He-Man and the Masters
of the Universe Magazine #10 is the Spring 1987 issue. This one’s largely dinosaur-themed.
It feels like content is down and ads are up. This is due in
large part to the fact that Mattel is getting the best of both worlds by including
a full page schedule for the Power Tour as content, and, on the movie front, we
get a photo spread of many of the cast members in character, as well as the
movie contest winner, Richard “Pigboy” Szponder. And there are only three unremarkable
activities here: stained-glass coloring (it’s much more obvious than the last one), a super-easy crossword, and a low-difficulty maze.
This issue’s story, “Journey to Preternia!” introduces the Powers of Grayskull dinosaur toys, but
of course does so in a completely contradictory manner from the last mini-comic.
Not only that, the dinosaurs talk, He-Man and Skeletor fight so hard they tear
the space-time continuum, and old-timey Castle Grayskull is made out of shiny
metal. No explanation is given for any of that, nor, still, for why these
ancient creatures are bionic. (Shoulder-mounted laser cannons? Now that’s evolution!)
Tying in with these toys, there’s a fairly interesting
two-page introductory survey of dinosaurs. Here also we get a plug for one of
my all-time favorite books: David Peters’ Giants of Land, Sea & Air: Past & Present. The He-Man of the Issue is ’80s
chess sensation K. K. Karanja.
There’s only one Earl Norem poster included, and it’s not
the cover. It plugs the three new Power Gear accessories, and to that end
features Castle Grayskull with a moat for the first and perhaps only time.
A final thought: one can’t help but contrast the photo of
Jack Wadsworth as Power Tour He-Man with those of Dolph Lundgren as movie
He-Man and wistfully consider whether the live-action film couldn’t have given
us some kind of happy compromise. Freakin’ William Stout.
Read it HERE
