HE-MAN MINICOMICS 1982

"HE-MAN AND THE POWER SWORD" | "KING OF CASTLE GRAYSKULL"
"BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS" | "THE VENGEANCE OF SKELETOR"

Written by: Donald F. Glut | Illustrated by: Alfredo Alcala

The first couple years of MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE minicomics are an interesting curiosity in the property's history. I touched on this a bit when I looked at a graphic novel from the eighties called THE SUNBIRD LEGACY, which was sort of a transitional state from the early comics world to the more familiar setup with He-Man as an alter ego for Prince Adam, along with a generally more light-hearted/superheroic tone. But in these four earliest MASTERS tales, none of that was even remotely established.

These stories instead paint a drastically different picture of the planet Eternia than what most fans have come to expect thanks to the Filmation TV series. Here, Eternia is a wild, untamed world. He-Man is a barbarian who leaves his tribe to defend the planet from the forces of evil. Castle Grayskull, rather than being the benign source of He-Man's power, is a mysterious fortress, neutral to good and evil alike, but which holds the power to rule the planet. References are made to a "Great War", which turned Eternia into a wasteland. As a result, high technology is an unusual artifact of the past.

Now, I'd never trade away my memories of the Filmation cartoon, which I loved as a child (and really, I still like it quite a bit today). And as that same child, I never really warmed up to the early minicomics, different as they were from the TV show -- heck, even the later minicomics, which as we'll see generally hewed pretty closely to the Filmation setup, didn't always float my boat either due to smaller inconsistencies. But nowadays, there's room in my head for different interpretations of the He-Man mythos, and I actually really like this early minicomic continuity quite a bit. It's more of a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy than the straight science-fantasy that later interpretations would present.

So this version of He-Man's story begins in the inaugural comic, "He-Man and the Power Sword", which sees our hero depart his tribe and, in short order, bump into a Sorceress who proclaims him the man to protect Castle Grayskull from the villainous Skeletor. The Sorceress provides He-Man with weapons and gear to carry out this mission, including the hero's iconic chest harness -- but, as presented by Don Glut, He-Man actually owns two such harnesses. One endows him with superhuman strength as long as he wears it, while the other generates a personal force field, making him virtually invulnerable. Without either harness, He-Man is still quite strong, but is mostly a mere mortal.

Also of note is that the Sorceress presented here is depicted as He-Man's female ally, the "warrior-goddess" Teela, clad in her action figure's snake-themed armor, and with green skin. Teela herself also appears in this story (and subsequent ones) sans the armor and with her normal Caucasian skin. As far as I know, the original Teela figure was never released with green skin, so this seems to be a case of Glut and artist Alfredo Alcala utilizing the existing figure as a springboard to create two separate characters from her.

Besides the Sorceress and Teela, the story also introduces Eternia's master of weapons, Man-At-Arms, as another ally for He-Man. Together, this group saves Castle Grayskull from Skeletor. The subsequent story, "King of Castle Grayskull", finds Skeletor and his second henchman, Mer-Man, searching for both halves of the Power Sword -- a mystical weapon whose legend is spelled out early in the story. By the time Filmation comes around, the blade will belong to He-Man and He-Man alone; however in these early minicomics, the sword is actually split into two halves. Whoever joins both halves together will possess the key to enter Castle Grayskull. I seem to recall this bit of mythology found its way into other He-Man fiction even after the cartoon series started, but of course my childhood memories could be jumbled on that front.

Anyway -- Skeletor and Mer-Man acquire both halves of the sword -- one of which they take from He-Man's final ally, the winged Stratos -- and enter Castle Grayskull, where they imprison Teela, who has been recently appointed the ancient edifice's guardian by the "Spirit of the Castle". He-Man springs Teela and together, the duo defeats Skeletor and Mer-Man.

The third story properly introduces Stratos, as He-Man works with him to once again battle Skeletor and Mer-Man. Then, the fourth tale wraps up the inaugural run of minicomics with an all-out slugfest between He-Man, Man-At-Arms and Teela against Skeletor, Beast Man, and Mer-Man.

It should be noted that, while these little books are generally called minicomics by all parties concerned, they’re actually presented in more of a storybook style, with one large illustration per page, accompanied by prose text. Beginning with the second year’s figures, the pack-ins will actually be comic books, as we’ll see next week.

As I said above, I really like this somewhat darker, post-apocalyptic version of Eternia. Not necessarily as a replacement for Filmation’s series, but as an alternate universe alongside it. And Don Glut’s script captures this world nicely, with suitably eerie descriptions of Castle Grayskull, as well as some slightly darker stuff you might not expect from a comic included with a toy marketed to children (a map of Grayskull is said to be drawn in blood, for example).

The artwork in these early tales is magnificent, by the way. Alfredo Alcala defines the barbaric prototype Eternia beautifully, with a sort of dark fantasy atmosphere that fits Glut’s scripts to a tee. It’s almost impossible to imagine these four stories drawn in any other style.

I believe there’s one more round of minicomics, from 1983, which take place in Glut’s Eternia (though they’re written by others). We’ll look at those next week before moving into the ‘84 chapters, which will begin to hew more closely to the familiar Filmation continuity that would eventually come to define the MASTERS saga for the remainder of the eighties.