I Have the Power is a 1985 Masters of the Universe
children’s book written by Bryce Knorr and illustrated by Harry J. Quinn
and James Holloway. Here, Skeletor creates a giant mechanical spider, attacks
the palace, defeats He-Man, and captures the Power Sword.
Wow, Skeletor’s really got it together here, to a very
satisfying degree – that usually means his defeat at the end is going to be
super-cheap. And that’s something of the case here, as the story turns on a
number of non-canon sword-related plot shenanigans – well, that plus Prince
Adam using a guitar to fire an arrow with precision accuracy. In contrast to
the Filmation cartoon, here, without the Power Sword, He-Man automatically
turns back into Prince Adam after a short while. Here, only Prince Adam can
hold the sword without injury. Here, the Sorceress can power and depower the
sword at will. It works well enough, though, even if these story elements are just
made up on the spot.
We also get non-canon (but perfectly workable) origins for
Spydor and Sy-Klone, as well as Prince Adam reminiscing about how he got the
Power Sword in the first place (this flashback more or less follows Michael
Halperin’s series bible). The whole thing feels like it would have fit in
pretty well as a cartoon episode, sword-nanigans aside.
The art is, overall, adequate, although the quality varies
substantially from page to page, as in the other books in this series. There’s
no accounting for the cover, though, as the Battle Armor is nowhere to be found
anywhere inside, nor is Tri-Klops.
On the whole, the liberties I Have the Power takes
are forgivable based on what Knorr does with them, and the book is perfectly
entertaining.
RECOMMENDED
Read it HERE
