Rest in Power

John "He-Man" Erwin was a truly heroic voice

Filmation/Netflix

John Erwin, who died this week at the age of 88, was the Adam West of Masters of the Universe. That's not an insult, even though 14 year-old me might have meant it as such.

Many people forget, or don't know, that the Masters of the Universe toy line existed for about two years before the “He-Man” cartoon did. You'd see these huge figures side-by-side with Star Wars and other 3-3/4 figures, and their grandiose titles like “Master of Weapons” or “Ocean Warlord”! They looked like gods, especially to a kid steeped in Greek mythology. That original line even matched up nicely with traditional deity pantheons: Man-at-Arms as Mars/Ares, Mer-Man as Poseidon/Neptune, and so on. And Skeletor! Holy hell, was he something – an evil skeleton who looked like he could kick your ass. Huge muscles really did a number on boys in the '80s – He-Man was inspired by the aesthetic of Conan, and then on TV you had guys like Mr. T, and all the '80s WWF wrestlers who were doing steroids. We now know as wrestling fans that the super-huge physiques are often more detrimental to actual athleticism, but comics and toys sold us something else entirely.

Although, to be honest, He-Man himself reminded me the most of the English comic strip “Spare-Part Kit,” about a kid who would put on giant muscular prosthetics to get super strength. The Prince Adam identity, ironically, made this a better comparison than I thought.

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My parents hoped to keep me solely on Star Wars as an action figure line, and discouraged others, so I saved up myself to buy Skeletor, and felt so embarrassed when I did that I promised my father I'd never buy another. I have never broken a promise harder; by the time I was done, I had a near-complete collection. The Masters became like the gods of my collection.

Then one day I saw the cartoon and was like WTF? This is goofy as hell. Why are all these awesome-looking characters being so silly? The She-Ra cartoon went a bit darker – perhaps alone among '80s toy cartoons, it kept the bad guys in charge of a fascist planet, with the heroic rebels constantly scoring small victories but never the big one. It has goofy moments – Madame Razz sucks, and that Christmas special is wild – but considering how nearly unrelated it was to its own toy line, which represented happy, dolly things, and none of the space-fantasy Nazis who got moved over to the boys' toy line, it passed for subversive.

[Friends and I would mock the He-Man show, making fake lyrics to the theme tune: “I've the power, to pick up a flower, it takes me an hour to do...I pick up a daisy, it drives me crazy, it takes me the whole day through!”]

I thought I'd hate the Dolph Lundgren Masters of the Universe movie, but when I finally saw it, I felt like my vision of the figures had been restored a bit. It took the 2002 reboot cartoon to really make me think that what I'd imagined had finally been realized. I had learned more by then – Filmation was under an insane amount of rules back in the '80s as far as what the show could depict. Nobody could get punched, killed, or stabbed – at worst, they could be judo-thrown or stunned by energy beams. By default, this turned He-Man's sword into a shield and energy blaster primarily. Only robots and monsters could get seriously hurt or destroyed, and nothing dangerous that kids could imitate should be shown. Plus because the cartoons were considered extended toy commercials, they were under pressure to prove they had value besides selling product, and thus shoehorned morals into each episode, which would be reiterated at the end.

Given all that, going slightly camp was really the only way to go. I won't pretend it was as knowingly camp as the Adam West Batman; it was likely closer to Joel Schumacher's outdated “It's a comic book! This is what comic books are like!” mindset. As an adult MOTU fan, though, I watch it as the campy take. Masters of the Universe was more resonant to me as the kind of darker fantasy implied by its box art, but Filmation's version is formative to many, and I understand now that in the multiverse, slightly silly iterations are entirely permissable.

I don't think John Erwin every treated it as silly, which is crucial. When he says, “I HAVE THE POWER!” it sticks. There's a reason people still quote it. And before Kevin Conroy expertly modulated his voice between Bruce Wayne and Batman, Erwin would do a “silly kid” voice for Prince Adam, and deepen it as He-Man. It didn't feel condescending, but it could feel incongruous, given that, to save money and cels, He-Man and Adam looked almost exactly the same, even though one was supposed to be, more or less, a kid still living at home. Later reboots fixed this. He-Man the toy was a blond take on Conan – He-Man the animated character, with his pageboy haircut and pink tights as Adam, exuded more homo-eroticism, and I know more than one person who realized they were gay by looking at him. Though when adults in my presence would say something to that effect, I resented it – why did they have to project that on a children's toy, who in my mind was not sexual in any way, and just a powerful adventure hero?

Alan Oppenheimer used basically the same voice he had for Ming in Filmation's Flash Gordon, but it was as Skeletor that it stuck in the popular consciousness. He couldn't have gotten away with being too terrifying, so making him a whiny warlord too smart for his own good was the best take within the confines they had. Even now, when newer voice-actors try to make it more menacing, they can't resist putting a touch of Oppenheimer in there for that throwback connection.

Erwin rarely showed his face in public – some say he was just a recluse, others that he was so protective of He-Man that he didn't want kids to know that a decidedly unmuscular guy was behind the facade. If he was shy, I get it; if he was protecting the gimmick, I can respect that even more. Dolph Lundgren was more “my” He-Man, but Erwin was the original He-Man when it came to giving him a voice. He set a tone, and it was one more serious than some of the goofy shenanigans surrounding him in the story. For many kids, he even taught them valuable lessons...until next time! Sadly, I don't know that they stuck.

Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe: Revelation was the first to show us an Eternian afterlife, where all the He-Men of history hung out in their sci-fi Elysian Fields.

It's time for Er-Wyn, heroic master of vocalizing, to take his place among them.