Monday, December 3, 2012

HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE MAGAZINE #4



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