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Mackenzi Lee, "Masters of the Universe: Teela: Daughter of Eternos" (Mattel, 2026)
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Welcome to the New Books Network.
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Hi, this is Rebecca Buchanan, host at New Book Network, and today I'm here with Mackenzie Lee to talk about her latest book, Teela Daughter of Eternos. Mackenzie, thanks for being here with me today.
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A
Thank you so much for having me.
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B
Could you start out by giving a bit of an overview of the book and what it's about before we jump into it?
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A
I would be thrilled to, though. I've done a few of these interviews now for promo, and I'm still not great at like succinctly summarizing it because I feel like there's layers on layers on layers that this book exists. And so this book exists in the world of the Masters of the Universe, which is of course, the 1980s cartoon that most people just know as He Man. So this is the world of he man and Skeletor and many of those great characters you possibly remember from your Saturday morning childhood cartoons. But so there is a live action film coming out on June 5th. And so this book takes place sort of in the world of that film. In particular, in the film we start out with he man, who is not he man yet, his prince, Adam of Eternia. And his he's been raised to be the the prince of Eternia to someday be the king. But he's kind of small and scrawny and not very good at fighting all those things that everybody thinks make a man. He's not very good at them, but he's saved from having to really deal with those by the fact that his world is taken over by the evil man with no face, Skeletor. And then Adam is sent to Earth to hide and sort of safely conceal himself until he's called home to Eternia. And so that's sort of the first like 10 minutes of the movie. And then there's a time jump to when he's an adult on Earth. So all that to Say the book takes place. The book is not about Adam. The book is not about he man. The book is actually about his best friend growing up when he was a kid. Everything he was bad at in warrior school, she was great at. Her name is Teela. She's the daughter of the king's man at arms and she is good at fighting and good at swords and she's cool and Adam's best friend and everything he's not. And when the world ends because Skeletor takes over, she is totally, totally at sea in terms of she had this whole future she had planned out for her. She was going to be a warrior of Eternia, she was going to protect the king, she was going to do what her father did. And now suddenly, the world she thought she was going to grow up in and become a part of and has always planned to be part of is gone. And now her world is about survival. She's living with a group of refugees in the forest of Eternia, hiding from Skeletor and trying to figure out how to rebuild their world and if it's even worth saving. So the book takes place. All that to say, the book takes place in sort of the time jump in between when Skeletor takes over Eternia and then when we rejoin the characters in the film. Teela is a teenager in this. Like I said, they're refugees in the forest hiding from Skeletor. And she is grappling with her new world. She's grappling with her role in it. She's trying to figure out how to help her people and what kind of warrior she wants to be and what kind of warrior she can be. And when their group of refugees, their camp is devastated by a magical rainstorm that leaves some of the people questioning whether that's even worth staying on Eternia at all. She makes a tentative alliance with the evil sorceress, Evil Lyn, greatest name in fictional, fictional canon of anything really. I wish more people would just announce their intentions through their names. But in spite of her, the titular evil name Teela makes a tentative alliance with her that will maybe save Eternia or maybe doom the entire camp. So that's my very long winded summary, but I really should get down to like 30 seconds or less. But it hasn't happened yet.
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B
I don't care. You, you have to. Because we have to. And I want to talk a bit about sort of entering a world that's already created, but can you, before we get to that, can you talk a little bit about how you came to write this book. Like, how did you sort of get roped in? I don't know if that's the right way to say it. Like, I don't mean that in a bad way. In a great way. Right.
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Like, roped in. I was positively roped into this. Roped in. Parentheses, complimentary. So I was not a Masters of the Universe kid when I was growing up, but I was an action figure kid. And that's what Masters of the Universe started out as a toy line. And I loved my Star wars action figures. My sister and I were obsessed with our Star wars action figures. I often joke that I learned how to plot a novel by playing with Star wars action figures. Because she was always looking to me, like, what's the plot? What's the story structure? They have to have character arcs. Like, she held me to a very high standard as a younger sister for the stories I came up with for our action figures, but. And I was always the one who had to drive the plot. She was just along for the ride. And there was like one moment as a kid that I remember where I like pulled off a twist in the action figure game where we had like a generic soldier figure that I was like, this was this character in disguise the whole time. And it like blew my sister's mind. And I feel like I've just been chasing that high ever since. Like, nothing will ever feel as good as. As it did when Molly's. Molly's 8 year old mind was blown by the twists I pulled off in our action figure game. So I loved action figures. And I was told, I've been told by my mother, that there was a Castle Grayskull playset in our orbit, but we used it for our Star wars action figures, not for the he man action figures. So I don't know how it was just another setting for Star wars characters to roam. But that being said, Star wars was like my franchise as a kid. Before it was cool to like Star wars and before there was like, Star wars everywhere the way there is now. And it has a lot in common with the Masters of the Universe franchise in terms of it sort of the, like swords and sorcery and it's technology, but also it's magic. And also it's a little bit dated. And the more. The deeper I sort of got into the franchise, the more I was like, oh, the reason I'm responding to this so strongly is because it reminds me of my great childhood. Love Star Wars. But anyway, so I wasn't a Masters of the Universe. Kid. And then about a year and a half ago, I got an email from my agent that an editor I had previously worked with at Marvel because I did a series of books for Marvel about anti heroes in the Marvel universe as teenagers. Um, there was an editor who I had worked with there who had moved over to Mattel and she was looking for somebody to do the Masters of the Universe book. And I initially sort of pooh poohed it. Cause I was like, I don't know anything about this franchise. He man's pretty silly. And then my agent sort of wrote back and was like, just take the meeting. I think it'd be really good. And also like, he man is silly. And that's a positive thing. Like, isn't this what you want to be doing? And haven't you been telling me how you want more like, joy and silliness and fun in your writing? And I was like, dang it, I have. So I ended up taking the, Taking the meeting and taking the job and fell sort of head first into this wild, zany, campy 80s world that I have truly, truly become a fan of. I've like, purchased merchandise for myself with no company discount because I like it so much. Like, and I got to see the movie the other night, which was so exciting because the book is so in. In conjunction with the movie. I like, I got to read the script early on. I got to see all the set photos that they were filming things. And I, in the moments before the movie started, I was sitting there, like, buzzing with excitement in a way that I have not felt before seeing a movie in such a long time. So it was just like I. I started totally ignorant to this franchise and have just like fallen head over heels for, for this silliness and this levity and this fun and the bright colors. You and these just like tropey great characters that are so fun to write and hang out with.
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I will say that I love this. When I was like, this franchise came out when I was probably what, 10, maybe 10 or 11. And then during high school, my friend and I would like, you know, because we didn't have cell phones, we would write letters back and forth to each other during class and we would call ourselves like, he man and Skeletor and did this whole thing because it was this huge campy thing. So everybody, I'm like, I'm very excited for this move. I'm like, I can't wait. And they're like, what? The master? I'm like, trust me, the masters of the. And Jared Leto Escalator. Like, how can you say no? How can you say no? The movie.
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I'm not, I keep like shilling for the movie and interviews I'm doing because I'm just like, it's easier to be excited about something you really had nothing to do with. Whereas I feel a little sheepish, like promoting my own stuff. So I can talk about the movie without really talking about the movie because it's still very secret. But all that being said, it's so fun. It reminded me of the early Marvel stuff when everybody was like, oh, these Marvel movies are great and they're fun and they're not too serious. It reminded me of that kind of stuff where it's got jokes and it's got great action sequences. And the director, Travis Knight, at the screening I was at before the film, he came and gave a little speech and he talked about how the majority of the people who worked on sort of the upper, I don't know, upper management of this movie, I don't know what you call it, the upper tiers of this movie were fans of this cartoon as a kid. And he's like, we all went into this project being like, we're not going to make a he man movie ironically. We're not going to make it like, like as a joke. We're not going to make it to make fun of it. Like, we are making this because we want to make the big screen, box office busting version of what we all loved as a kid. And it really like feels like that. It feels like an 80s cartoon come to life with all the color and the camp and the costumes and the ridiculous body proportions. It's really just, I, I think fans will really like the movie and I hope that fans will really like the book too, because the book goes kind of hand in hand with the film.
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B
Yeah. So. So you have this book. So. So you're asked to do this. You don't know much. Right. Like, if they were like, let's do Star wars, you'd be totally into that. So you ready? Right. What did you have to do? Can you talk about the research you had to do and the read? Like, what did you have to do to even prepare to start to write this book?
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So one of my favorite days of my career slash life was I got to go to the Mattel office in Los Angeles and I got to go to he man school where I got a day crash course in. Here are the characters. Here is the world, here's the maps, here's who everybody is and how they Relate to each other a little bit of the history. And then I also got a quiz called who said It? Skeletor or Blanche from the Golden Girls, which if I hadn't passed, I bet they would have rescinded the job offer. So it was a really, really fun day. It was fun to talk to the people at the company who work with this brand and who are so passionate about it and many of whom were big fans when they kids. So I got to do that. I got to read, like I said, the script of the movie. I got to see some of the photos coming in off the set so that I could sort of craft the world of the book based on these visuals. And then, I mean, there's a huge pantheon of cartoons to watch though I was told by the Mattel people sort of like maybe don't watch the cartoons. We're trying to do something different and new and we don't want it to be too like, we don't want the, like the nostalgia is there inherently, but we don't want it to be too reliant on the 80s cartoons. Like they're, they're doing a new thing, they're forging a new path. They're trying to bring in new, new fans and create a new fan base with, with this, this film and this book. But I did end up watching a ton of the cartoons because they're so silly and fun and funny and I love them. And so I watched the cartoons. I watched the Kevin Smith did a show on Netflix a couple years ago, the Revelation. I think it's Revelation and Revolution, which for sort of new he Man. And then my favorite part of the research I did was there's a great documentary on Netflix called the Toys that Made Us. And this was the only thing Mattel told me to watch before I came in for my, my Day of He man school. And it is a documentary. It's a one episode of this longer documentary series about how all these toys came to, came to be created. And so I watched the Masters of the Universe episode and it was so fun and funny and you realize how much the guys who were making this original toy line were just like flying by the seat of their pants. Like the story about how he man came to have a six foot green tiger as a sidekick is such a, like, is such a great little anecdote where they essentially were like, we don't have money for other toy molds, but he needs an animal sidekick. And all we have is like the safari, it wasn't a Barbie, but like the Safari Barbie, essentially. And they're like, we can make you a tiger that size, but the scale is all wrong and we'll prove it to you by making one. And so the, like, toy makers made it and then they showed it to the guys who were in charge of Master of the Universe. They're like, see how stupid it looks? And they're like, paint it green. We love it. And that's why Battle Cat is like, enormous. And I just, like, love. I just, I love the sort of zany, make it up as you go origin story of Masters of the Universe, too. So all that to say I did all that for research, and then as I wrote, I ended up doing a lot of just like sort of on the fly research about the franchise. And it was great to have the people at Mattel on call at all times, so I could email them and be like, hey, I think they're going to get attacked by monsters here. Is there an existing monster in the Masters of the Universe universe that you feel like would make sense here? And they would write back and be like, well, here's a couple options. You can watch them in this episode. Here's every time they appear in the cartoons. Here's all the, like the he man dictionary page on whatever the creature is. And so it was great to have that support. And the turnaround time for the book was really, really quick. And so it wouldn't have been possible without that sort of open line of communication with Mattel and with the people there who were so willing and excited to lend me their knowledge of this, of this franchise.
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So for you as a writer, you're entering this world that sort of already exists. How much sort of free. Were they like, we want something about Tila, you just go with it, or did they have sort of other kind of, I don't know, parameters is the right way to say, but like a framework that they wanted you to play with. I'm just wondering. And then how did you bring that? I'm asking you two questions at once, but bring that into your kind of traditional or your. The writing sort of style, your writing practice.
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Yeah, I had a ton of freedom with this book, which was amazing, because the. I think the sort of stereotype about writing IP or writing within a franchise is that you have the editor sitting over your shoulder saying, don't write that, don't write that. You can't do that. Whatever. And I've. I've certainly had experiences closer to that when I've worked for other franchises, but with this one, it was. They Came to me and said, here's sort of the movie story and there's this time jump in the middle. We want to do a YA story about this character Tila that takes place, not time jump. And I was immediately like, Teela is the character that even if she had not been prescribed to me, she's the one I would have picked out of the lineup because that was like exactly the type of character I loved when I was a kid, which is she's. And this is very much the, the age, the age that I grew up in. But like, I loved the character that was like the one token, the token girl with all the boys, the girl who can fight, who wears pants, who carries the sword, like, she can keep up. Like, I loved, I loved that kind of character archetype as a kid. But as an adult, I feel, I find that I'm still drawn to that archetype. But I'm, I'm also, I also want to push it and deconstruct it a little bit and work out this sort of idea of like, why, why do you have to run? Why do you have to be with the boys in order to be a strong woman? Why do you have to adopt masculine traits? And like, what are the more sort of complicated questions surrounding strength and femininity? And in, in this world of, of Eternia that's so like, warrior driven and so focus on the values of like, you have to be a strong warrior, you have to be physically strong, you have to be good with the sword, you have to be good with fighting. And we see in Adam a character who is not good at those things. So sort of Tila as his foil, is really, really good at those. But it's like, so what's the complication here for her? What are the pieces of herself that she's not able to access? What are her issues? What are her struggles growing up? And when I first talked to Mattel and they sort of pitched me this, I was so captivated by the idea of somebody who has trained their whole life to be one thing in a world that then suddenly doesn't exist anymore overnight and with no warning. And how do you reorient yourself in, in a world, is it worth trying to sort of salvage a future that doesn't exist anymore? Or do you have to just abandon that and try and, and like, is that, is that giving up? Is that giving up hope? And I was so, like, compelled by that idea. And I think especially considering the, the moment in time that we all are living through, there's so much upheaval and the future feels so uncertain. And it does sometimes feel like we're planning for a future that doesn't always feel like it's going to exist. And I was sort of compelled by that idea of the tension between growing up and surviving too, because I love young adult literature, because I love the coming of age story, and I love the question of what kind of adult am I going to be? And then pairing that with this. The world has been taken away from you, but also every day is sort of like a tense fight to survive, I thought was so compelling. So those were sort of the ideas that when they gave me the pitch, I came back to them and I was like, this is what I'm really interested in. I was really excited to write about Teela. They did give me her as like the main character. And then they said a couple of things like Adam's. Adam's out of the picture right now. We can't write about him. Here's sort of the characters that are existing in the world at the time. And I also picked out of a lineup Evil in the Sorceress because they didn't want Skeletor to be the main villain in the book. They wanted him to be sort of the, like the looming Big Bad, the. The Darth Vader of it all. But we needed somebody sort of like on the ground to. To threaten. To threaten Teela. And I love Evelyn because she's so quippy in the same way that Skeletor is. Like, they're such high camp villains, which I love. But I love the idea of her as sort of a. Not even a foil for Tila, but sort of a mirror for Tila. That Evil Lyn also is finding her place in a world that is. That isn't. She doesn't have the autonomy that she wants to have. She's serving this megalomaniac and doesn't have any control and is. Is sort of living at his beck and call and doesn't have a lot of freedom. And so both of them as, as women in particular, trying to find their way in this world and orient themselves in a world that has been reconstructed around them without their consent was very, very compelling to me. And so that's sort of what I took to Mattel. I was like, here are the big ideas now let's winnow it down and get like an actual plot out of that. So that was your first question 25 minutes ago.
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No, it's fascinating. You're good.
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But yeah, so they came to me just sort of with the basic parameters of, like, here's where it takes place, here's the world. Pick some things you like and let us know and we'll tell you if you can use them or not. And if we're trying to, like, carry them into the canon or if they're in the movie or not. So there is, like, there is an original character in the book that doesn't appear in the movie and doesn't appear anywhere else in the franchise. And Mattel sort of helped me craft that character. We talked a lot about what her role in the narrative would be, how she is like a foil for Teela. She's a little bit older, but she's another woman who sort of provides these two divergent paths with her. Teela. You have Evelyn on one side and then you have this character called Locke on the other. And it was really great. I love creating the original characters and things like that and getting to dive deeper into the emotional wells of these characters who are previously only existed in cartoons, which doesn't leave a lot of room for character depth. And then in the film are all sort of side characters, so they just don't get the emotional heft that the main characters do. So you get a lot of. You get a lot of room to play around with it. And it's just like, it's exciting and fun. And I like the challenge of working within an existing world. I like that there are sometimes right answers that I can write to somebody else and be like, somebody, make this up for me. Because I don't want to do it. Like, that's. As a writer, it's delightful. I love that. But I feel like with this one too, it was such a great mix of having the guardrails, but also having a lot of freedom and having a creative team behind me who was like, we hired you for you. We hired you for your perspective on this world in this character. And we want you to be able to feel like you're bringing that creatively to the table as well. All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with Popping Boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire? Try them all now at McDonald's. Refreshers contain caffeine.
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B
Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate that. It's like, okay, we're gonna center a young woman, right? Like, we have Shera in that universe, but she was kind of this different space and like, especially now in 2026, giving young women. That's what you were talking about, that space and that time. And so, like, for you, like, even navigating, thinking about, you've got these sort of three young women, but you also have like, evil Lynn and like, did you think about, like, how do I make this So I don't know how to ask. I'm just. I'll figure it out. How to make this so you don't have these two women who are completely pitted against one another. Right. Like he man and Skeletor, where it's like you, you know, you, you can be on. There can be only one. Like. Yeah, can you talk a little bit about that? If that makes sense. And that idea of like, yes, having someone who's evil but also wanting to make sure that they're not like, female against female. Yeah, that kind of.
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Well, in the case of the, in the case of the book, Sela has this sort of preconception about Evelyn, which is that your name is evil. You are part of the team that. That destroyed my home and kicked my family out of the city. And You've taken over my world. Like, she is so black and white in her thinking. And I think the whole franchise is very like, black and white, good and evil. Skeletor bad. He man good. I think Skeletor gets asked at one point, like, why is he evil? And he's like, because I'm evil. Because, like, that's just the simple answer. And so when Teela first meets Evelyn, she sort of has this idea of her and this idea of her motivations and what she wants and why she wants them. And then as they have to, they're sort of forced to form this alliance because both of their companies of people are under threat. Both Skeletor's horde and also Teela and her refugees. So they end up working together and so giving them that shared goal that then sort of expands into realizing they have other things in common. They just have maybe different approaches to solving their problems, their shared problems. And then also with Locke, who's the other character, also has similar problems and a totally different solution to, to solving them, which is that she wants to. She's sort of leading this movement to leave Eternia, that she thinks they need to leave their planet behind, give it up, move on, try again somewhere else. Whereas Teela is very like, rooted in her place. She's rooted in her home. This is the only place she's ever known. And her whole identity is tied to being a warrior of Eternia and she doesn't want to leave. And so for me, it was about giving these women sort of shared goals and then letting them all have different approaches that all in the moment hopefully feel right. Like you hopefully at different points understand each of them and are like, yeah, that makes sense. But Tila does. Sometimes Tila's talking to Evil Lyn and she's like, actually, it's freaking me out, but I do understand where you're coming from. And then sometimes with Locke, she's like, you're not wrong. I just don't agree with you. And sort of giving the giving this very black and white world, shades of grey for me was the way that I. I tried to complicate these relationships and make it more than just girl versus girl fighting, which is also like, what I feel like these female characters get reduced to a lot. It's like there's always token female on the bad side, token female on the good side, so that they can fight each other while the boys are scuffling over here. So sort of complicating Teela's ideas about good and evil and Giving them. Giving them angles and shadows was sort of the way that I. And giving her things in common with both these characters. The fact that this character of Evelyn, who she thinks she has nothing in common with, and we are against each other. We are opposite sides of this war. I literally watched you burn my house down and kill my friends, and now we're forced to work together, and suddenly it's like, oh, no, we do, actually. I understand you. And that kind of freaks me out and complicates my own knowledge of myself and my knowledge of the people around me and complicates my ideas of what I want, which is such a. Like, I think it's such a universal young adult narrative is like, you meet people that challenge you and challenge your views of the world, and they. They help you decide what kind of adult you want to be. And that's sort of the pivotal moment in Tila's life where she's not just deciding between, am I going to be good or am I going to be evil? It becomes, am I going to like. Like, how am I going to. What am I going to sacrifice and what am I going to save in order to get what I want? And is the thing I thought I wanted even really the thing I want, or is it just a thing I've been sort of told that I need to want a lot?
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B
Yeah, there were a couple of themes that I wanted to also, like, touch with. With you that you talk about. Like, I think one thing that comes up throughout this is grief. Right? There's a lot of grief and loss. They lose their world. Right. They lose a lot of things. So you have, on the one side, you have this. This franchise that is fun and it's campy, but you're also dealing with. So grief is one and the other one that I think for me, that comes up a lot, and it comes up a lot in superhero stuff, whether people admit to it or not. But is being a refugee, right? Being displaced and become being a refugee. And what that actually means that in 2026, we are not always thoughtful about it in ways that I'm like. But this. This is the narrative that comes through. I mean, so. So both those narratives. So can you talk about a little bit about those kinds of themes in here and approaching that and really thinking about how does that. How does that some. Some heavy stuff really work with this also kind of fun, campy universe that you're a part of as well?
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A
Yeah, I mean, my favorite kind of media and the things that I always seek to write are things that are maybe at face value, kind of funny and frothy and fun, and you're going to have a good time reading them, but then they have a big emotional core to them, and they have real emotional truths sort of foundationally popping up the world and the story and all the fun. Um, and that's sort of what I found to be my sweet spot in terms of media I consume and also media I create. Um, and I saw that in Masters of the Universe, like, maybe not so much in the 80s cartoons, but even kind of in the 80s cartoons, because at the end of every cartoon you'd have a little. Remember, kids, here's a lesson for you. Be nice to animals or whatever. Like, they were trying to impart messages. And maybe we're not going to be so prescriptive in black and white in the. In the modern incarnations of that, but still, there is, like, a social conscious to this franchise. And when I read the script, I was very struck by the way that the writers had managed to explore themes of. While keeping this very big, bright, campy facade. They explore really sort of deep themes about identity and masculinity and questions of what it means to be strong and what it means to be a warrior. And so I had, like, a really good. I had a good compass in that the movie was also trying to maintain this fun, frothy, poppy facade while also exploring bigger themes. So I had a good. Like, I had a good foundation in. In that I was working with material that was already trying to do that. But then, I mean, like, the. I think it's impossible to have this sort of setup of this woman who's been. This young woman who's been displaced from her. From her home. Her home's been taken over by. By an evil sorcerer. Like, it's a. It's a silly thing when you say it like that, but it's not like it's actually something we are, I think, kind of actively living through in our current moment. I definitely drew on a lot of my own feelings of insecurity right now about the state of the world and about. I mean, so many different facets of the state of the world. It's not just sort of our. Our moment we're living in, but things like. Like the future insecurity around technology, around the environment, around political stability, things like that. And also just the idea of grieving a future that you no longer have access to. Like a future that has been lost and especially lost because of other people's choices. And it feels so. And I think Tila feels the unfairness of it in a lot of ways. And the sort of. Many of the feelings that she interprets as being one thing are actually, I think, symptoms of grief, though I don't know if she would interpret them that way. Her grief sort of, for her is very literalized in. I am. I'm grieving my home, I'm grieving my friends. But then there's all these other things that she's angry and she. She's rebellious and she's also like, feels this responsibility, like, surely I can fix this, when really there is no way to fix this. But she feels this tremendous weight of I. There's. There has to be something I can do. And often there is nothing you can do. Um, and so she's also sort of grappling with that feeling of helplessness, um, and also grappling with other people's choices. Both the choices of like, like Skeletor and the people who took over her city, but also like her father, Duncan, who has sort of fallen into his grief at what he perceives as failing his city and has sort of let that take over his life. And Teela's dealing with the fact that I can't control my dad's choices. I can't control the way he's choosing to grieve. The only thing I can do is choose to not. Not also succumb to that. But, like, then you're not just grieving your. Your home and your family. You're also grieving like a person who is still in front of you. So there's so many. What I'm saying is there's so many facets of it. This is a wild conversation for a Masters of the universe. I thought we were going to be talking about, like, as I was saying, I'm like, grieving the loss that Skeletor. I'm like, this is an absurd sentence. What a weird life. It's like one time I sent the. I sent the people at Marvel an email and I was like, does the Winter Soldier wear boxers or briefs? This is the weirdest moment of my life. Like, just like, it's so strange, this job that I find myself in. But all that being said, I do think those, like, real big feelings are what compels people about these franchises. And they're. They're ways to explore these themes that affect us on a daily basis, but sometimes are very scary and intimidating and just feel like too much to explore in our real life and to think about too much. And I've. I've Been feeling that very much lately, where I'm like, I don't want to look these things in the face. I don't actually want to have to think about these things. But you know what I will think about? I would love to think about the new. The new Super Supergirl movie. I would love to think about the new Masters of the Universe film. I'd love to think about the Mandalorian and Grog. Like, those are the things I want to be engaging with. And in that way, I think we engage with our world and the bigger, scarier things about our world through art. Even art that seems sort of at its face to be silly and superfluous. I think it's important. I think these stories are important, and they're a way to sort of hide the vegetables in the ice cream. Don't do that. That sounds disgusting. But, you know, like, you blend up kale and put it in your smoothie. It can sometimes be an easier and safer way, and especially for young people to explore these scenes as well.
- [33:08]
B
Yeah, I mean, I do. Yes. I know it can be fun, but I do think, like, they're, like, thinking about, like, all. I often see people say, you know, whether. Whatever, you know, whether it's why lit or whether it's this kind of superhero stuff, it's just kind of, you know, it's surface, but it's not right. There's way more to it. And so that's why. That's why I asked, at least. I think it's really important to think about and think about those things.
- [33:32]
A
Yeah, I. I absolutely agree.
- [33:35]
B
So for you, are you a writer who has, like. Like, are like these. This character is telling me this story, and I need to, like, sit down and tell this character story, you know, like. So did. Was Teela, like, telling you the story, or you just kind of like, okay, I have this idea. I've plotted this out. Here's what I'm going with in. Here's, you know, I've got the direction I'm going in.
- [33:58]
A
I don't know that I feel like she was telling me this story. Especially when you work within these franchises, I've learned the hard way that it is so essential to get everything planned out ahead of time. And I do so much work on the. It's not even the back end, the front end of these franchise projects where I do so much extensive outlining. I used to never be an outliner, and then I started working for Marvel, and I'm like, God, I have to be an outliner. Just, like, out of necessity, because we kept having the first book I did with Marvel, I kept having sort of miscommunications, I guess, with them. Yeah, miscommunications. I was like, misconnections. That's not it. Miscommunications with them or something that I would throw in and that would end up affecting the whole story in a way that if it was just my book, it would be fine. Then the story's just going in a different direction and instead they're going, oh, no, no, no, you can't do that. That clashes with whatever comic or TV show or whatever we have. You can't do that. And then I would have to go back and sort of remove this load bearing detail that would cause the whole thing to collapse. And so out of necessity, I became like a really intense outliner when I work on these projects. And so with Tila, we went through, I think I wrote probably like a half page pitch initially and then we did a page outline and then we did like a five page outline, then a ten page outline. And I was sort of in constant communication with, with the Mattel team the whole time. Like it felt very, very technical in that sense that you're always talking to each other, you're always communicating. Every time I wanted to change something from the outline, because the other thing is as good as you outline anything, it always changes once you start putting it on the page. It never, it never stays, it never stays as wieldy as, as it feels it's going to be in an outline. I always write outlines now and I'm like, ac, I fixed it, I solved it. Nothing could possibly go wrong. It's just gonna pour out of me in one glorious stream. Like, I've done all the hard work already and it never ever happens that way. There's always things that just like don't translate from an outline to actually putting it into prose. So in this case it felt very, it felt very, I would say it felt very deliberate and calculated, but in a positive way. Like it wasn't. I felt like I had a plan that I was working off and I had a whole sort of team behind me working on that plan with me. Whereas a lot of the sort of emotional, the emotional stuff and the stuff that I feel like I was, that drew me to the story was so front loaded. Because that was the stuff that initially when I was deciding if I was even interested in doing this project, those were the things that really compelled me to it. Like, I wouldn't have been interested if it had just been Tell us a story about he man with no big load bearing questions to it and no questions about humanity. And no, like, those were the things that attracted me to it. So I feel like I did a lot of that work on the front end. And maybe when you do the franchise stuff, it feels a little backwards because I think sometimes with my, with my original stuff, I discover those questions and I discover those big themes as I'm writing and as I'm drafting. And then you kind of go back and see them through. But in this case, I did so much work sort of in the opposite direction, like I feel like I did. I wrote this book very quickly and then we sort of did one round of revision and then it was done. And so it was a quick process by necessity because they wanted to get it out in time for the movie. But also it was a quick writing process because we spent four or five months before that going through and outlining every detail of everybody's emotional arc and everybody's physical arc. And here's where this is going to happen and this character comes in. So it's just like, it's a very, it's a very reverse engineered process for me. When I write within the franchise, the franchise bounds.
- [37:25]
B
So did someone then like, so someone has. Because you're, you're always gonna have the people who are like, okay, does this match with this in the canon? So I'm guessing like someone then, because the book is coming out at the same time the movie's coming out, that someone is very much like, okay, everything the story you've told is going to totally fit in with the movie that we've created. And there's not. I mean, there probably. Sometimes there is, regardless of how well you do it. But like, they were like, okay, this story makes sense. It makes sense in this world. Whatever you put in and whatever you added, it's going to make sense in the film because it fits in with the film. So I'm guessing you had someone who. That's their job, right? To make sure.
- [38:05]
A
I mean, theoretically it fits perfectly with the film. The Bastards of the Universe has existed on such a, with so many creators across so many mediums and because like the, the cartoon was not initially meant to be like story heavy. Like, they're very episodic and they don't have sort of an overarching arc to them. There's so much canon at this point and there's so much contradictory canon. Like it's sometimes so. And so is somebody's daughter and then sometimes she's Not. And sometimes he has to do this to transform and sometimes he does and like, it's all over the place. And so in working with Mattel, they were sort of. It's not that they're resetting the canon, but the film is, is. It's. The film was the most important thing for me. Like, there's all the stuff that happened before. Obviously we want to stay true to that as best we can. But the real canon and the parameters I was working with was the timeline within the film. So there were definitely people. I don't know, I don't know them personally. There were certainly people who read, read my book and matched it up with the film. I think the. I don't know if it ever actually happened, but I think the film writers and the directors were initially planning on reading my outlines. I don't think they read the book. And I don't know if the. I think I got notes from. It's the other thing. I'm like, I can't remember who I got notes from because I got notes from so many different teams at Mattel as well. I think I got notes from the scriptwriter, the screenwriter at one point just being like, here's a couple things that might not totally match up. So, yeah, there's definitely people reading it for continuity. Yeah. But it helped to have the script too. Like, sometimes the stuff I did with Marvel felt much more nebulous in terms of. It's like it exists within the Marvel universe and you're like, the Marvel universe is enormous. And they're like, just fit it in there. And then I would do something and be like, not like that though. Don't do that. This is not helpful. So it was really nice actually to have those very specific parameters of like, yes, there is a bigger world, but here is the script, here is the story, here is the 10 year span that you need to fit your story into.
- [39:56]
B
So is. So like, is Teela gonna. Is there talks of Tila continuing her story?
- [40:02]
A
Oh, wouldn't that be fabulous? I hope she does.
- [40:05]
B
Yeah. Like, I was wondering, like, right, like, like it very much feels like, right, like, I mean, she could continue her story. So I was just wondering if there were talks yet.
- [40:15]
A
I think, I think we're waiting on. We're waiting on box office numbers before we know. But there's so like, there's, there's so many. I mean, I would do. I would write an Evil Lyn book. Like, my goodness, what a great character that needs an. I don't think she has an origin story. I think we know like a tiny bit about her. But yeah, I'm first in line. I've got dibs on any future, any future Masters of the Universe centric YA novels and any future TILA adventures. I am first in line.
- [40:42]
B
So I will answer you my final question. This is coming out June 2nd. The film is out June 5th. So they're all like, you know, what, a week? Two weeks from now, you know they'll be out. Well, yeah, I know. I was like, I know. I'm almost like, it's almost June. So anything, self promotion, anything that you're working on, Anything else or anything with this novel? Any.
- [41:05]
A
Yeah, promote, promote. I mean, this is the thing. I am self promoting at this point. I really do want people to go see the movie. Not just because I want great box office numbers so that I can write more of these books. I don't delude myself into thinking that I have any, any influence on the global box office for this film. But I just think it's like, it's a really fun movie. I had such a good time. If you like the big blockbuster Y superhero Y. I mean, it's not, it's not a superhero movie, but it is because he, like trans. I don't know. I won't get into the technicalities of it, but like, if you miss the early Marvel stuff, back when Marvel was like, really fun and not oversaturated, I think you'll really enjoy this movie. And then you're going to love the movie so much. You're going to be like, how do I get more of this? And thankfully I have an answer for you, which is Sheila, Daughter of the YA novel by MacKenzie Lee. No, I mean, my self promotion is this book. But also if you like the book or if you like me but don't want to read this book, I don't know. I've written a bunch of other things too. I wrote another YA series. The first one's called the Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. And their historical adventure novel, set in the 1700s, about siblings crashing around Europe and getting up to mischief and falling in love. Not with each other, with other people. And they're hopefully similar to what we've been talking about. They're sort of fun and silly, but have these big emotional cores to them. I also wrote an adult romance novel that came out last year called Ladylike that dares to ask the question, what if Bridgerton was about lesbians? A question that Bridgerton will now be answering itself, which I'm thrilled about. Hopefully we can go hand in hand there. Rising tide lifts all boats. Yeah, I have another YA book coming out sometime in the future that I haven't announced yet, so I can't talk about, but I'm working on that. And it'll be more historical shenanigans and hopefully there will be more Masters of the Universe fun in my future. And hopefully there will be Masters of the Universe fun in your listener's future because they should go see this movie and then they should read the companion novel. That's all.
- [43:11]
B
Mackenzie, thank you so much for talking with me on New Books Network again. Mackenzie Lee and her latest, Tila Daughter of Eternos. Thanks.
- [43:19]
A
Thank you for having me. This was a delight. Thank you for listening to this episode of the New Books Network. We are an academic podcast network with the mission of public education. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend and rate us on your preferred podcast platform. You can browse all of our episodes on our website newbooksnetwork.com Connect with us on Instagram and BlueSky with the handle ebooksnetwork, and subscribe to our weekly Substack newsletter at newbooksnetwork.substack.com to get episode recommendations straight to your inbox.