Episode 15 – The Mystery of Anwat Gar

In which He-Man gets uncharacteristically violent.

The Sorceress summons Prince Adam and Man-at-Arms to Castle Grayskull to fill them in on her most recent nightmare, in which Skeletor found the lost island of Anwat Gar and discovered the ancient Legacy Stones, the usual artefacts of great power, ra ra ra. Adam and Man-at-Arms don’t particularly care about the Sorceress’ fevered hallucinations, so she changes her mind and claims her dream was actually a vision. With a heavy sigh, Adam turns into He-Man, and sets off with Man-at-Arms to try to find Anwat Gar.

The Sorceress: “Just humour me, will you?”

It seems I have misunderstood something from the previous scene, because it now appears that Man-at-Arms knows exactly where Anwat Gar is, and he and He-Man arrive there quickly, only pausing for a brief interlude in which Man-at-Arms falls off his boat like the idiot he is. I imagine he was trying to find that giant fish to eat him again.

Anwat Gar turns out to be a stupid sort of place equipped with billions of traps which are all designed to be easily incorporated into the video game adaptation. (Incidentally, back in the day, did anyone buy the Playstation 2 game Defender of Grayskull? I did, and I couldn’t get past the first room.) Man-at-Arms does not distinguish himself in his efforts to evade these traps, requiring rescue from He-Man every single time. Why do they keep him around? They should just give him a quiet room in the Palace basement, where he can pretend to be important by inventing things that already exist, yammering to himself about Prince Adam and He-Man, and dreaming about giant fish.

After about 10 minutes of messing about with tedious traps, He-Man and Man-at-Arms finally meet the island’s guardian: Sy-Klone. Remember when I said a few weeks back that absolutely no one was clamouring for Count Marzo’s return? The re-introduction of Sy-Klone actually manages to plumb new depths of indifference. Anyway, Man-at-Arms tries to make friends, but Sy-Klone isn’t interested, and attacks.

Sy-Klone: “Bit worried, lads – am I even less cool than Spinwit?”

Sy-Klone’s method of attack is to throw Frisbees at his foes, which doesn’t concern He-Man in the slightest but – predictably – puts that clown Man-at-Arms out of action. This infuriates He-Man to the extent that he actually punches Sy-Klone right in the face, an act of violence rather out of character for him. Sy-Klone retaliates by spinning round really fast and causing a whirlwind, and this epic battle only comes to an end when Skeletor announces his presence, and further reveals that he has successfully nicked the Legacy Stones.

Skeletor activates one of the Legacy Stones, and it upgrades his outfit to a pimped-up samurai suit, which is just lovely. This is his cue to go on a bit of a rampage, starting by knocking He-Man down and then crowing about his intention to proceed to Castle Grayskull. He-Man gets up and takes out his frustration on Beast-Man, who also earns a full fist to the face. What’s got into He-Man today? It’s only a matter of time before he punches Man-at-Arms, which I for one would pay good money to see.

Beast-Man: “You can have my lunch money, He-Man. Please don’t hit me.”

He-Man activates the other Legacy Stone and gets a samurai suit for himself too. This is of course more than sufficient to even up the score, but Skeletor doesn’t accept that until after he and He-Man have a surprisingly violent and ridiculously elongated fight, to the accompaniment of some pretty funky beats. Once Skeletor is defeated, He-Man destroys the Legacy Stones and recruits Sy-Klone to join the ever-growing band of freaks that are the Masters of the Universe.

In today’s adventure…

The only lesson I learned from this episode is that I shouldn’t have bothered watching it.

Character checklist

Barely anyone today: the limelight goes to Prince Adam, He-Man, Man-at-Arms, Sy-Klone, the Sorceress, Skeletor and Beast-Man. There are small appearances for Teela, Mechaneck, Stratos, Orko, Man-e-Faces and Ram-Man, but these are even less consequential than usual.

Skeletor: “So, He-Man, why does your samurai suit look like you’ve dressed up as a fish?”

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

Definitely not needed this week; Adam transforms in Castle Grayskull, with only the Sorceress and Man-at-Arms anywhere near him.

Insults

For the first time in Lord knows how long, there weren’t any insults this week.

Does it have the Power?

Certainly not. This is the first out-and-out failure of this series, largely due to it essentially being one long fight scene between either He-Man and Sy-Klone or He-Man and Skeletor, both of which combinations grew tedious mighty quickly. The early scenes exploring the island felt uninspired, and I’m pretty sure the samurai business was only involved in an effort to shift those dreadful Samurai He-Man and Samurai Skeletor action figures that blighted the shelves of Woolworths in the early 2000s. (I seem to recall there being a Samurai Man-at-Arms as well, which no one in their right mind would have touched.) In its defence, I would say that even being the worst effort this series has come up with, it’s not nearly as unwatchably bad as the rubbish episodes from the other series (hello, The Rarest Gift of All, The Wizard and He-Fan) – but that still doesn’t mean you should even consider watching it.

And that’s probably all from me for a couple of weeks – I have some exciting other writing to do that someone’s actually going to pay me for, so I’d probably better work on that instead. Sorry to leave the blog at this low point, but it’ll be back most likely sometime in mid-August.

Episode 14 – Underworld

In which Randor reveals he’s friends with bats and lizards.

In an effort to teach Prince Adam a lesson about being kingly, Randor takes him along on a mission to mediate peace between two races, the Spellians and the Callagars. Man-at-Arms makes up the third member of the team, but hopefully they’ll be leaving him in the car, to prevent him messing things up.

Prince Adam: “Dad, you ever realise how much you look like Ned Stark?”

The Spellians turn out to be a race of giant bats, led by Randor’s old mate, Lord Dactys. They live in a massive cave and spend their time forging weapons, presumably to use against the Callagars, who used to be allies of the Spellians but have now allegedly started causing trouble. Negotiations with the Callagars are put to one side, however, when news arrives that Skeletor, Whiplash, Beast-Man and Evil-Lyn have entered Subternia, the vast labyrinth of caves below the planet’s surface, in an effort to invade Castle Grayskull from below.

Randor, Adam and Man-at-Arms also enter Subternia in an attempt to intercept Skeletor, and very soon it is revealed that the Callagars live there. Even more surprisingly, they turn out to be giant stupid lizards just like Whiplash, who regard Whiplash as a traitor. Even so, they’re perfectly happy to have an unnecessary fight with our heroes, which only ends when their leader Serratus recognises King Randor from their days together at boarding school.

Serratus: “Remember how we used to chuck blotting paper at Old Wilkie?”

Serratus allows the dream team to pass, and, pausing only long enough for Adam to say toodle-pip and He-Man to make a grand entrance, they give chase to Skeletor and his clowns, catching up just as Skeletor finds the secret underground door to Grayskull. Fortunately, it’s protected by a forcefield, which gives Skeletor something to do while Evil-Lyn, Beast-Man and Whiplash make their usual pitiful attempts to beat up our heroes.

Eventually, Skeletor manages to bring the forcefield down, but is prevented from entering the castle by Randor, who engages him in a fierce duel. He-Man soon joins in, and despite some last-minute shenanigans involving a giant millipede, it’s all over for Skeletor from this point. He doesn’t even manage to run away with dignity this time: he is intercepted by the Callagars, who welcome Whiplash home in a distinctly threatening way.

Skeletor: “Just so we’re clear, Whiplash, whatever’s about to go down here is all your fault.”

In today’s adventure…

I think this episode bears the old “don’t judge people by their appearance” tag, given Adam assumed the Spellians were evil due to their less than appealing visages, and shortly thereafter – more reasonably – assumed that the Callagars were evil because they looked like Whiplash.

Character checklist

We’re lucky enough this week to see Prince Adam, He-Man, Man-at-Arms, King Randor, Orko, Skeletor, Whiplash, Beast-Man, Evil-Lyn,and who could forget Lord Dactys and Serratus?

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

This one gets handed to Adam on a silver platter. As he, Randor and Man-at-Arms are crossing a rock bridge, Skeletor blasts the walkway in two. Adam is forced to go back, which allows him to transform into He-Man away from prying eyes.

Insults

Adam refers to Skeletor as “old boneface”, though only when safely out of earshot. Skeletor has no such reservations about insulting people directly to their face, but this week he limits himself to snapping a pretty vicious “fool” at Beast-Man. Finally, Evil-Lyn calls Whiplash a “kiss-up”, presumably because “kiss-arse” would have been inappropriate for the target audience.

Skeletor: “Just practicing my ‘super-threatening’ face.”

Does it have the Power?

Yes, indeed it does. It’s got a fair old energy and zips along through a pretty straightforward but exciting adventure story. Arguably it loses its way slightly, in that it forgets all about the brewing conflict between the Spellians and the Callagars, but I got the feeling that this was only the first part of a multi-part story, so we might well come back to that soon. I’m sure we must be going to come back to what happened to Whiplash: it certainly seems like the episode ended with his being taken into custody by his people. Even if it doesn’t return to these plot points though, it’s a decent episode, with some slight echoes of Prince Adam No More from the Filmation series. Recommended.

Episode 13 – Night of the Shadowbeasts

In which Trapjaw probably shouldn’t have bothered showing up.

Will wonders never cease? This episode begins with Beast-Man actually using his initiative. He’s somehow acquired or genetically engineered an army of large vicious creatures called shadowbeasts, which are enormously strong and powerful but have the drawback of hating light. Beast-Man’s suggestion is to therefore attack Castle Grayskull at night, but Skeletor decides to go one better by causing an enormous volcanic eruption to block out the sky with ash.

Skeletor: “You tend to lack ambition, Beast-Man.”

This sort of antisocial behaviour doesn’t go unnoticed, of course, and He-Man gets involved pretty sharpish. While the shadowbeasts attack the Palace and keep the Masters occupied, Skeletor sneaks off to Castle Grayskull for a surreptitious break-in. He-Man heads off to Grayskull too, leaving the episode to ramble through a boring and borderline irritating subplot about Ram-Man being afraid of the dark, a fear which Teela helps him to conquer.

In the meantime, Skeletor sets a second army of shadowbeasts to work trying to pull open Castle Grayskull’s jawbridge, while he hovers around making random stupid comments. Once He-Man arrives, he indulges himself in a brief flirtation with incompetence and achieves nothing more than falling down into Grayskull’s abyss, from which he extracts himself seconds later.

He-Man: “If only I’d remembered to bring my parachute.”

It’s left to the Sorceress to really sort things out; she casts a spell creating an enormous field of light, which causes the shadowbeasts to retreat in terror. Skeletor tries to finish the job himself, but I think we can all successfully guess how that works out. He barely gets started before He-Man punches his vehicle and sends him flying back to Snake Mountain.

With that resolved, there’s only one thing left to do – stop the volcano erupting and clear the cloud of ash from the sky. He-Man manages this by carving a slit down the side of the volcano and allowing the lava to flow out, which is very sensible and doubtless a scientific plausibility. Once he’s done this, light returns to Eternia, and the shadowbeasts retreat to Snake Mountain, where a furious Skeletor sets them loose on Evil-Lyn, Tri-Klops and Trapjaw. Trapjaw’s inclusion here seems more than a little unfair, since this is his first appearance in the episode and consequently he’s clearly got nothing whatsoever to do with this particular fiasco.

Trapjaw: “On second thought, I think I’d have been better advised not to show up this week.”

In today’s adventure…

It’s all about Ram-Man and his fear of the dark today. Man-at-Arms poncily comments, “True courage is when you’re afraid, but act anyway,” and he says it in a very moral-segment-y kind of way, as if he’s expecting it to be lifted from the episode and used in motivational videos.

Character checklist

We’ve got a fairly tight cast list this week – well, tight for the MYP series at least, but that’s still a lot of people. Specifically, that’s Prince Adam, Cringer, He-Man, Battle-Cat, Teela, Man-at-Arms, Ram-Man, the Sorceress, Mechaneck, Man-e-Faces, Orko, Skeletor, Beast-Man, Tri-Klops, Evil-Lyn, Trapjaw, Whiplash and Panthor. Still quite a mouthful, actually.

Ram-Man: “Excellent, glad my night light’s arrived.”

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

As ever, there’s no excuse today. Teela does look at Adam as he’s slipping away, but seems to decide she can’t be bothered to pursue the subject.

Insults

Ram-Man addresses one of the shadowbeasts as “hairy”, which from the tone was clearly meant to be a put-down, but to be honest, it needs work. Skeletor has a better idea of how to insult shadowbeasts, telling them that they are “spineless apes” when they retreat from the Sorceress’ light spell. Skeletor also tells Beast-Man he is a “mangy moron”, and Tri-Klops compounds the burn by addressing Beast-Man as “fur-for-brains”. Finally, He-Man tries an insult on Skeletor, but only manages to call him a “gatecrasher”, which isn’t terribly good and I don’t expect we’ll hear it again.

The Curse of the Tree Fellers

Well, this saddens me. This time, it’s He-Man himself wantonly chopping down trees, achieving a tally of at least 4 in an attempt to slow down Beast-Man and some shadowbeasts. Remember Skytree, He-Man? I’m disappointed in you.

He-Man: “Well, Granamyr will be pleased, at least.”

Does it have the Power?

It’s a take-it-or-leave-it, middle-of-the-road, average kind of affair. It isn’t offensively bad, but it won’t shatter your world either. It doesn’t advance the overall plot at all; the only character who gets any particular development is Ram-Man, and I think I’ve made it clear in the past how much I really don’t care about Ram-Man. At the end of the day, I think I’d say you might as well not bother with this one.