He-Man and the Masters
of the Universe Magazine #4 is the Fall 1985 issue. The stories and
activities have plenty of Horde presence – She-Ra
was premiering, after all.
This is the sparsest issue thus far in terms of interesting content.
I mean, what am I supposed to talk about here, the spotlight on Malcolm-Jamal
Warner for the second season of The Cosby
Show? Make a joke about how “the Beast Monster,” which apparently refers to the Fright Zone Dragon, is the worst creature name of all time? (Also, that’s a caption for the cover illustration, not the title of any story or activity inside; this issue starts that confusing trend.)
We’ve got more substandard stories. “The Darkest Day”
centers around some “energy sphere” nonsense He-Man whips up with his sword (it’s
never even illustrated). At least Skeletor gets some good speechifying in. “The
Fight for the Fright Zone,” in which Skeletor and Hordak play a sport called “flashball,”
is stupid, but kind of fun.
The activities are the usual low-difficulty sort,
although there’s a pretty good maze puzzle. There are two posters included –
one is the sweet Norem cover of the Fright Zone Beast Monster Dragon Snake Creature; the other is a Candyland-style board game.
That’s really about it. You may be interested to know that “He-Man
of the Issue” Jason Van Beek went on to win two consecutive national collegiate
wheelchair basketball championships and become a National
Wheelchair Basketball Association (NWBA; not to be confused with the not-quite-as-obscure WNBA) All-Star
and 13-time champion. (Although I’d imagine that life is all downhill after being “He-Man
of the Issue” – heck, I’d put that on my resumé.)
Read it HERE
