Some section of MOTU fandom expresses suspicions as to why, with such a plethora of characters available from the Masters of the Universe toy line, new characters such as Blade were added. The obvious answer is that new characters were created that could be licensed as new toys, which they were. However, a small number of fans controversially believe that the Masters movie is actually derivative of "Jack Kirby's Fourth World", featuring characters now found in the DC Comics Universe: Orion (He-Man), Kalibak (Beast Man), Kanto (Blade), and Darkseid (Skeletor). Cross-dimensional travel from Eternia to Earth is via a concept identical to the classic Boom Tube. There are many additional parallels to be drawn from the Fourth World source material to the characters in the film than from the He-Man material.
This viewpoint is chiefly in response to comments made in issue #497 of Comic Shop News by comic book writer/artist John Byrne who said, "The best New Gods movie, IMHO, is ´Masters of the Universe´. I even corresponded with the director, who told me this was his intent, and that he had tried to get [Jack] Kirby to do the production designs, but the studio nixed it."
"Check it out. It requires some bending and an occasional sex change (Metron becomes an ugly dwarf, The Highfather becomes the Sorceress), but it's an amazingly close analog, otherwise. And Frank Langella's Skeletor is a dandy Darkseid!"
Even though director Gary Goddard provided a commentary track for the film's DVD release that makes no such claim regarding any intent to produce a covert New Gods adaptation, he did send a letter to Byrne in 1994, which was printed in an issue of Next Men (issue #26 specifically). In the letter Goddard indicated that Byrne wasn't far off in his comparison between New Gods and Masters of the Universe movie, and that it was (in Goddard's words) "greatly inspired by the classic Fantastic Four/Doctor Doom epics, The New Gods and a bit of Thor thrown in here and there."
