Episode 26 – The End of the Beginning

In which Skeletor’s evil plans are foiled.

Skeletor – now transformed into a massive flying demon thing, but still boasting his characteristic cackle – comes barrelling across Eternia, aiming straight for that magical barrier that Duncan and co. erected last time. This barrier is rendered instantly useless, since all Skeletor needs to do is fly over it, though oddly he settles for shouting a few taunts and then flying away again, muttering something about remaking the universe in his own image.

Skeletor: “Nice wall you’ve got there, guys. Be a shame if someone were to simply fly over the top of it.”

Teela, Duncan, Evil-Lyn and Trapjaw give chase, hoping to stop him before he’s able to begin that sort of nonsense. Unfortunately, if predictably, they’re too late: Skeletor opens some sort of portal to the Heart of the Universe and enters it. Evil-Lyn inexplicably disappears from the episode at this point, while Trapjaw chooses this moment to demonstrate that he’s not too bright by betraying the team, and embarrassingly ends up being taken off to the Palace dungeons by Orko.

In the meantime, Teela and Duncan rejoin Prince Adam, Cringer and Krass in the ruins of Castle Grayskull. After berating Adam for being an idiot at the end of last week’s episode (though not for nearly long enough, in my opinion), Teela points out that to undo the chaos now spewing into Eternia from Skeletor’s silly portal, the team will need to recover the sword. Glad you’re around, Teela – I doubt anyone would have thought of that otherwise. Even so, our heroes now spend a bit of time pontificating about how they’re still really powerful and how they now know themselves for who they really are. That’s great, guys. Well done.

Prince Adam: “Yes, yes, I know I’m a moron. Let’s not dwell on that.”

Once they’ve finished doing that, they enter the portal to the Heart of the Universe and interrupt Skeletor in the middle of a completely nonsensical monologue. There follows a tense and exciting battle, in the course of which He-Man recovers the power sword and, through the power of teamwork, the gang use it to cut Skeletor’s arm off, thus robbing him of the Havoc Staff and converting him back into Keldor.

Eternia and the rest of the universe are restored to normality, and our heroes return to the Palace in triumph, bringing Keldor with them. As Keldor is despatched to the dungeons, he utters a cryptic warning about some other incoming threat, which becomes much more explicit a moment later, when Hordak shows up to say a polite hello to Evil-Lyn. I’m sure we’ll see more of that next time, not that there is a next time.

Hordak: “Oh well, at least I’m in Revolution.”

In today’s adventure…

Krass explains that power isn’t about the power itself, but how its wielder uses it. This is a fairly muddled way of saying that if you’ve got any power, you should use it to do good things, and all I can really say is that it’s a bit of a shame Krass didn’t realise this considerably sooner.

Character checklist

You’ll be unsurprised to learn that the team today consists of Prince Adam, He-Man, Cringer, Teela, Duncan, Krass, Orko, King Randor, Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Trapjaw, Beast-Man and Tri-Klops. Man-e-Faces gets a non-speaking cameo, and as noted above, Hordak appears in the final 30 seconds, claiming to be Evil-Lyn’s dad. That’s a part of the lore I didn’t know, got to admit; seem to recall something from the MYP series about the Faceless One being her dad. Maybe she’s like Bow and has two.

Insults

Beast-Man again refers to Cringer disparagingly as “kitty”, but otherwise it’s over to Trapjaw, who calls Teela and Duncan “brats” and says that these same two, plus Evil-Lyn, are “losers”. Evil-Lyn retaliates with a succinct “dolt”.

Trapjaw: “One last insult for the road?”

Does it have the Power?

Another winner here, and full marks to it for somehow managing to go for the apocalyptic end-of-the-universe storyline so common to recent incarnations of Masters of the Universe and still make it exciting and relatable. It’s lighter on the humour than many episodes, and the plot is pretty thin, but it’s all held together by a genuine sense of fun and camaraderie; more than any series since Filmation, I feel that the CGI cartoon has that elusive sense of heart. It’s been a great ride; here’s hoping that this episode isn’t the last, though as it’s been more than a year now, it sadly probably is.

Episode 25 – The Beginning of the End

In which Duncan’s new catchphrase needs work.

As so often happens in various Masters of the Universe incarnations, Skeletor celebrates his victory by making a holographic state of the union address to the people of Eternia, detailing his deranged plans for their futures. In this case, as he does so, Krass looks on, with the dawning realisation that she’s made a massive mistake, especially once Skeletor reveals that the entire population of Eternia will be transformed into either Dark Masters or monstrous slaves.

Skeletor: “I’ll be the first to admit my audition to be the sun in the Teletubbies reboot needs work.”

Luckily, Duncan has a theory that the Power of Grayskull and Havoc are basically the good and evil sides of the same coin, so with that in mind, all that’s needed to prevent Havoc spreading across the surface of Eternia is to build some magic towers imbued with the Power of Grayskull. Sounds a bit like a plot device to give everyone else something to do while He-Man thumps Skeletor, but okay, let’s go with it.

Unexpectedly, the first step is for Teela and Duncan to recruit Evil-Lyn and Trapjaw to help out with the tower building, so at least there’s the chance we’ll get a bit of snark during this process. As it turns out, though, there’s very little snark, or indeed dialogue of any kind, except Duncan shouting “I am a builder!” which might have the same sentence structure as “I have the Power!” but is inarguably less exciting. No matter: job’s a good’un, and a nice big wall is erected to stop the incoming tidal wave of Havoc.

Duncan: “Maybe I can get a job in construction once this is all over.”

Meanwhile, He-Man and Cringer arrive at Castle Grayskull at roughly the same time that Krass finally decides to attack Skeletor. While Cringer occupies himself facing off against Beast-Man – now transformed into one of Skeletor’s “Skeletrones” – He-Man enters the castle to find Krass and Skeletor engaged in a fairly one-sided battle. And so it’s over to these two nemeses to spend a bit of time trying to beat each other up, in a fight involving He-Man knocking Skeletor’s head off but that still somehow not being the end of it.

Eventually, Krass re-enters the fray, and once she teams up with He-Man, Skeletor is seemingly defeated. But, as so often, it’s only a temporary victory, and Skeletor – like the proverbial bad penny – reappears, capturing Krass and shoving her face into a wall of Havoc. It’s at this point that He-Man takes leave of his senses and offers to trade the Power Sword for Krass’ life, a deal that Skeletor eagerly accepts. On receipt of the sword, he instantly plugs it into the Havoc Staff, causing him to transform into an oversized demon and destroy Castle Grayskull as he outgrows it. He ends the episode by announcing, “I am the Power!” which is a much better line than Duncan’s nonsense about being a builder.

Skeletor: “Ah cheers, mate, I’ve been wanting one of these for ages.”

In today’s adventure…

This little jaunt to Eternia taught us that offering really good weapons to supervillains in order to save your friends might solve one immediate problem, but ultimately create a whole host more. I don’t know who in the target audience is likely to be heavily involved in hostage negotiations and would thus need this insight, but I suppose somebody might be.

Character checklist

Nothing unexpected here: the dramatis personae consists of He-Man, Cringer, Teela, Duncan, King Randor, Man-e-Faces, Orko, Stratos, Krass, Skeletor, Beast-Man, Evil-Lyn, Trapjaw and Tri-Klops, and there’s a last-minute appearance for Prince Adam too.

King Randor: “Standing here frowning while the camera’s at a jaunty angle really does make me look dead hard.”

Insults

Skeletor kicks things off by addressing Beast-Man as something that sounds very much like “mutiless malfeasant”, and while I’m pretty confident I’ve got the second word right (not least because it actually means something), I’m by no means certain about the first. Answers on a postcard as to what Skeletor actually said, please.

Elsewhere, we’re on safer ground when Trapjaw calls Duncan a “twerp”, and Duncan retaliates by referring to Trapjaw as “awful” and a “tool”. Meanwhile, Beast-Man rather sneeringly addresses Cringer as “Kitty” (before the two of them inexplicably disappear from the episode), and Skeletor summons all his disdain to call He-Man and Krass “kiddies”.

He-Man: “Calling me a kiddy really boils my piss, Skeletor, so watch it.”

Does it have the Power?

It certainly does: it’s tense, exciting, and deeply silly when it needs to be. He-Man’s arrival in Castle Grayskull to save Krass is punctuated by a very funny scene which has its tongue firmly in its cheek, managing to maintain the sense of high drama but not being overly serious about it. As the above summary suggests, much of the episode’s runtime is taken up with a fight between He-Man and Skeletor, and it’s to its credit that this doesn’t get tedious. The subplot with the magical defensive wall is perhaps a little less compelling, and in complete honesty I wasn’t sold on the reasoning behind He-Man’s decision to hand over the power sword: I felt like he’s been in worse scrapes before, and seemed to only do this to further the plot. But neither of these complaints matter when the series is so much fun. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Episode 24 – In-can’t-ation

In which Orko treats us to a classic personal crisis.

After last week’s ominous suggestion that Orko is the best person to cure Prince Adam of his Havoc infestation, we open in a location that looks like a vision of the apocalypse: a bright orange landscape with hundreds of Orkos flying around. I have vague memories of this being where we saw Orko last, several episodes ago, but I think I must have blacked it out. It’s certainly only now that I’m appreciating the full horror of it.

Orko: “Welcome to your own personal hell.”

Luckily, most of the Orkos remain in the background and don’t cause me any trouble, but one – the original – is off on one of his “Christ I’m useless” kicks. It’s clearly only a matter of time before he drops a chocolate cake on Man-at-Arms and fucks off into the forest to manipulate everyone into feeling sorry for him. Duncan tries to forestall this by telling Orko that he’s actually a perfectly capable wizard, and when that doesn’t work, Teela zaps Orko into another dimension and tells him not to come back until he’s found a Havoc-curing spell.

Orko soon comes across a manifestation of the original Orko the Great, who is less of a robot and more like our old friend. Whether that’s a good or bad thing I leave to you to decide. Orko the Great seems to be pretty incompetent, and there follows a fair whack of time with the two Orkos debating each other on matters of little to no consequence until Robot Orko acquires the spell he needs and returns to Eternia.

Orko the Great: “Miss me, guys?”

Unfortunately, the spell not only drains the Havoc from Adam, but it also drains his personality. If I were feeling cruel, I might ask how you can tell, but that’s a fairly unrewarding direction in which to take this review. Instead, I’ll simply report that the spell has rendered Adam – as well as Teela, Duncan and Cringer – the victim of a body swap with those weird bouncing things that populate Eternia, which are here revealed to be obsessed with the weather.

And so it’s up to Orko, of course, to put things right, despite his continuing insistence that he’s completely useless. His initial attempt manages to make our four heroes suffer body swaps with each other – so for all you pervs who want to see Adam inside Teela, this is finally your chance – and his second transforms them into their Revelation incarnations (come on, do Filmation, you cowards), but thereafter he finally gets it right and our heroes return to their own bodies.

Teela: “Well, this is something of a revelation.”

Meanwhile, Evil-Lyn pitches up outside Castle Grayskull to offer Krass some advice: make sure the reward for helping Skeletor is worth it. From the look on Krass’ face, she seems to be increasingly unsure of that, but before she can do anything in particular about it, Skeletor’s ritual comes to an end, and he is restored to life, complete with a ridiculous pair of horns.

Skeletor: “Christ, with these horns I’m going to need a backing track from Mousse-T and Tom Jones.”

In today’s adventure…

Orko might as well be talking directly to the camera at the end of today’s episode, when he comments that “we all make mistakes, but if you don’t try, you’ll never get any better”. He’s definitely not talking to the camera though, because he’s got his back to it, so perhaps he wasn’t addressing us, which means we can all feel free to continue not trying.

Character checklist

Just the classics: Prince Adam, Cringer, Teela, Duncan, King Randor, Orko, Krass, Evil-Lyn and Skeletor. There’s also a few short scenes for Beast-Man, Trapjaw and Tri-Klops, who are bickering between themselves, presumably about the best way to keep themselves relevant in a story which seems to have left them behind about 10 episodes ago.

Trapjaw: “That is among the goofiest grins I’ve ever seen, Beast-Man.”

Insults

Both versions of Orko refer to themselves as a “failure”, which I’d not disagree with. There’s also a really odd little sequence in which Evil-Lyn calls Krass “tammy”, which made absolutely no sense to me, though I’m willing to accept it may have more meaning to those on the other side of the Atlantic.

Does it have the Power?

You know what? Despite having a focus on numerous incarnations of Orko and their various personal insecurities, this one is actually pretty enjoyable. The Orko scenes themselves are maybe the least entertaining, but they feel true to the spirit of Masters of the Universe and to Orko’s character, and it’s always fun to revisit that, even if only so I can rip it to shreds. The subsequent body swap shenanigans don’t go on long enough to become tedious, and they do allow for a couple of amusing lines and visual jokes (it was genuinely unexpected to see the Revelation characters show up), while the Evil-Lyn, Krass and Skeletor scenes do some decent work in setting us up for what I assume is the epic finale coming next time. All in all, a bit silly and great fun, which is everything I want from He-Man, really.

Episode 23 – A Leap of Faith

In which He-Man experiments with the concept of being a complete cock.

Conforming to everybody’s expectations, the newly Havoc-infused He-Man swiftly proves to be a bit of a dick. After a bit of a fraught conversation with his colleagues, He-Man discovers that he can no longer wield the power sword, and goes bouncing off over the hills, proclaiming that he will happily save Eternia without anyone’s help. Everyone watches him go, probably with a sense of relief, and only Teela bothers to give chase.

He-Man: “My my, what big teeth you have, Cringer.”

When she catches up with him, the two of them have a nice chat about various subjects, ranging from Eldress to Havoc, via King Grayskull and Krass. Eventually, He-Man concludes that Eternia’s biggest problem is Skeletor – which, in all honesty, has been obvious to me ever since the opening credits of The Cosmic Comet – and gibbers something about finally having the power to do something about it. And with that, off he goes again, leaving Teela behind.

Teela returns to the tomb, where Duncan is bemoaning the destruction of the Wind Raider (which occurred last week, though I don’t think I bothered to mention it). He and Teela therefore very quickly build themselves a Talon Fighter, in a feat of engineering that – despite taking place in a universe occupied by witches, wizards, inexplicably muscly skeletons and talking green tigers – seemed to me to be far too rapid for me to willingly suspend disbelief. Once in possession of their new ship, Duncan, Cringer and Randor head off to Grayskull to intercept He-Man, while Teela pops off to try to recruit numerous other no-hopers to lend their assistance.

Duncan: “Everyone, appreciate my awesomeness. I am awesome. I promise.”

The Talon Fighter trio catch up with He-Man in some deserty badlands, and indulge in a bit of a rumble before they finally get him to sit down and watch some comic-book style animation about how King Grayskull – in his long ago battle against the Snake-Men – became corrupted by Havoc in much the same way as He-Man is now experiencing. This does the trick, and He-Man powers down into Prince Adam.

Meanwhile, in Castle Grayskull, Skeletor has placed the body of King Grayskull in a big Havoccy chamber, and is preparing to merge his own ghostly form with Grayskull’s corpse. Teela detects the beginning of the ritual, and determines that to stop Skeletor, He-Man will first need to be entirely cured of his Havoc infection. This will, apparently, require Orko’s input, so it looks like we’ll be heading off to Eternos next time to reunite with the little toerag.

Teela: “Oh god. Not Orko. Please.”

In today’s adventure…

Teela helpfully spells out that the most important thing about power is knowing when to use it and when not to. This essentially boils down to “don’t be a dick”, which I think is a very handy life lesson for all of us.

Character checklist

The main players are Prince Adam, He-Man, Cringer, Teela, Duncan and King Randor, and there are also short showings for Krass, Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Beast-Man, Trapjaw, Orko, Tuvar, Badra, Stratos, Mosquitra, Webstor, and – regrettably – that fucking Gary butterfly thing.

Trapjaw: “Are we even relevant anymore, or could we just go into retirement on the Costa del Sol?”

Insults

Havoc seems to have got everyone riled up this week; He-Man kicks things off by addressing King Randor as an “old man”, but thereafter it’s over to the villains, who in their one short scene, start slagging each other off like it’s a Filmation episode. Beast-Man says Teela and Duncan are “brats”, which is par for the course, but Trapjaw then gets personal by describing Beast-Man as a “pile of wet hair” and a “furbrain”, as well as calling Skeletor a “bonehead”. Evil-Lyn rounds this little lot up with a succinct “idiots” to encompass Beast-Man and Trapjaw.

Does it have the Power?

Once again, it’s punctuated by a lot of inarticulate fighting, and preceding that, quite a lot of scenes of He-Man running and jumping around while the others chase him, but at its heart, it’s a pretty decent episode with an attempt at a moral about the inherent dangers of power. The best scene, though, is probably the short conversation between King Randor and Cringer, in which the former thanks the latter for his parenting of Adam; it’s sweet and low-key, which is a nice change of pace amid all the flashing lights and shouting. Overall, it’s another of those episodes that won’t be anyone’s favourite, but is by no means dull or irritating – except when Gary is onscreen.

Episode 22 – The Tomb of Grayskull

In which Skeletor goes grave robbing.

Trapped inside the tomb of Grayskull, He-Man makes his way to the main chamber, where he finds Krass and the ghost of Skeletor standing imposingly next to a purple glowing sphere. Skeletor’s first priority, of course, is to do some taunting, but once he’s got that over with, he turns his attention to reanimating Grayskull’s corpse so that he himself can rise from the dead. Exactly how this is supposed to work, I couldn’t say, but I’m sure it all makes loads of sense. In case it doesn’t, we’re now treated to an epic battle between He-Man and Krass to distract us.

He-Man: “I always said you were in your own little bubble, Skeletor.”

This little set-to comes to an end when Skeletor successfully does whatever the hell he’s doing and comes into possession of the bones of King Grayskull. He then opens a portal for himself and Krass to escape to Castle Grayskull, leaving He-Man to battle a really big snake. It doesn’t go well: the snake eats He-Man, which is a trifle unexpected but not permanent, I’d wager.

Meanwhile, outside, most of the rest of the characters engage in a fairly inconsequential rumble while King Randor attempts to figure out how to open the door to the tomb. Randor’s efforts are soon rendered unnecessary when the giant snake busts its way out of the tomb. Things look pretty bleak, but He-Man has been happily marinating in a pool of Havoc inside the snake, and he chooses this moment to burst out of the giant serpent, killing it in the process. It’s not all good news, though: he’s now glowing green, and I suspect he’s a little bit worse for wear, possibly even evil. But we’ll have to wait for next week to confirm that.

He-Man: “There’s a joke somewhere here about being green with envy.”

In today’s adventure…

I’m at a bit of a loss this time. I think the only particularly evident lesson here is King Randor’s insistence that you should always read the instructions before trying to operate machinery, especially if your default approach is to blow the machinery up.

Character checklist

No surprises today: it’s He-Man, Cringer, Krass, Teela, Duncan, King Randor, Skeletor, Mer-Man, Evil-Lyn, Beast-Man and Trapjaw, and there’s also a weird dream-sequence cameo for Man-e-Faces.

Insults

Mer-Man gets most of the badmouthing: Duncan calls him a “psychic karate fish-man”, while Evil-Lyn goes for the simpler “overgrown guppy”. Elsewhere, Beast-Man sneeringly addresses Cringer as “Palace Cat”, which – after seven years running this blog – presents me with my first opportunity to mention my favourite animal, the Pallas Cat, otherwise known as the manul. Look at it. Just look at it.

Pallas Cat: “I hate you all so much.”

Does it have the Power?

It’s a very simple episode that consists almost entirely of an elongated fight scene. While it’s engaging enough, I found myself wishing for a little bit more substance, especially with the Krass storyline. He-Man came close to bringing her back today, but got rebuffed rather coldly, which was a very effective moment: it would have been nice to see more of that, rather than the fairly incessant banging and explosions. Still, there’s nothing wrong with this instalment, but don’t go in expecting greatness.