He-Man Smells Trouble is a 1985 Masters of the
Universe children’s book written by Bryce Knorr and illustrated by Harry J.
Quinn and James Holloway. Here, Roboto and Stinkor, each leaving his respective
faction in a huff, encounter a group of robots from Eternia’s ancient past.
These robots, Roboto included, are about as un-robot-like as
they come – they get their feelings hurt and they’re kind of stupid and slow on
the uptake, especially considering that they purportedly have “all the
knowledge in the universe.” If we’re going to do sentient machines, fine (obviously,
we don’t expect Asimov here, or Star Trek, or even, heck, Transformers),
but this is just bad writing. Along those lines, the story itself isn’t
particularly imaginative, and Knorr really writes down to his audience. In all,
this is yet another book that a literate six-year-old might well find insulting
to his or her intelligence.
The art from Quinn and Holloway features the same problems
as the other Golden hardcovers they worked on, including the stiff, hunched,
stubby-armed figures copied from the toys and the over-sized, long-armed creepy
Orko. Once in a while, we get a very nice page, like the spaceship or the
dragon, but on the whole, it’s a subpar performance.
In the end, any merit He-Man Smells Trouble may have
is overpowered the stink of the painful stupidity of its writing.
NOT RECOMMENDED
Read it HERE
