She-Ra

• 1. Introduction

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  For the honor of Grayskull, I am She-Ra. Those words, spoken to a sword, turn a soldier named Adora into the superheroine of the Masters of the Universe franchise. She-Ra began as a toy line and a minicomic. She then became the star of two animated series made more than thirty years apart. Her story changes sharply from one version to the next, and so does her personality. How did a toy company and a cartoon studio build her? Why does the newest version barely resemble the first? And who is Despara, the darker persona that follows her through the franchise?

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• 2. A Toy Line's Twin

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  In 1984, Mattel produced a series of toys under the name She-Ra. Her creators had a plain goal for the 1985 cartoon. Filmation, the studio behind the He-Man series, wanted to extend the appeal of the Masters of the Universe setting to young girls, in the same way that He-Man appealed to young boys. Filmation writers Larry DiTillio and J. Michael Straczynski created her backstory.

  The minicomic The Story of She-Ra, published in 1984, holds her first appearance. It shipped with the original She-Ra action figure, which reached stores in 1985. The story opens with the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull haunted by a nightmare memory. Baby Princess Adora is taken from the royal palace of Eternia by the warlord Hordak and carried off to Etheria. Her twin brother, Adam, who is He-Man, is later sent to find her.

  The comic also carries one of the first published appearances of both Hordak and Catra. This Catra is no sidekick. She is the main antagonist and a powerful sorceress who can turn people into werecats. When the story reached the screen in 1985, it followed the comic almost beat for beat, but Catra's role shrank.

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• 3. The Secret of the Sword

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  At 91 minutes, the 1985 film He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword gave audiences their first look at Adora on screen. The film shifts its focus away from He-Man and toward a new character. She first appears as Force Captain Adora, a loyal officer of the Horde that rules Etheria. Then comes the reveal. She is Princess Adora, abducted as an infant by Hordak and Skeletor, who hid her true heritage and raised her as a warrior.

  The film also shows that He-Man's power sword has a twin, the Sword of Protection. When Adora wields it to summon the power of Grayskull, she becomes She-Ra, the female counterpart to He-Man. The gamble paid off. The movie grossed over three times its two-million dollar production budget. Filmation later cut it into shorter segments and aired them as the first several episodes of She-Ra: Princess of Power.

  During the 1985 Christmas season, Filmation aired He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special in syndication. He-Man's original series had broadcast its last new episode the month before, while Princess of Power was still in its first season. The special begins with Queen Marlena remembering Christmases on Earth. After misadventures set off by Orko, the twins face Hordak and Horde Prime, with Skeletor on their side. A pair of Earthling children, a peculiar pup and the spirit of Christmas have briefly softened his bone-hard heart. It was the twins' biggest joint adventure since the film.

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• 4. Rebel of Etheria

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  A red leotard with long white sleeves, red boots with matching gauntlets and a black belt made up Adora's uniform. She wore it as a mind-controlled Force Captain, and she kept wearing it throughout the series after she joined the Rebels. The turn came when the Sorceress sent Adam and Cringer to Etheria to find the rightful owner of the Sword of Protection. Through the jewel in the sword, the Sorceress told Adora that the Horde had taken her as a baby and that she had a twin brother. Adora believed it instantly.

  Love for her brother, and the sight of him in trouble, broke the spell. Adora became She-Ra and freed the captured He-Man. She then jumped from a window and crashed into the Horde stables, landing on her mount, Spirit. The sword's power transformed Spirit into Swift Wind, a talking winged unicorn, and the two flew ahead to warn the Rebellion. He-Man and She-Ra returned to Eternia together. She decided to go back to Etheria so she could help free the planet from the Horde.

  Whenever Adora transforms, two castles appear behind her. The first is Castle Grayskull. The second is Crystal Castle, which sits atop Skydancer Mountain and is overseen by an entity called Light Hope, who advises her in times of crisis. In the toy line, two winged crystal horses named Moonbeam and Sun Dancer also guard it. Only Ahgo, King of the Trolls, and the allies who share the secrets of She-Ra and He-Man know where it stands. She swore to keep it hidden, which earned her the title Defender of the Crystal Castle.

  Trained by the Horde her entire life, Adora took command of the Great Rebellion. Unlike Adam, who often feigned laziness to hide his identity, she never acted against her nature. She was always seen as brave and selfless. Several episodes imply that she has romantic feelings for the rebel pirate Captain Sea Hawk, who is drawn to her as Adora rather than as She-Ra. In the extended universe, they marry and have children who join their battles. She travels with Sea Hawk aboard his Solar Sailor, which can now fly through space and air, ride the sea and dive beneath it. She also journeys with He-Man aboard the Starship Eternia as one of the Galaxy Defenders.

  Neither series reached a conclusion, because both were cancelled before the Horde's fate was settled. Episodes did show the citizens and kingdoms of Etheria slowly rising up against its tyranny.

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• 5. Strength and Sword

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  Mountain-like rocks and whole buildings fall within She-Ra's lifting range, along with full-grown men and robots. She is also fast and acrobatic enough to deflect several incoming energy blasts with her sword. Her other abilities are gentler. She shows empathic understanding, communicates mentally with animals and can heal. Even so, she is largely non-violent and fights only as a last resort. Several episodes force her back into the form of Adora, which suggests her powers have limits.

  The Sword of Protection is her primary weapon, and it appears almost indestructible. It deflects bolts of magical and technological energy and projects beams from the stone at its center. That same stone powers Spirit's change into Swift Wind. He-Man's Sword of Power works differently. Its beam fires from the tip and must be pointed straight at Cringer to make him Battle Cat. On command, her sword also reshapes itself into whatever she needs, such as a shield, a parachute, a helmet, a rope with a grappling hook or a boomerang.

  The sword has weak points. In one episode its stone is damaged, and she cannot transform at all. In another, Shadow Weaver captures Adora's voice. The sword answers only to a spoken command, so without her voice Adora cannot become She-Ra.

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• 6. Princesses of Power

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  On the 12th of December 2017, DreamWorks Animation and Netflix announced a reboot of She-Ra. Author ND Stevenson, creator of Nimona and Lumberjanes, served as executive producer. The cast, a poster and the title She-Ra and the Princesses of Power were revealed on the 18th of May 2018. The series premiered on Netflix on the 13th of November 2018. He-Man has no place in this version and is not related to Adora in any way. The reboot is a reimagining, linked to the older franchise mainly through Hordak and the Horde, which came from the toy line, and through one spelling of Greyskull in her transformation chant.

  This Adora grows up inside the Horde alongside Catra, under the mentor and mother figure Shadow Weaver. She is taught from infancy that the princesses are evil. Promoted to Force Captain, she sneaks out of the base one day and finds the Sword of Protection. Rebels Princess Glimmer and Bow capture her, and she learns that the Horde are the real oppressors. She joins the rebellion and struggles to master her new powers.

  Her defection hurts Catra, whose feelings of abandonment harden into resentment. Adora eventually sees her closest friend as an enemy when Catra nearly destroys Etheria out of spite. Catra later regains Adora's friendship and helps defeat the Horde. Then Adora learns she descends from the First Ones, a colonizer race that weaponized Etheria to harvest its magic in the Heart of Etheria project. She is also told that Light Hope brought her to Etheria to fulfill a mission. To prevent the planet's destruction, she destroys the Sword of Protection, which leaves Etheria open to invasion by Horde Prime. She later regains the ability to become She-Ra. Only she can restore Etheria's magic, and the attempt might kill her. Catra saves her, and the two finally express their romantic feelings.

  The character looks different, too. This Adora appears much younger and becomes considerably taller only as She-Ra. Her costume is a full tunic with metallic epaulets, bike-short style leggings under a skirt and armored boots with flat soles. In the second season she discovers that her sword can become any weapon or tool, though her control is imperfect. After she destroys the sword in the season 4 finale, she cannot transform until halfway through season 5. She then returns with a new look that fans nicknamed She-Ra 2.0, including a ponytail, a smaller-winged headpiece and a sword that becomes a mystic projection.

  Alex Abad-Santos of Vox praised the first season for fleshing her out, calling this Adora "more human than the original". David Griffin of IGN was more critical. He felt her sudden lifestyle change was rushed and her great strength drained the show of suspense. Critics widely welcomed her openly lesbian relationship with Catra, calling the pair "captivating" and "groundbreaking".

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• 7. Despara

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  In 2008, Mattel launched the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline, which tries to build a new canon by merging selected pieces of existing media with new story elements. The tale unfolds through minicomics packed with the figures and biographies printed on the packaging. In this version, King Grayskull trapped Hordak in the dimension of Despondos, and Hordak's apprentice Skeletor kidnaps Adora and sends her to Etheria. After her time with the Horde, she returns to Eternia to help He-Man defeat Hordak, who has overthrown King Randor. She follows her brother into space, where they fight the Horde Empire's ruler, Horde Prime, on the planet Primus. At some point in the future, Horde Prime possesses her, and she returns as the villain Despara.

  In December 2012, She-Ra starred in her own DC Comics series, a lead-in to her arrival in the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe comic. It retells her origin with a harsher edge. She is still kidnapped as a baby and raised by the Horde, but her life is more violent and tragic than in the cartoon. Here, Despara is Adora's Horde name. She is a brutal Force Captain who knows how cruel the Horde is and serves it willingly, though with some reservations. Instead of ruling Etheria already, she leads the Horde in conquering Eternia and drives He-Man, King Randor and the Masters into hiding. A connection with Teela begins to loosen the Horde's hold on her, and her journey toward becoming She-Ra begins.

  That series fed into DC's larger Masters of the Universe comic, which ran from 2012 to 2018. It formed a roughly 1,000 page single story arc, collected in the 2019 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Omnibus hardcover.

  In 2024, Rob David and Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe: Revolution brought her to Netflix as the third part of the 2021 animated series. She appears first in a flashback in the third episode, when Hordak kidnaps her as a baby. Her Despara persona then appears in the epilogue of the fifth episode, voiced by Grey DeLisle. In the Dark Horse tie-in comic Masters of the Universe: Revolution #4, Despara appears at the end of the story. A variant cover asks the question "Who is Despara?"

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• 8. Verdicts and Next Steps

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  Viewers of the original series mostly regard She-Ra as a positive role model for women. Some critics have faulted her as a poor female counterpart to He-Man. Her path to the big screen has been less settled than her place on television.

  Concept art by production designer William Stout was commissioned for a She-Ra appearance in the 1987 film Masters of the Universe. Director Gary Goddard felt the first film should concentrate on He-Man, and it turned out to be the only film. She-Ra was planned for the sequel, but it was cancelled and rewritten into Cyborg. Her equivalent character there, Nady Simmons, was played by Deborah Richter.

  On the 13th of September 2021, Amazon announced a live action She-Ra series in development, with DreamWorks Animation as an executive producer. It will be a new, standalone story, unconnected to the 2018 animated show. On the 4th of October 2024, Heidi Schreck was announced as its writer. Amazon MGM Studios is also producing the 2026 Masters of the Universe film adaptation, but it remains unknown whether the series will connect to that movie.

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