Friday, December 7, 2012

THE MENACE OF MULTI-BOT! (mini-comic, 1985)



The Menace of Multi-Bot! is a 1985 Masters of the Universe mini-comic written by Steven Grant and illustrated by Jim Mitchell and Todd Kurosawa. Here, Modulok creates a robotic duplicate of himself to attack He-Man.

Modulok couldn’t defeat He-Man; one wonders why anybody thought a robot copy on its own would do substantially better, even if it could resurrect itself and talk masochistic smack. And why does everybody seem so surprised to learn it’s a robot? Did they look at it? What did they think it was?

While the magnet solution makes sense, I guess (as long as they’re magical Eternian super-magnets), He-Man (and by implication, Steven Grant), seems to be guessing at the science behind it, which makes the resolution feel silly. [YOUR “Magnets, How Do They Work” JOKE HERE]

The art is okay. Mitchell isn’t much for backgrounds, but his figures are pretty good (although Hordak’s Skeletor teeth make him kind of look like he needs to go put his dentures in – he’s a bat, not a skull, get it right, people). Somewhat surprisingly, Multi-Bot, the very character this comic was created to sell, actually looks very little like his action figure. Just how early in the production process did they crank these comics out?

A prolonged fight, squabbling villains, the unstoppable power of friendship: it’s all well and good, but there’s just nothing here to put this one over the top.

TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT

Read it HERE