Gary Hartle was the director for 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe animated series by Mike Young Productions.
Hartle is no stranger to working in the field of animation. He has had a hand in Marvel Animation's Thor: Tales of the Asgard, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Ultimate Spider-Man. Among his older works are Johnny Bravo and Animaniacs.
Mr. Hartle answers questions that previously have been mentioned at Power-Con 2011 and hinted by producer Ian Richter in an interview at He-Man.org.
Many ideas may not have been fulfilled until officially seen on-screen, but it is fascinating to learn the secrets of what was planned for He-Man in season 3.
Read Gary Hartle's answers about Queen Marlena being a Half-Gar, Randor knowing He-Man was his son and more!
Read more after the jump!
One aspect I always wanted to know more of, was the relationship between Randor and Keldor.
In the cartoon by Mike Young Productions they never said it on-screen that Randor and Keldor were brothers. They gave small mentions here and there and story-editor and writer Dean Stefan has mentioned in an interview at Masters of the Universe Chronicles-podcast, that one idea they wanted to execute; was a flashback with young Randor and Keldor.
It would have shown Keldor being the "bad seed" of the family with possible attempt at poisoning their father, Miro. Now that flashback sounds like a great concept.
Also the people at MVCreations were planning to do a prequel mini-series comic that would have highlighted young Captain Randor VS Keldor. The story would have been written by Marv Wolfman and artist Andy Tong was attached to do the pencils.
The prequel would have been four issues, published in early 2004. Marv Wolfman has recollected at a Baltimore Convention in 2005 that he had lot of fun writing it and proud because it was a character-driven story. Unfortunately he couldn't remember a lot about the story as he had misplaced the scripts.
Apparently 3 out of 4 issues had been written before the project was ended. First issue would have started with a six-month year old Prince Adam, as Randor was off to "do his thing", which possibly means fight in the war against Keldor.
Artist Andie Tong has stated that:
"Sadly [I] did not receive the script, nor know the main jist of the story. Was just told what to design. Started designing but it was canned shortly after. So didn't even really get into designing the characters proper.
Never got to do any of the interior pages."
Hopefully one day the scripts by Marv Wolfman could be located so fans would get a glimpse of the prequel-story...
Ever since the first episode of He-Man cartoon by Mike Young Productions, Clawful is clearly potrayed as not being the smartest henchman in Skeletor's troops.
A particular example comes in season 1 episode "The Island" where we have a scene with Clawful's cousin, who has learned that Man-At-Arms is traveling to an remote island to visit his mentor Dekker. Clawful's cousin then uses his claw to make a sound that travels the oceans on Eternia and can be heard at Snake Mountain in a pool of water.
Resulting in the following scene between Clawful and Evil-Lyn...
Clawful: "Hey, you hear that? Some kindaaa clicking sound?"
Evil-Lyn: "It's code. The language of your people!"
Clawful: "Ooohh yeah... Never was too good at spelling stuff."
Which is the lowest point for Clawful's capabilities on the intellectual-department with the show.
Fans addressed this to the show's producer Ian Richter who responded in a Q&A over at He-Man.org:
We were planning a story later in season 2 where Clawful would gain intelligence via some brain tampering from Tri-Klops and almost overthrow Skeletor.
And it is a real shame that the second season was cut mid-way because this premise sounds like one hilarious episode for the crustacean villain.
