When it came
to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, one thing I always liked was
that the action figures always came with their own mini-comics. Usually
the comics related to the action figure that you purchased so that you
could act out the same storyline with your newfound figure. Now while
these mini-comics certainly bring back some good memories, there's no
denying that the quality of writing was crude at best. In fact, when you
look back on some of them, it's hard to imagine being so completely
engulfed in such lacking stories. Sure, they had less space to work with
than a regular comic book, but was it really that hard to put a cohesive
tale together?
With this in
mind, I thought we could taker a closer look at one such story today:
No real
problems so far, though why He-Man would choose to fight Skeletor with a
simple battle axe instead of his infamous "power sword" is beyond me.
Also, could Skeletor possibly have more things to attack He-Man with here?
He's got a sword in one hand, a chain whip in the other, a little dragon
on his shoulder and an angry Battle Bones to ride on. Talk about
overcompensating...
Whoah, whoah,
whoah! Hold on there. Ignoring the fact that we've had two title pages in
a row - what is going on with Skeletor here? That is not his regular
armor. I've seen Battle Damage Skeletor, I've seen Terror Claws
Skeletor, but what's this one supposed to be? S&M Skeletor? Furthermore,
why did the artist decide to give him He-Man's furry underpants instead of
the far more respectable evil-purple loin cloth
we all grew to love? Well the answer is that this is actually based on the
Dragon Blaster Skeletor
action figure; but the figure looks far less flamboyant than the artist's
rendition. Also, Skeletor's Dragon doesn't appear to be helping very much
except for maybe shouting out some words of encouragement.
I really
don't think the Dragon was trying to dig into that mound to help Skeletor
out. I think he was just trying to dig a hole in which he could take a big
dragon shit. That's one hell of a useful sidekick you've got there,
Skeletor.
I love how
they're both standing in front of this giant pile of bones, yet Skeletor
stills feels the need to ask, "See it, Dragon?" Actually, Skeletor
could have named his Dragon something better than "Dragon" don't
you think? Considering it makes the "gyipe!" yelp of a canine, even
something like "Fido" or "Old Yeller" would've been a better name for it.
See? He
named that big pile of bones it "Battle Bones" instead of just "Bones".
Looks like the dragon is really getting screwed over.
Nice, so
because she's a girl, they don't have Teela compete against anyone and
declare her the winner of the archery contest. After all, surely any boy
would outdo her if they were to compete, right? To add insult to her, it
looks as though she's about to pleasure the king as a way of saying
thank you for pronouncing her the victor. Gottle love that bottom left
picture of Fisto too. He looks so goddamned happy there. If only he had a
frothy mug of ale in his steel fist so that he could make a toast to the
gods...
MUCH BETTER!
Ok, moving
right along with the story...
Was it
really necessary for He-Man to be holding his shield after transforming? I
mean, I know he needs the sword to transform, but the shield is
unnecessary since he's just going to play some games in a tournament.
Gotta love how modest he is, even though he and everybody else knows for a
fact that he'll win any contest involving strength. And what does
he get for winning the tower of power contest? Why, he receives a nice "Sieg
Heil!" from Man-At-Arms of course!
Isn't the
point of Mekanek to be able to spot enemies from far away so that they
have enough time to get away? Yet in the fourth frame, it's quite clear
that his extendo-neck isn't needed to see the danger that's right in front
of them. At least we now know what those S&M chains on Skeletor's outfit
were really for. Still, it's just chains. Did he really need to wear a
completely different outfit just so he could use them?
And now we
know that his little Dragon actually does have a use: Hypno-Mist!
But really, why would you want to put them to sleep when you could
hypnotize them? Wouldn't that be a better use for something called "Hypno-Mist"? You know, Skeletor could make Ram Man
slam headfirst into the crotches of his compadres or
something along those lines. But no, he puts them to sleep and has Battle
Bones carry them away, instead of biting them in half. Skeletor really needs to
take a "evil" refresher course if you ask me.
Nice how
long it takes them all to notice the giant Battle Bones beast approaching
them. I guess being Masters of the Universe doesn't include being
Masters of Peripheral Vision.
So the
brilliant little Dragon decides to bite He-Man's shield instead of
spraying him with its Hypno-Mist at close range. Again, Skeletor has
clearly chosen his minions wisely.
So how
exactly does He-Man escape the mythical chains that were made to drain
power? No explanation is given at all. He-Man simply doesn't give up and
that somehow enables him to break free from the power-draining chains?
Yyyyyeah... so the message here is to never give up kids. Even if you're
trapped and there's clearly no possible way for you to escape and
you're surely doomed, don't give up.
Ok, the
comic clearly could have ended on this page with a celebration or
something, but instead, they decide to have Battle Bones tell his story?
Battle Bones toy was nothing more than an action figure holder really, it
didn't need to have a voice or a story for chrissakes. Mekanek also
appears to have lost any self-control of his extendo-neck.
I like how
Battle Bones explains that one day his mate died all of a sudden one day
with no explanation as to how or why. If you look in the bottom left frame
though, it looks like something ate her. My guess is that Battle Bones got
tired of eating plants and decided to eat her instead. Also something to
note, his mate actually appears to have eyelashes. I'm pretty sure
creatures like dinosaurs (or whatever the hell Battle Bones is supposed to
be) didn't have eyelashes. And if they did, they wouldn't have mascara on
to accentuate the fact that they were female dinosaurs ike the artist did
with this one.
So instead
of taking pity of Battle Bones and letting him lay his weary bones to rest
for all eternity, they basically turn him into a slave for Eternia? Real
nice. So much for the forces of good, eh? Well that wraps up the
story of Skeletor's Dragon. I'm sure it's made you feel 50 times smarter
than you actually are, but hey, that's the power of He-Man.
And now I
leave you with a few of the rarely seen "director's cut" frames of this
Masters of the Universe mini-comic. It's a pity they never actually used these frames because I
believe it
really would've made it a far more interesting story.
Questions or Comments about this piece? email -RoG-
