Power from the Sky
is a 1986 Masters of the Universe children’s
book written by Wallace I. Green and illustrated by Fred Carrillo. Here,
Skeletor uses an earthquake to create cover for an invasion of the Royal Palace;
meanwhile, Adam loses the Power Sword.
Here, Green presents us with an impressively dire situation
that he sets up well, and he gets a strikingly large-scale battle going. It’s
so nice (and so rare) to see Skeletor put together and pull off a well-planned,
well-executed scheme. Green also makes good use of Webstor, a generally
underused character.
However, the plot turns on some nonsense about how whoever
controls the palace during an eclipse rules Eternia. The story works well
enough without it – in fact, it works better
without it. Firstly, you’d think that some good guy, any good guy, would know
about the impending eclipse, and then figure that Skeletor would try something
and plan accordingly. Secondly, based on this premise, doesn’t the last page of
the book make Randor the supreme power on Eternia, putting Skeletor out of
business and rendering He-Man obsolete? (A side note: the eclipse story is more
than a little reminiscent of Skeletor’s plan from the 1987 live-action film.)
Carillo provides quality art, as usual (also as usual is the
fantastic Norem cover and the multiple coloring issues inside). Of note is the
fact that in 1985’s The Rock Warriors,
Carrillo drew the Royal Palace like a Roman villa. Here, though, he draws it
like a medieval castle – you couldn’t have dramatic rampart-scaling action scenes
otherwise.
In sum, the great story makes up for the silly eclipse
business, and this is a pretty good book overall.
RECOMMENDED
Read it HERE
