so-called assistance of a co-writer, is in places grammatically illiterate, cliche-ridden and self-regarding. This is also an outcome of its focus, a defensive rebuke of otherwise unknown counter-claimants to the position of He-Man's inventer, and also of poor co-writing and editing (although there is an effort at the start to situate Masters of the Universe in the history of children's toys). A must read for those who want to discover the humble beginnings of He-Man, but a book that might have been a lot better written and produced.