He-Man and the
Asteroid of Doom is a 1986 Masters of
the Universe children’s book written by John Grant and illustrated by Robin
Davies. Here, Hordak seeks to control an ancient power source in orbit around
Eternia.
It’s 1986 and Grant’s still making the same fundamental
mistakes: here we have Grayskull-as-headquarters and Zodac-as-evil-minion. Ah,
well, at least he’s consistent. This is one of his better stories, though, as
the three-way rivalry works quite well. It’s a shame, however, that a fundamental
part of the story turns on Skeletor being too dim-witted to realize that
bringing a giant exploding asteroid down on top of Snake Mountain might not be
a great idea. But on the whole, this is a pretty enjoyable story (one factor
may well be that we expect quite a bit worse from Grant and are then relieved
not to get it).
Davies’ art surpasses all his previous He-Man work. His
characters and backgrounds look good in most cases, and his space scenes are
excellent, particularly because of the use of color. The Fright Zone and Horde ships
are done very faithfully to the Filmation style – that’s a nice, if unexpected,
touch. The only real criticism here is that what’s described as a “great metal
ball” looks confusingly like a natural satellite.
It’s a pretty solid book in any case, but in nearly every
way, He-Man and the Asteroid of Doom
is superior to all the Grant/Davies collaborations of previous years.
RECOMMENDED
Read it HERE
