He-Man and the Lost
Dragon is a 1986 Masters of the
Universe children’s book written by John Grant and illustrated by Robin
Davies. Here, to create cover for an invasion of Eternia, Hordak attempts to
unleash a horde of monsters on Eternia – and gets one benign stegosaurus.
This is an expanded version of the short story “Dragon from
the Lost Valley” from Ladybird’s 1985 He-Man
and Masters of the Universe collection. Why we’re still hung up on this
dinosaur being a “dragon,” I can’t say, but this is a quaint little story, and
one that, aside from all Grant’s chronic non-canon telepathy nonsense, would
have made a reasonably good cartoon episode, even if the degree of difficulty is on the low side.
Even so, Grant’s attention to detail leaves something to be
desired. In Masters of the Universe
cartoons and mini-comics, dragons abound, yet the characters here treat it like
some mythical creature. And Hordak’s ordnance is ridiculously powerful – why not
drop one of those bombs on Castle Grayskull, on Snake Mountain, on the Royal
Palace?
Davies concludes his work on Ladybird’s He-Man books with
some of his best art. Just as in the contemporary He-Man and the Asteroid of Doom, he does an excellent job
duplicating the Filmation style, and his backgrounds are excellent. His use of
color and shading is also quite strong.
In the end, in spite of the usual letdowns from Grant, this
is a perfectly enjoyable story.
RECOMMENDED
Read it HERE
