HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE MAGAZINE #10

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.

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MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE #8 (Star, 1987)

Masters of the Universe #8, “The Getaway,” is by Carlin, Wilson, and Bulanadi. Here, Hordak shows up on Eternia to do…something.

Holy swamoli, Carlin’s at it again with a plot that makes no sense whatsoever. Hordak conquers the Royal Palace, takes care of all the Heroic Warriors, and, having achieved near-total victory, wanders off into the mountains, apparently content with stealing a single weapon from Man-At-Arms’ workshop. Fortunately, He-Man has plenty of brand-new toys handy to help him save the day.

Carlin doesn’t stop there. Snake Face and Sssqueeze are working for Hordak, and Sssqueeze can breathe under water. Mosquitor can fly. Hordak, the great sorcerer, is inexplicably reduced to walking through the forest after his great victory, for the sole purpose of allowing the protagonists to hear enough exposition to get involved. He-Man’s sword is shooting energy beams again. We’re expected to believe that Man-At-Arms created Buzz Saw Hordak’s buzz saw? How can you even steal a weapon that has to be installed in your chest cavity?

The art team is the same as the last few issues, and yet Wilson, who’s penciled all the comics thus far, has really botched He-Man’s sword this time. And his scale issues with He-Man’s transformation continue, only here he’s got the opposite problem: an absurdly tiny He-Man. Lazy.

You know, I don’t mind having toys plugged to me as long as it’s done in a remotely coherent way. But this is a horrendous piece of work.

RECOMMENDED AGAINST

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MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE #7 (Star, 1987)

Masters of the Universe #7, “Long Live the King,” is by Carlin, Wilson, and Bulanadi. Here, Skeletor conjures up a band of new minions to try to capture the Royal Palace.

Wow – that’s actually a very solid plan by you, Skeletor: good planning, intelligent deployment of minions, a clever ruse – all in all, nicely done. Carlin also does us the courtesy of giving us a plausible explanation for Faker successfully impersonating He-Man (he also gives us another “holy swamoli,” though, so I’m not letting him off the hook just yet).

In this issue, Carlin turns his double-barreled character development cannon onto King Randor: Randor is feeling washed up, and is trying to recapture his glory days as a warrior (Carlin also sets up a potential parallel of Randor’s confidence issues with Skeletor’s, but does nothing with it). That’s a potentially very interesting topic for exploration, but Carlin’s Randor is a low-self esteem buffoon, moping around the castle, letting his wife and his bodyguard tell him where to go and what to do, and not taking charge of anything. Naturally, inexplicably knocking out Faker (a robot) with one hit swings his pendulum to the other extreme, and the issue climaxes with him taking names and, somehow, shooting magic out of his hands (insert the Eternian Viagra joke of your choice here). It doesn’t help matters that other characters, most notably Clamp Champ, are overtly one-dimensional. One can get away with these sorts of things fairly easily in cartoon format; here, they’re quite a bit more glaring (these comics are geared toward a young audience, not a brain damaged audience).

By necessity (the necessity of plugging as many different toys in this comic as possible, that is), Blast-Attak is given a completely new origin – he’s no longer a Snake Man, and he may not even be a robot. Here, too, we’re back to the Sorceress being unable to leave Grayskull in human form, a device the mini-comics did away with when she got her own action figure the Three Towers appeared.

Nothing new to say about the art; overall, it’s pretty good.

There’s a good story here trying to get out, but the characters are handled too clumsily to get the reader to invest in it.

TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT

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HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE MAGAZINE #9

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Magazine #9 is the Winter 1987 issue.

There’s a peculiar Tang contest ad, which states that the first prize is ten VCRs, the second prize is 500 chairs, and the third prize is 5,000 t-shirts. After a bit of puzzling, one is forced to conclude that this is just poor writing and that they are, for example, giving a VCR to each of ten kids, rather than ten VCRs to one kid. While we’re on the subject, there’s another super-dated Kool-Aid Koolers ad here with a garishly-dressed kid who’s wearing at least three shirts (this ad at least makes it explicit that they’re awarding just one VCR and one chair to contest winners).

There’s a plug for the 1987 Rumplestiltskin film; there’s no mention of the fact that Cannon Films, which produced it, was also doing the He-Man movie, or that Billy Barty, who played the title character, had been cast in it (this latter tidbit, however, does appear on another page with information on the film’s casting and plugs for the re-run of the Christmas Special and the Power Tour).

We have a full-page feature on martial artist/actor Ernie Reyes, Jr., who will be better known to many of you as either “that little kid from The Last Dragon” or “the guy from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze,” depending on how old you are and where your interests lie.  

This issue’s comic story, “Raid on Snake Mountain,” features a remarkably coherent plot and a relative lack of silliness (emphasis on relative; it’s inexplicable that Skeletor’s left his brand new ray gun unattended while He-Man and company stroll in through the front door). The story does a good job, though, of showing that Ninjor can actually be a pretty awesome henchman.

The activities here are the usual fare. The only Earl Norem poster included is the cover (although there’s another piece of his work inside); also included is He-Man-themed gift wrap “to make your holiday presents look super powerful,” although good luck wrapping more than one thing with it.

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