Masters of the
Universe #4, “Snakes Alive!” is by the usual crowd: Mike Carlin, Ron
Wilson, and Dennis Janke. Here, Skeletor unleashes the Snake Men to aid him
against He-Man.
In concluding my review of the dreadful issue #3, I
questioned whether we could do worse. Carlin has accepted my challenge and
given us an issue that prominently features Rio Blast and Snout Spout, and,
while Carlin doesn’t quite make it, he comes close.
So here’s the origin of the Snake Men all over again, but
not as well-told as in the mini-comic King
of the Snake Men. There are some potentially interesting machinations going
on with the Snake Men, but this issue really just comes down to a bunch of
bumbling, incompetent heroes versus bumbling, incompetent villains. Rio Blast
and Snout Spout are like brain damaged buddy cops – Rio Blast is the insane one.
And does Snout Spout fight a fire here? No, of course he doesn’t. There’s some
pretty terrible dialogue here, too, the lowlight being Rio Blast’s “Five
snakes! Not one, but five!”
Wilson and Janke must have still been in the zone after
drawing Hordak’s big old head so many times in issue #3, because they put his
giant face on the cover even though he doesn’t appear in this issue (sorry,
neither does Spider-Man or Thor or any of those other guys). Wilson continues
his trend of drawing He-Man transforming in weird yoga poses to fit the page –
I don’t know if he’s having scale issues or what. And why is Kobra Khan brown?
This is a step up over issue #3, but not much of one.
NOT RECOMMENDED
Read it HERE
