In the 1980s, both the original Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power toylines were very white indeed, with the only two black characters, Clamp Champ and Netossa, introduced at the very tail end of either line. This is something of a surprise, since other Mattel toylines were a lot more diverse at the time. Barbie has had black friends since 1966 and by the 1980s, you could get black, Asian and Hispanic Barbies as well as an array of multicultural friends in addition to the standard blonde and white Barbie.
But even though the Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power toylines were very white, both the mini-comics and the Filmation cartoons depicted a more racially diverse Eternia and to a lesser degree Etheria. The Filmation cartoon had a recurring black character in the royal archaeologist Melaktha (who still hasn’t had a figure in any toyline) plus various background characters of colour and also occasionally sent He-Man to visit other kingdoms on Eternia whose inhabitants happened to be not white.
Meanwhile, the Masters of the Universe mini-comics usually stuck closer to the actual toyline they were supposed to advertise, though there were several instances of characters looking very different from the final toys – usually because the comics were based on early prototypes. And the third wave of mini-comic from 1984 also featured several stories where He-Man and friends battles not Skeletor and his Evil Warriors, but one-of villains who never had toys in the original line.
One of these one-of villains from the mini-comics was a character called Geldor. He appeared in the 1984 mini-comic “The Secret Liquid of Life”, written by Michael Halperin and drawn by Larry Houston, where Geldor commanded an army of monsters and did anything necessary to obtain the titular liquid and eternal life, only to be thwarted by He-Man and his friends. “The Secret Liquid of Life” is definitely one of the better and more iconic mini-comics of the vintage era. You can watch a dramatised reading here.
In addition to the fact that the entire supporting cast of “The Secret Liquid of Life” consists of original characters, it’s also notable that all of those original characters – the villain Geldor, his unnamed wizard goon, the sage Torgul, his daughter Maran and the heroic Prince Dakon, childhood friend of Prince Adam and Maran’s fiancé, are black. Indeed, Larry Houston, the artist who designed the characters for the mini-comic, based Geldor on Mr. T. As can be seen in this scan of the original artwork, Larry Houston also explicitly included a note for the colourist that Geldor is supposed to have white hair and black skin.
But while Geldor never had an action figure in the original toyline, he has since appeared in action figure form twice, once in the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline, where he won a fan’s choice contest (a win that apparently was controversial, since international fans favoured Geldor, while many American fans favoured a character named Illumina), and once in the Masters of the Universe Origins line.
I happen to own both Geldor figures, so I took a photo of them standing side by side:
The Masters of the Universe Classics and Origins figures of Geldor side by side. The Classics Geldor has a glass of the secret liquid of life as well as his iconic axe. The Origins Geldor has no glass, but a whopping three axes for maximum chopping action.
If you look at the two Geldors side by side, you’ll note that they’re very similar except for the size difference. You’ll also note something else. Both of them are pretty light-skinned.
So what happened here? Did Mattel whitewash one of the comparatively few characters of colour from the early years of Masters of the Universe? And if so, why?
Personally, what I suspect happened is that the Masters of the Universe Classics version of Geldor, which was the first time the character ever appeared as a toy, came out a little bit paler than intended. Because if you compare Geldor to other Classics figures, his skin tone is a tad darker than that of He-Man or other white characters, but not as dark as other cannonically black characters like Clamp Champ or Netossa or Dekker or Zodak with a K, all of whom had figures in the Classics line. If you look at the original mini-comic, Geldor’s skin tone as well as that of the other characters also varies throughout the comic. This isn’t uncommon for the Masters of the Universe mini-comics – the colouring was often off, even for characters who did have toys.
It seems to me as if the skin tone of the Masters of the Universe Classics Geldor came out a bit lighter than intended. This might have happened at the factory during the final production, though this video of the Mattel display at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con gives a glimpse of what is likely the Geldor prototype and he’s pretty light-skinned, too.
I checked the director’s commentary video by Masters of the Universe Classics brand manager Scott Neitlich on his YouTube channel to see if he addresses Geldor’s skin colour, but he doesn’t. The video mostly focusses on the fan’s choice contest Geldor won and the related controversy. I also checked contemporary reviews of the Classics figure to see if any of them address the fact that Geldor is lighter skinned than he should be and found that only the review on the German fansite Planet Eternia (which pushed Geldor in the fan choice contest, earning them the ire of the American fans of Illumina) and the review on It’s All True address the issue in passing, mostly along the lines of “Huh? I thought Geldor was supposed to be black.” The It’s All True review also puts Geldor next to the Masters of the Universe Classics figure of Dekker, another black character with white hair, to show the difference between the two.
Meanwhile, the artwork on the unofficial bio of Geldor depicts him as black once again and also connects Geldor to the slave city of Targa from another 1984 mini-comic also drawn by Larry Houston.
Last year, almost exactly to the day ten years after he appeared in the Classics line, Geldor received his second action figure in the Masters of the Universe Origins line. The figure was sold exclusively on Mattel Creations and as of this writing, he is still available. This time around, Geldor looks pretty unambiguously white, both as a figure as well as in the artwork on the back of his package and the accompanying mini-comic.
This is quite surprising, especially since Mattel has even integrated the Rulers of the Sun, a toyline from the 1980s which was specifically created by a black mother as a response to the overwhelming whiteness of Masters of the Universe and other toylines of the era and which featured diverse characters of multiple races, into Masters of the Universe and made all the Rulers of the Sun characters, both produced and unproduced, as part of the Origins line. So Mattel clearly doesn’t have an issue with black characters in Masters of the Universe. So why is Geldor once again portrayed as light-skinned in his Origins incarnation?
Now I don’t know for sure, but what I suspect happened is that the designers of the Origins Geldor figure looked primarily to the Classics figure rather than the original mini-comic for inspiration – note how similar the headsculpts are – and simply had no idea that Geldor had originally been portrayed as black.
Interestingly, in the mini-comic that came with the Origins Geldor figure, “Plague of the Immortal”, written by Joshua Sky and illustrated by Tim Lattie, Geldor is portrayed as white, while his opponent Prince Dakon, returning from the original mini-comic, is still black and Geldor’s late wife, who never appeared in the original mini-comic, is black as well. Again, you can watch a dramatised reading of the comic here. A lot of people criticise the Origins mini-comics, but I quite like this one. Not only is it a direct sequel to the original mini-comic, but it also explains why Geldor was so eager to achieve immortality in the first place. Last but not least, Geldor learns the error of his ways in the end and is reformed, which is a more satisfying ending than “He got eaten by a tree, but then he got better.”
So it seems that Geldor’s changing skintone is less a case of deliberate whitewashing but more of a mistake. Though Geldor is not the only Masters of the Universe character of colour who fell victim to whitewashing. Two characters from the New Adventures of He-Man, Vizar and Nocturna, suffered the same fate. Vizar is black in the New Adventures toyline, while Nocturna is Asian. However, in the New Adventures of He-Man cartoon, Vizar and Nocturna are both white and Nocturna is shown to blonde, when he takes off his helmet. And the German New Adventures comics, Vizar and Nocturna are not only both portrayed as white (and Vizar’s appearance is based on an early design), but they have also swapped names and abilities. Though once again, this seems to have happened more due to communication problems than out of malice. Neither Vizar nor Nocturna have ever been made again (and likely never will be), so we don’t know how later toylines would have portrayed these characters.
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