Masters of the
Universe: Rise of the Snake Men is a three-issue miniseries originally
published by CrossGen in 2003 and 2004. It was written by Val Staples and
illustrated by Andie Tong and Jonboy Meyers. Here, King Hsss is freed from his ancient
prison and unleashes his army on Eternia.
It must be noted that, as you might recall, this isn’t an
original story; it’s a retelling of the two-part second-season cartoon episode
of the same name. And it’s entertaining enough, although it has some problems;
some are carried over from the cartoon and some are new.
This is a heavily action-driven story, and aside from the
usual machinations by Evil-Lyn, there’s little going as far as a plot beyond “fight
the Snake Men” (there’s also Zodac’s plan for revenge, which honestly doesn’t
seem all that well thought-out; there are clearly more intelligent and less risky
ways he could have gone about it). But in something of a contrast to his 80s
counterpart, King Hsss is pretty one-dimensional here.
Staples’ writing is generally fine, although there’s his
usual stilted lack of contractions and the occasional truly bad sentence (e.g.,
“I estimate approximately a couple thousand warriors”). There are also a lot of
very corny one-liners.
The art is, on the whole, good as well. Backgrounds are left
out or bare-bones whenever possible, but the action, of which there is a
plethora, is well-handled, although the panel layouts sometimes make one wonder.
And it’s not the artists’ fault, but man, those dinosaur vehicles are stupid.
In all, Masters of the
Universe: Rise of the Snake Men is a solid enough retelling of an adequate story.
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Read it HERE
