Saturday, September 8, 2012

THE CLASH OF ARMS (mini-comic, 1983)


The Clash of Arms is a 1983 Masters of the Universe mini-comic. No author or artist is credited, but this looks like Larry Houston’s work. Here, Fisto is captured and forced to fight Skeletor’s minions one by one in a gladiatorial arena that Skeletor and Evil-Lyn apparently run on the side.

Skeletor operating his own coliseum is such a cool idea that I don’t even want to nitpick about why we’ve never heard of this before, particularly as it’s right next to Castle Grayskull. Let’s keep going.

It’s nice to see Fisto get his day in the sun – and that he’s a force to be reckoned with. With his battles, we get some quality action scenes and even a little bit of intensity.

Here also is the surprising scene of He-Man riding in on a horse and shooting folks, which is extremely satisfying, much in the way that He-Man shooting folks in the live-action film was not in the least bit satisfying.

Stridor is here, standing in for Battle Cat, running fast, knocking walls down, and kicking people in the face. You really couldn’t ask for a better advertisement for him or for Fisto.  

And speak of the devil – the Filmation Snake Mountain is here, too. Ask and ye shall receive.

Nothing but good times in this issue.

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Read it HERE