Designing a sword to survive use by a superpowered character would be an interesting topic to expound upon.

One thing I think you needed to touch on is that the sword wasn't just a weapon, it was basically a tuning rod for the magical powers of castle Greyskull. The fact that it was a single HUNK of metal I always put down to the fact that it basically got BLASTED with magic lightning every time he transformed and if you wrapped the handle in anything organic it would have been burnt off every time. Also why it was a single formed piece and not fitted with brass pieces. Anything not made of whatever super metal or He-man himself would get wrecked.

The Powerswords design, which started with the toy, goes back to being indeed the key to Castle Grayskull. The crossguard was mend to be handles for turning it around in the lock of the door. Excellent entertaining video by the way! Danke sehr!

The 2000s aesthetic may be over the top, but it is to this date one of the best versions of Masters of the universe! The best blend of serious and campy and exaggerated that only the 2000s could provide!

The early 00s sword actually had unnecessary clockwork in that showed during the transformation, as to help draw in primordial cosmic magic. Tone wise, it wasn't dark grit but more grand epic with brave & mighty heroes and deeper lore.

19:46 This. I'm glad this point was brought up, normal swords shattering under superhuman strength is something that used to be ignored in sword discussion. Heck, the only fantasy I remember bringing it up is Eragon whereby the problem of him breaking his own weapons is (at least at first) hilariously solved by our hero using a incredibly heavily enchanted walking stick. Paolini pulled a Shad before Shad pulled a Shad.

You seem to have missed that originally the power sword was also a key when combined with skeletor’s used to gain access to castle grayskull and its secrets. The “hilt” is a pair of handles for turning the key. Perhaps there was a better way to design it for this purpose, but that’s why it originally looked like that. The animated version was filmation looking at the toys and reimagining the entire story based on their own preferences

Michael Cthulhu made one that looks real good, but typical for his swords, might definitely need He-Man to swing effectively.

I remember watching this show when I was a kid. We'd just moved houses, and they were doing re-runs on cartoon network. Probably one of the big reasons why I have an interest in swords and the fantasy genre. Thank you, He-Man

The He-Man action figure I had came with an Axe if I remember right. I think he had a shield too.

Fun topic! I'd love to see more on other weapons of iconic 80s franchises like ThunderCats and Ninja Turtles.

Thank you he-man for making the bodybuilding forums so popular

When I was a kid and the New Adventures of He-Man came out I always figured that little rod where the riccasso should be was some kind of battery or power source. The guard then was designed to protect the battery from the most direct harm, but left open on the sides to vent heat.

Originally it was a 2-part key to controlling Grayskull... So the first one looks like a huge key.

The He-Man universe is literally the perfect setting for science fantasy. You get the best of both worlds, enchanted swords and laser guns.

By the power of grayskall.

Theory: He-Man has demonstrated the ability to block magic and energy/ranged attacks with the sword, and he often does it with the flat. So maybe the extra-wide base of the sword makes it easier to deflect with - and as Skal mentioned, the extra weight means nothing to He-Man. So ironically, the guard IS a guard after all, but for ranged attacks.

If I recall correctly in the 2000 series there was going to be a storyline where He-Man lost the SoP, so Man at Arms created a mechanically Magik sword to serve as a substitute, until the SoP was retrieved. That was scrapped, but they decided to keep the clockwork sword for some reason. As an aside, the 2000 was definitely my favorite series story-wise,, but yeeeeesh that sword is ugly.

The Filmation Power Sword is by far the most memorable and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. When they added the jewel to the center to make She-ra’s sword it really highlighted how great the shape of it was. The shot of the two swords embedded in rock side-by-side in The Secret of the Sword was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking. That’s why it’s my favorite. I would go so far as to say it’s the best sword design ever!

The 3D masters of the universe Netflix show had it’s own sword design too. Has more of a likeness to some giant computer chip or an alien rune on a handle than a sword might, yet i’m still rather fond of it for whatever reason! Probably cause it has faint transformers vibes. It’s definitely absurdly massive but since it’s also made of this hard light it’d hard to say how hefty it would be.

The original reason the 2000s he-man had techy sword was gonna be that Skeletor actually obtained He-man half of the power sword. So Man-at-arms had to make him the new sword.

This was a fun step back to childhood. Heman and Thundercats started my interest in blades back in the 1980's.

Fun video! I am 40 years old now, and grew up with the old school he-man show, and bought all the seasons on DVD a few years ago to rewatch them and recapture my childhood in a way… They are so bad. So so so bad. And I still watched every single one of them 😂 Honestly my favorite part about that show was the cast of characters other than prince Adam/he-man… Heroes and villains.

Hey skall can you make one for Fire Emblem swords too like your old armorslayer video? I'm suggesting Falchion, Exalted Falchion, Audhulma, Sword of the Creator, Yato etc.

The original Alcala power sword from the first mini comics is one of the best interpretations imo. I was sad I didn't see it here.

In the 2002 Cartoon you can see that prince Adam is not even able to use the sword effectively unless he tranforms into He-Man. At the start of the show it even is to heavy for him to really swing it and later he is able to use it but only with two hands and even then he tires out very quickly. So even though it is the worst He-Man sword it is somewhat realistic with how Adam can or rather can't use it right.

it would be interesting though to see the OG Sword of Power but cast in Aluminium, that way you can wield a chunky paddle but in one hand and at the very least it would probably make you FEEL super powerful to be able to swing a sword like that around in one hand

To be fair the 2002 sword was originally meant to be something Man at Arms created for Adam to become He-man again after losing the original sword to Skelator but after they decided to reboot the 80's series instead of continuing it they decided to keep the sword's design the same for some reason.

I maintain that if Queen had done the soundtrack then Masters of the Universe would have been every bit as fondly-remembered as the equally cheesy Flash Gordon. Despite it's other many flaws, Frank Legalla absolutely killed it as Skeletor.

Oh my God... I forgot about him literally punching Castle Grayskull's foundations and yeeting it into a portal. That show was wild.

I remember the first time I saw that live-action Masters of the Universe movie, I had turned on the TV and it was playing. I didn't even realize it was supposed to be He-Man, it was just a generic '80s sci-fantasy movie.

Excellent points regarding the functionality of the different versions of the He Man sword.

Still a fan boy with 41 years of age i always liked the Dolph Lundgren version the most, thanks for the video!

If you had Skeletor aswell you could clip their swords together to make a mega huge sword. Was hoping to see it. Hope is the first step on the road towards disappointment.

I actually never liked the sword's design as a kid in the 80s, but the shield and axe designs were great in my young eyes.

It's worth noting that for many of these there were child -sized actual toys. I had the OG sword as a child and the guard was open - like a sai. There was also a version of the new adventures sword which was a solid block in the centre to house a speaker and batteries.

The 2002 reboot sword was originally intended to be a replacement for the original sword of power that Man-At-Arms built after Skeletor stole the original.

Secret Galaxy has a video on the crazy path the Masters of the Universe live-action film took to get made. Highly recommend.

fwoly huck, there's much more He-Man material than i ever thought. Interesting to learn about it through your channel! I didn't see the one from the 3D animated show that came out a few years ago being ranked here, but I presume that it'd be rated closer to the lower end of things. Interesting video all in all! Thank you for making it, and wish you a lot of fun on the future ones!

Woot woot I got the W 😁 Thanks @Skallagrim for the kudos. I actually made that sword in my second year of making swords back in like 08 or 09. I made it for my own enjoyment because I was a mad heman fan as a kid, and hey when you start making swords what are you going to do? 🤷‍♂️🗡💪 But you're right I've always endeavoured to interpret fantasy design in functional terms, and enjoy that challenge. 😊 Keep up the great work. 👍 may the power of Grayskull be with you!

One thing I did like about the 2002 design was the idea that the sword changes shape when he goes from Adam to He-Man, which accounts for why nobody wonders why Adam carries He-Man's sword everywhere (or pulls it from nowhere like on the old 'toon) because their swords look different. Not sure if it was worth the clunky mechanical upgrade, but it helped fill in some logical gaffes.

A video finally came out before I got to work, hell yeah

Never watched the original show but I played the shit out of my uncles toys. Both of the castles were neat. I watched the 2000s version and owned quite a few of the action figures, was awesome to see my aunt and uncle analyzing the new desings and stuff.

Great great freaking job with the research!! And the explanation!!! This was an amazing video!

This was my role model growing up, i adored He-Man and had many toys. This was my ideal to aspire to be like, the quintessential of how a man is supposed to be.

I think the point with the 00s sword was that it transformed to look different between Prince Adam and He-Man. During the transformation sequence you see parts moving around like a transformer to help Prince Adam hide his secret identity of He-Man.

I was thinking about this while watching the 2021 remake He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The sword is less a bladed weapon and more a circuit board in the rough shape of a sword. It looks heavy and clunky, and gets ridiculously wide when it powers up, much like the character himself. If it weren't for the sword's role in the plot, it would be almost completely useless. I always preferred She-Ra's Sword of Protection, for the reason that it can morph into different weapons and tools with a thought. Both She-Ra series have done this, and I can't imagine a more practical weapon than one you can turn into anything on the fly. I like the one from the newer She-Ra better, since the original was just a clone of He-Man's sword, though I would still have made the cross guard longer so it could actually block something. Most importantly, the sword could heal rather than just hurt, which is an enormous asset on and off the battlefield.

fun fact about He-Man's axe... at the end of the movie Conan the Destroyer, when Dagoth is already a monster, Conan is wielding both a sword and an axe. You don't even have to look too closely to see that the axe is basically identical to He-Man's! The fact always amazed me, and I've never been able to find any info about it, but they are way too similar to be by chance

Maybe one day we'll get a proper film version, for the grown men that watched it as kids.

Finally! An arms and armor program that really delves deap into the hard questions.

I always thought that the hilt was telescopic, why hasn't anyone thought of that? The huge part of the blade against the ricasso is hollow ground in such way that it looks bulky, but is light enough to make a nimble sword.

I like Skall had that picture of He-man up and never comments about him wielding a freaking double axe instead of the sword.

The 80s He man got me into swords.

Love this. Fell in love with the show a long time ago

8:20 I can _guarantee_ that the movie sword was designed to be a cross between Conan's movie sword and the Masters cartoon sword. It was a Cannon movie. Cannon's main focus as a studio was to latch on to trends (preferably before they got played out) and exploit them. _Conan_ had come out just 5 years before, which means it was still popular in the video stores and there were still blatant knock-offs being made every year. Anything that evoked that movie was going to get some extra attention.

As a kid, I loved the He-Man movie!

Just wanted to say that you're dropping bangers lately, really enjoying them!

My pick is and always will be the Filmation sword. What a simple but uniquely beautiful work of art!

if you saw the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe 2021 version you would probably just cry its designed to be almost as big as he is.

What about the new He man Sword from the series version where Adam is raised by Cringer's tribe. Both He Man and his sword are ridiculously large

This is a good topic. I loved He-man as a kid

Conan Atlantean sword fills the role also quite well, the Windlass version for example. It might not be well suited for cutting, but it's good for training. And when you train with it, it will make you more powerful eventually. After training with the sword weighting 3,6kg even just for few minutes, every other sword feels quite light in your hand after that. It really strengthens muscles in your hand and gives you more power for sword use, even the heavier ones, and you won't have to be complaining about weight of the sword anymore. This training method can allow you to wield even the heaviest swords with really fast speeds creating enormous amout of power. So training with it really can give you almost He-man like strength at least for sword use.

The original and first one, period. The conformal round shapes in pearly steel just makes it really special and iconic. The other versions are just generic tryhard trash.

Well that was a blast of nostalgia

*Peasant + Excalibur = King Arthur* *Prince Adam + Sword of Power = Heman!* Swords are cool 😆

That bit about swinging a sword with superhuman strength was a funny bit of story in the original Utawarerumono where the warrior woman Karulau needs to have a sword custom made specifically so that it doesn't break when she swings it. Thing is the things turns into what is basically a giant metal club with a somewhat sharpened edge. Also, the thing turned out to be so heavy that not even the strongest regular strength warrior present could even lift the behemoth of its stand. Karulau of course swings the thing around like its a twig.

the reason the 200x sword looks this way is because the four horsemen thought it would be cool if in the story skeletor broke the original power sword so man at arms created a mechanical sword that can harness the power of grayskull but they eneded up scrapping this concent in the show but the design of the sword stayed

Wow....was this a nearly 23 minute long ad for that last one? Naww...I can totally agree with all Skal's points and criticisms of each sword represented here. I don't know of anyone who has broken down the science and explained it so thoroughly as it was here. Also.... this dude should seriously be considered as a prop director for Hollywood in any future fantasy films, dude legit knows his trade.

Thor needs a special belt to wield Mjolnir (mythic Thor, not movie Thor). Magical fur briefs are needed to wield the Sword Of Power.

Funnily enough my favourite is the 2000s one, like if you look at the super early artwork for He-Man he's got this whole superhuman barbarian thing going on, so therefore a ridiculous overdesigned gnarly looking sword just kind of fits the look for me

I thought it was neat when the original toys came out that He-Man's sword was part of a two sword key. Skeletor had the other sword and when both were combined it was used to open castle grayskull. I was really interested in the shield and the battle axe, but in the 80's I never saw He-Man use them.

great video love it great work

I loved the 2002 show and that sword design has always stuck with me, so I think they did something right. They made it look cool to kids, and it did to me.

I just want to let you know that I loved the introduction up until 1m30s. Nice! XD

Saw the 200's show as a kid and I liked how the sword would disguise itself when Adam wasn't He-Man. Though if I were to see that idea revisited, I'd likw it to be a magical geas or something that makes it appear like a normal sword, rather then the tech look they went with in that iteration. As I've grown older, I"ve gained a greater preference for the fantasical over the realistic. Realism is nice to an extent in sci-fi fantasy but it shouldn't dominate. Leave that to the hard sci-fi genre.

I love He-Man. He’s so bad that he doesn’t have to cut you, hit you, or say mean things to you to kick your ass.

The mid handle of the New Adventures sword is his “switch” when he calls on the power. He Man holds the middle handle of that sword when he demands a “power up” from the magic.

I like the movie sword... the fuller makes the blade look vaguelly sci-fi whilst the guard looks fantasy. It looks more like a drawn from memory Atlantian Sword than He-man's but hey ho, I still dig it

MOTU and Beastmaster 2. There had to be something in the water during the 80s that explains why we got two sword and sorcery movies that bring the heroes from their home planet to earth for the majority of the movie.

Sees Battle Armor He-Man as the background image: "Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well." Also, 200X's sword is cleary inspired by Garrison's sword from Battle Chasers.

Loved this. Perfect video to have on while finishing up some late night work with my MOTU Oragins collection on display above me :)

in the '87 film, I believe Anthony De Longis called the power sword a "Buick cleaver"

That live action movie was a blast. But... I've only seen it once. At a point where memories kinda fade into and out of each other. But I very clearly remember Skeletor's words. "So tell me He-man. Is the loneliness of Good the same as the loneliness of Evil?" Like up until that point the movie was this fun Space adventure that suddenly fucked you up in seconds at the end. Yes. Dolph was a great choice but my God no one could have said that line any better at the time.

In the case of the 200X Sword of Power, there is a purpose to the small notches on one side of the "fuller plate?" Okay, Deep Cuts Story Time: Way back in 1982 when the Masters of the Universe toys premiered, there was no cartoon show. The Story, at the time, was told by a series of mini-comics packaged with the action figures. Surprisingly, these were quite different from the story that would be developed for the cartoon a year later. Way more Conan the Barbarian than Saturday Morning Toy Cartoon. Anyways, one of the original play features of the line was that both He-Man AND Skeletor had a half of the Sword of Power (He-Man's was grey, Skeletor's was purple). These sword accessories were made so that they could slot together to form the true Sword of Power, that was, in fact the Key to Castle Greyskull! You can see this in the first Master of the Universe toy commercial, where they mention using the sword to unlock the Jaw-Bridge. So the notches on the 200x sword of Power are a Super deep cut reference to the fact that the original toy Sword of Power was also a key! (Bonus Deeper Cut - Filmation, the company who developed the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon, has a previous cartoon Blackstar (1980) that also featured a strongman with a magic sword fighting an evil wizard with the other half of said magic sword, in a sci-fi fantasy realm full of monsters and magic! Blackstar even had Alan Oppenhiemer (the original voice of Skeletor) playing the evil wizard, The Overlord, the villain to Blackstar himself! Full discolsure, I LOVED Blackstar as a kid, and basically watched He-Man nostalgically (at the tender age of 13) and lamented noticing all the assets they re-used from Backstar in He-Man. No mater what others say, those two shows are intrinsically linked. We now return you to your regular scheduled Skallagrim Nerdery.

Thanks for being forgiving of the original sword. I had fun looking at the history of He-man swords.

that opening heman pic totally reinforces my feeling that the 80s had more to do with double axes being iconic weaponry than any real point in history when they were actually a thing.

3:09 - bruh, I will never accept a He-Man that skipped leg day.

I was pretty sure that Skal was going to say that the best version was the double axe from that illustration shown throughout the whole video LOL THAT would've been a nice plot twist

This is the episode that I have been waiting for. By the power of Gray-Skall!

I need one. My battle damage He-Man is missing his. I've got over 80 original figures.

It's thick because its a key to castle ggrayskull. Thanks for the content.

It's interesting seeing how the OG sword of power is designed, because I think it actually works with how He Man actually fights. If you get down to it, he doesn't really use the sword like a sword; more like a tool for countering, defending, etc. Skal said it himself, the guy could lift anything and smack someone with it and it'd work fine. So why is the sword so heavy in awkward places? Because that's a perfect setup for He Man, Adam, to use it defensively. It's wide, so its great for catching parries on the flat, it has a sturdy but still lighter blade compared to the lower portion near the hilt, so maneuvering it quickly has to be easy. The short grip and roughly arming sword length allows him to quickly stow it and have a free hand to punch, grapple, etc. It's not designed for killing capability: it's designed for a hero that doesn't necessarily need to use it to kill. In fact, he doesn't kill very often at all, as far as I know.

And the todays sponsor - Fable Blades!

From what I've seen, the choice to make the movie be on earth wasn't so much a budget decision as a "creative" one. Apparently, the director didn't realize the ip had magic in it, and he hated that. So he removed as much as he could.

19:37 - Little known fact, this is actually part of the justification for Thor having Mjolnir, as he never had the same sword, spear, or axe every battle since his sheer strength would just break and shatter them with minimal effort, so Mjolnir being a hammer made by the dwarfs to be unbreakable was the only thing that would survive his immense strength.

Oh, He-Man! I remember when they still cared, loved the early 2000's series, I used to play with toys imagining myself having adventures having a similar sword but with the executioner sword's blade. Oh , Skall should do a Dragon Quest analysis, both weapons and armor! There are some pretty good, historically accurate designs and there are some crazy fantasy ones, I'm sure he'd enjoy it, both ironically and unironically.

I love these video types so much more when you come in with the mouse pointer and Photoshop and circle and reshape things. Love your videos still.

My only experience with He-Man was one VHS with a couple episodes, and I loved it. Then I saw the most recent one and nothing in between

20:50 that real-life version seems to have a offset fuller with more mass on one side than the other prehaps a designated cutting side

Nice but what about He Man's *Double Bladed Axe!?* I LOVED that weapon as a Kid! 🙌