Meteor Monsters is a 1985 Masters of the Universe children’s
book written by Jack C. Harris and illustrated by Luis Eduardo Barreto. Here,
pieces of a meteor with the power to turn people and animals into giant, angry
versions of themselves land on Eternia, and He-Man and Skeletor race to find
them.
It’s a neat idea, and Harris does a good job maintaining
some suspense by keeping Skeletor and his minions a step ahead throughout, but
otherwise, the writing is shoddy. He-Man’s solutions to some of these problems
are pretty arbitrary and, shall we say, pulled out of his furry briefs – but of
course they work. The final resolution is a tad anticlimactic – and wait just a
minute – the moral and responsible Man-At-Arms goes nuts attacking his friends
and family under the effects of the meteor, but the wild snake monster hybrid
just stands there?
Barreto’s art is pretty good, although not quite on the
level that it was on, say, Time Trouble. His poses and action are very nice,
as are his backgrounds, but his figures often look a little sloppy, as though
the inks were rushed. Another problem is that Barreto isn’t afraid to draw
He-Man’s harness as suspenders tucked into his belt – he’s extremely
inconsistent in this regard. There are some nice pages, though, and a
particular highlight is the last one.
On the whole, Meteor Monsters does some things well,
but the writing is poor in too many ways (plus the suspenders).
TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT
Read it HERE
