King of the Snake Men is a 1985 Masters of the
Universe mini-comic written by Steven Grant and illustrated by Bruce Timm
and Mike Van Cleave. Here, Skeletor enlists King Hiss to help him defeat
He-Man, and King Hiss recounts his origin story.
Here’s the third and final faction of He-Man villains, and it’s
a welcome one. Hiss, on his worst day a more competent villain than Hordak, is
reminiscent of Ricardo Montalban’s Khan from Star Trek, and whether
intentionally designed thus or not, the parallel works.
Grant does a nice job with the story, although here’s yet
another instance where they capture He-Man but let him keep his sword (although in fairness, He-Man artists hide it in hammerspace half the time). Grant
handles the diplomacy between the villains well, and he gets points for
incorporating the flying fists in a non-stupid manner.
This isn’t the best art we’ve seen from Timm, but his pencils
are still above average for the mini-comics, and he always does good work with
faces and poses. Van Cleave’s inks lend to the atmosphere, but the colors are
on the garish side.
On the whole, this is a pretty good mini-comic, and I, for
one, welcome our new ophidian overlords.
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Read it HERE
