Queen Marlena

This article is about the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe character. You may be looking for the original character.

Queen Marlena as seen in the Filmation animated series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.

History[]

In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Marlena's role is fairly limited, often serving no purpose except to sit beside King Randor during scenes in their throne room. Many episodes suggest nothing of her origins, although on occasion her background is used to justify an Earth-based reference in dialogue.

Her history is first depicted in Teela's Quest, in which she uses a new device to project her memories for Adam to witness the events that led to the crash. Further details are provided in The Rainbow Warrior, which shows the aftermath of the crash and her first encounter with Randor. It is implied in the episode's dénouement that she may also actually know that He-Man is her son's alter ego.

Marlena's ship is named "the space probe Valiant" in "Teela's Quest," but is called the Rainbow Explorer in "The Rainbow Warrior." In both of these appearances, it is consistently depicted as a one-person craft, apparently making it impossible for the Evil Warriors to have formerly been her crew as suggested in the series bible.

In Visitors from Earth, another Earth spaceship is accidentally brought to Eternia, and its crew recognize Marlena. She is offered an opportunity to return with them, but the queen decides that her place is with her family.

The development of the She-Ra: Princess of Power series required the revelation that Adam has a twin sister, and so the episode Reunions establishes that Adam's sister Adora was kidnapped as a baby by Hordak, and that the Sorceress erased any memory of her existence from the Eternian people to spare them the pain of Adora's loss. Only Marlena, Randor, and Man-At-Arms were allowed to retain the memory of Adora's existence until Adam recovers her from Etheria.

Although most Masters of the Universe stories ostensibly take place in the present day, albeit on another planet, Marlena's backstory makes this improbable since her mission and her spacecraft are beyond the technological capabilities of the 1980s, or even the 2010s. Her references to Earth do not clearly establish the time period from which she originated, and it is conceivable that she is from the future. This would suggest either that her journey to Eternia took her across both space and time, or that He-Man's adventures take place in the same century from which his mother originates. Trouble in Arcadia reveals that Marlena was among the first female space explorers in Earth's history, which in retrospect would seem to place her career in the 1980s. However, the episode originally aired only a few months after Sally Ride became the first American woman in space and years before a woman would command a shuttle mission--at the time, it would have been possible to conceive of Marlena being a pioneer even decades later.