Castle Grayskull is a 1983 Masters of the Universe
children’s book; no author or artist is credited. It’s a read-along book with a
record/audio cassette; I’m only reviewing the book itself, which relates the origin
of Castle Grayskull and (briefly) the account of how Prince Adam got the Power
Sword.
This book follows Michael Halperin’s series bible pretty
closely, and it reads like a preview for the show: there’s no He-Man-Skeletor
conflict here; only promises of conflicts to come (disappointingly, contrary to
the book’s cover, there’s no scene with Skeletor getting blasted comically into
the air by the castle).
The book features black and white art, presumably by two
artists. First, there are a couple of really good, very detailed drawings of
the Castle Grayskull playset that get re-used several times throughout the
book. Second and more common are some extremely simple and crude line drawings
of characters; these are, frankly, terrible. The book is written with a
considerable amount of descriptive detail – enough to stand without art – and one
wonders whether the illustrations were just thrown in at the last minute.
There’s nothing here that’s not in the series bible, but awful
art notwithstanding, this book succeeds as a kid-friendly version of the
Filmation origin story.
RECOMMENDED
Read it HERE
