Prince Adam's Scepter

Whenever there is a cartoon made to tie in with a toyline, it's interesting to see how the animation handles toy-related accessories. Weapons, playsets, etc.

Prince Adam had two accessories. A Powersword that was smaller than the regular Powersword He-Man had (closed version to fool people) and his scepter.

prototype preview of Prince Adam by the Four Horsemen

We saw his sword many times in the cartoon because of its great importance.
But what about the Scepter?

Final toy-version of Prince Adam's scepter

Adam's scepter appeared briefly in season 1 episode "The Beginning - part II" when Man-At-Arms grabs it from the ground and throws it to Adam as they fly on their skysleds to join in the battle at Evergreen Forest.

At the Evergreen Forest Adam immediatly faces off against Whiplash, using his scepter to trip him down.

Unfortunately that would be the last time we saw Prince Adam's scepter in the cartoon. As the toy-version had a missile-firing function; it would have been interesting to see used onscreen.

Symbol change...

When the toyline debuted in April 2002, fans could find a He-Man figure sculpted by the Four Horsemen, that had the classic Cross-symbol, based on the vintage figure.

Later in spring however, the figure was becoming more sparse to find when the shelves were updated slowly with a He-Man figure that had an Stylized H-symbol, that fans have later dubbed as the "asterisk"-symbol (*).

Over at He-Man.org, fans asked about this change and Jeremy Padawer of Mattel's Entertainment Marketing answered:

When the debut of the new toy line was delayed, Mattel had the opportunity to go back and stew over every detail of the new line. When you think about it, Superman has his classic "S", Batman has his notable bat symbol, but what did He-Man have?
Now, when a new generation looks upon He-Man, they will see a symbol that they will recognize. And in the years to come, when people see the stylized "H" they will say "That's He-Man!"

Which boils down to Mattel most likely wanting new symbol they could trademark and use.

Early storyboard-artworks also show for the animated series that artists' were using the cross-symbol before Mattel finalized their plan to change the symbol.

In a future blog-post I will show another art-piece that had the symbol changed...