THE MENACE OF MULTI-BOT! (mini-comic, 1985)

The Menace of Multi-Bot! is a 1985 Masters of the Universe mini-comic written by Steven Grant and illustrated by Jim Mitchell and Todd Kurosawa. Here, Modulok creates a robotic duplicate of himself to attack He-Man.

Modulok couldn’t defeat He-Man; one wonders why anybody thought a robot copy on its own would do substantially better, even if it could resurrect itself and talk masochistic smack. And why does everybody seem so surprised to learn it’s a robot? Did they look at it? What did they think it was?

While the magnet solution makes sense, I guess (as long as they’re magical Eternian super-magnets), He-Man (and by implication, Steven Grant), seems to be guessing at the science behind it, which makes the resolution feel silly. [YOUR “Magnets, How Do They Work” JOKE HERE]

The art is okay. Mitchell isn’t much for backgrounds, but his figures are pretty good (although Hordak’s Skeletor teeth make him kind of look like he needs to go put his dentures in – he’s a bat, not a skull, get it right, people). Somewhat surprisingly, Multi-Bot, the very character this comic was created to sell, actually looks very little like his action figure. Just how early in the production process did they crank these comics out?

A prolonged fight, squabbling villains, the unstoppable power of friendship: it’s all well and good, but there’s just nothing here to put this one over the top.

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Read it HERE

MAZE OF DOOM by Roger McKenzie and Al McWilliams

Maze of Doom is a 1985 Masters of the Universe children’s book written by Roger McKenzie and illustrated by Al McWilliams. Here, Skeletor conjures up a “maze” of jungles and rocky barriers around the Royal Palace.

Writers have saddled Skeletor with some needlessly convoluted plans in the past, and this one’s toward the top of the list. Unbeknownst to He-Man, Skeletor has already captured the Sorceress, yet, inexplicably, this doesn’t seem to get him anywhere as far as capturing Castle Grayskull is concerned. Naturally, his next move is to enact the most elaborate diversion ever to lure He-Man away from the palace. It’s good to see King Randor and Queen Marlena getting in on the action with some knife fighting, but this is just silly. McKenzie also prominently includes a moral about the value of freedom even though it has nothing to do with the story. Oh, and don’t put mustard on the cat.

McWilliams’ art is fair; his work on previous He-Man books is superior. He has a number of perspective issues, for one thing, plus Orko’s wearing some kind of hood and He-Man sometimes looks like he’s wearing a sports bra and furry granny panties. There are coloring problems as well, the worst being Skeletor, who looks like a green muskrat.

It’s not all bad, but Maze of Doom feels largely pointless.

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Read it HERE

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

THE ROCK WARRIORS by Michael Kirschenbaum and Fred Carrillo

The Rock Warriors is a 1985 Masters of the Universe children’s book written by Michael Kirschenbaum and illustrated by Fred Carrillo. Here, Skeletor creates an army of rock creatures and unleashes them on the Royal Palace.

This is a perfectly fine story idea, although the degree of difficulty seems too low – He-Man never has the slightest bit of trouble destroying the rock monsters, no matter how numerous they become. But the real problem here is that the story is undone by quite a bit of foolishness.

I mean, how does mining work on Eternia? They’re wandering through the forest “searching for precious metals.” And then it turns out (SPOILER) that plain old water not only dissolves the creatures (which are made of stone, not sand or dirt or mud), but Skeletor’s actual ray gun as well. On page 7, how is it that Skeletor’s minions are clutching onto the Roton blades (which should be rotating at a high rate of speed)? And then Buzz-Off, the one Heroic Warrior present who can fly, gets “trapped by a stream.”

Generally, Carrillo’s art is quite good, both in terms of figures (with the exception of He-Man’s epic arcing horizontal crotch-punch* on p. 21) and backgrounds (well, on the pages with backgrounds), although he makes some interesting style decisions: the palace is done like a Roman villa, for example, and Snake Mountain is in the middle of the jungle. Earl Norem’s great cover is also a highlight.

In the end, though, The Rock Warriors is a good story idea brought down by too much nonsense.

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Read it HERE

*This punch has “the force of a thousand raging bulls” – I’m glad we got that quantified.