Episode 119 – Visitors From Earth

In which He-Man gets a nice walk in the vacuum of space.

ADMIRAL PATRICK: Tape on. Interview commences 10:00 hours 23^rd November 1984. Present: presiding officer Admiral Patrick, and pilots Colonel Mark Blaze and Major Andrea Steele.

MAJOR STEELE: Good morning.

COLONEL BLAZE: Good morning.

PATRICK: Right, I’d like to get some things straightened out here. Obviously, your mission was successful, somehow, and that’s a great relief, but there’s a lot in your official report which has given the upper echelons … cause for concern, shall we say.

STEELE: That’s understandable. I can barely believe it really happened.

PATRICK: Could you please just take me through it again, for the benefit of the tape?

BLAZE: Very well. As you know, the two of us launched in a small vessel equipped with a nuclear warhead, with a mission to destroy the meteor that was headed straight for Earth. It was imperative that we succeed, or all life on Earth would be wiped out.

STEELE: But before we could get to the meteor, we were pulled off course by a blue, red and orange stripey wobbly space tunnel. That isn’t the official designation for such a thing, but that’s definitely what it looked like.

PATRICK: I see.

Figure 1: The stripey wobbly space tunnel

STEELE: We reappeared in a strange solar system, which for no apparent reason I described as “some sort of other galaxy”. There was a planet below, and instead of trying to get back to Earth and complete our mission, we decided to land to check out some life readings.

BLAZE: Once we got through the atmosphere though, we suddenly changed our minds and decided we couldn’t possibly land near the life readings. I made a slightly odd decision and insisted that Andrea use her ejector seat. This was for no purpose whatsoever, but in my defence Andrea didn’t object.

STEELE: That’s true. So I ejected out and Blaze flew off. We were clever enough to leave our locator beacons turned on, so that after this unnecessary separation, we’d be able to find each other again. I landed in a place called the Palace of Eternia, surrounded by a bunch of very exciting people.

Figure 2: The inhabitants of the Palace of Eternia

PATRICK: This would be the King Randor, Queen Marlena, Prince Adam, Teela, Man-at-Arms and Orko mentioned in your report?

STEELE: That’s right, and Queen Marlena identified herself as Marlena Glenn, the astronaut who disappeared from Earth many years ago. I explained the situation about the meteor – just in case anyone wanted to know – and then begged them to help me find Colonel Blaze. I admit, I wouldn’t have needed their help if I hadn’t pointlessly used my ejector seat, but you know how sometimes these things happen.

Figure 3: Major Steele explains the situation with the meteor

BLAZE: In the meantime, I found myself flying towards a scary looking establishment which I later discovered was called Snake Mountain. I realised I couldn’t fly over it, so I decided to land. In retrospect, I should have just flown round it. I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me at the time, but the suggestion that I’m completely out of my head does spring to mind. Anyway, I was met by some massive freaks called Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Beast-Man, Two-Bad and Spikor, who took me prisoner.

PATRICK: Ah yes, of course. Your report indicates that they put you in a giant cylinder, which they described as a “truth scanner”.

Figure 4: The truth scanner

BLAZE: That’s right. And I told them everything about the missile. Skeletor wanted to use the missile to blow up a castle, which the others thought was a great idea. Except Two-Bad, who didn’t seem to know what he thought about the situation, since he had two heads and thus two brains. Though neither brain seemed particularly effective.

PATRICK: Yes, well, I’ve been beginning to get a bit concerned about certain peoples’ brains myself.

STEELE: Back at the Palace, Teela was out looking for Colonel Blaze, while I was dossing about with Prince Adam and Cringer, his giant green and yellow talking tiger. Then a signal came on the location beacons, showing me where the colonel was. I instantly leaped on a vehicle I’d never seen before and drove it off without needing to learn how to use it. Prince Adam watched me go, and seemed to have some kind of clever plan up his sleeve.

PATRICK: Almost as if he might be going to help in some way?

STEELE: That’s right, but I was wrong, because by the time I got to Snake Mountain, Prince Adam was nowhere to be seen, and this big dude called He-Man was there with Battle-Cat, who is a green and yellow talking tiger with armour. We sneaked into Snake Mountain together and rescued Colonel Blaze by means of some really stupid tricks that ultimately ended in Two-Bad getting buckets stuck on both of his heads. It’s worth noting that during this procedure, He-Man had a really ridiculous smirk on his face.

Figure 5: Two-Bad and Beast-Man

PATRICK: I don’t think that is worth noting. What about the missile?

BLAZE: Skeletor had removed it from our ship, and damaged the firing mechanism too. Fortunately, Man-at-Arms arrived at that point in a Wind Raider, beaming all over his stupid moustachioed face, and helped me to fix the ship.

STEELE: In the meantime, I went with He-Man to Castle Grayskull, where Skeletor was trying to use the missile to blow the doors down. When we got there, we had a quick fight with Skeletor and Evil-Lyn, in the middle of which I rather irrelevantly explained to He-Man that my father had taught me how to cook. After that, Skeletor idiotically knocked the missile down into the abyss, and then just buggered off.

Figure 6: He-Man and Skeletor

PATRICK: I must confess, I am quite caught up in this exciting story. What happened after that?

STEELE: He-Man took the Wind Raider and flew down into the abyss, where he caught the missile and brought it back.

PATRICK: Bit of an anti-climax, that one. But anyway, what next?

STEELE: Well, He-Man did a pretty stupid fly-by in his Wind Raider, waving happily to me with the nuclear warhead in the back. But once he’d finished showing off, we found out that not only had Man-at-Arms not managed to repair our vessel, he had inexplicably made it at least double in size.

BLAZE: Skeletor had set the missile to explode in 49 minutes, and we were pretty despondent, because we didn’t think there was any way to get back to Earth and blow up the meteor in that length of time. Everyone else was coming up with solutions, and I was blundering about shooting holes in their ideas. I’m quite annoying, if you want the honest truth.

STEELE: Luckily, Queen Marlena figured out how to get back to Earth, which essentially boiled down to “go back the way you came”. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that, but it’s probably because we’re nuts. Anyway, He-Man came with us. Because the firing mechanism was damaged, He-Man decided to pop out into the vacuum of space and throw the missile at the meteor. In case you’re interested, He-Man can talk in space, though as usual he didn’t say anything sane.

Figure 7: He-Man in space

BLAZE: Then we went back to Eternia, dropped He-Man off, and came back to Earth.

PATRICK: Right, good. I think I’ve heard enough. You two are dismissed from the Space Service on grounds of complete mental collapse. However, I will be putting in a good word for you at a company called Filmation, where I think you’ll fit right in.

 

In today’s adventure…

Queen Marlena explains that today we learned that helping others is really good. I don’t recall particularly noticing that, but there wasn’t a more obvious moral to be learned, so okay.

 

Character checklist

This episode is well-populated, featuring Prince Adam, He-Man, Cringer, Battle-Cat, Man-at-Arms, Teela, Orko, King Randor, Queen Marlena, Major Steele, Colonel Blaze, Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Beast-Man, Two-Bad and Spikor.

Figure 8: Spikor

 

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

Adam doesn’t feel the need to explain himself, since he’s all alone in the courtyard at the time.

 

Insults

It’s mostly between Beast-Man and Two-Bad today, with the former calling the latter a “two-faced practical joker”, and the latter retaliating with the business-as-usual “furface” and the slightly odder “furry fossil”. He-Man also gets a rare burn in by referring to Skeletor’s brain as “a nice, safe, empty place”.

 

Does it have the Power?

This one’s noteworthy for me primarily because it’s one I recorded off ITV when I was little, but the tape finished just as the missile was hurtling down the abyss. I remember spending a lot of time puzzling about how He-Man was going to get the missile back, which is odd, because it’s obvious that he’d just fly down far enough and catch it. No one ever said I was that bright a child. Besides that none-too-interesting reminiscence, I haven’t got much to say about this episode, other than that it’s all right and that you could do much worse, especially at this stage in the series.