HE-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 3

"EVIL UNDER THE STARS" | "ATTACK ON SNAKE MOUNTAIN"
Story: Chris Weber | Art & Lettering: Gérald Forton
Colors by: Connie Schurr | Editor: Karen Wilson

He-Man's next newspaper story arc, "Evil Under the Stars", adapts characters from the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE motion picture into comic strip form. Specifically, it's the three movie characters who received action figures in the original toyline, along with one unexpected (and, in my opinion, unwelcome) redesign of an established character.

The story begins with Blade, one of Skeletor's henchmen in the movie who is presented here as an unaligned pirate, making trouble in a village called Ettlain. Teela and her royal guards head out to stop him. Meanwhile, Man-At-Arms and a woman named Miranda are testing a new anti-gravity device. The pair is working in remote coordination with an invetor named Gwildor, who lives in Ettlain. He-Man soon arrives in Ettlain to challenge Blade, but finds the villain backed up by a lizard-man called Saurod. While the villains battle He-Man and Teela, Gwildor meets a woman of his species named Thalia -- but in actuality she is Evil-Lyn, disguised and using Blade and Saurod as a distraction in order to steal a McGuffin called the gravitonic oscillation grenade from Gwildor's workshop.

At this point, the strip taught me a brand-new word I had never before seen in my life: demesne (noun; land attached to a manor and retained for the owner's own use). It turns out Evil-Lyn has a little guest cabin outside of Snake Mountain, where she can get away from Skeletor now and then. She and the villains escape there, but Teela gives chase. She spies on them and learns that they're fed up with Skeletor and plan to leave Eternia for the planet Merrian -- a new world to conquer. Beast-Man shows up, suddenly drawn to resemble his movie counterpart (a significant and generic-looking downgrade from his distinctive Filmation design), and says he wants in on the exodus as well.

Thus we have all our movie characters introduced to the strip, along with Evil-Lyn working toward her own ends -- something she did frequently on the TV series, and which is nice to see continued here. Evil-Lyn has long been my favorite of Skeletor's henchpeople, particularly because she pursues her own agenda, even working against Skeletor when it suits her needs to do so. She looks a little odd here in Filmation mode alongside a bunch of characters translated from live action, but to me that's a failing of the movie characters' appearances in a comic strip rather than a problem with the cartoon character design. Why Gérald Forton didn't give Blade, Saurod, and movie Beast Man (not to mention Gwildor) a Filmation makeover before dropping them into this story is beyond me -- but at least we can be happy he didn't try to translate Evil-Lyn's overly busy live action look to the strip as well!

He-Man and Gwildor arrive as Evil-Lyn opens a portal to Merrian. Evil-Lyn resumes her disguise at Thalia to throw them off, and winds up getting herself "rescued" as her allies disappear through the portal. Back at the palace, a mission is mounted to follow the villains to Merrian via spacecraft, since the Sorceress is unable to open a portal herself due to Evil-Lyn's use of the gravitonic oscillation grenade. Thus, Eternia's first manned interplanetary space flight launches, in a ship crewed by Man-At-Arms, He-Man, Teela, Gwildor, and "Thalia". The group arrives on Merrian and Evil-Lyn reveals herself. The villains are defeated, and Skeletor spirits Beast-Man, Evil-Lyn, and Saurod back to Snake Mountain for punishment while Blade is arrested by Merrian's authorities.

Chris Weber continues with some subtle world-building in this arc, again showing us King Randor's ruling council and also providing the name of Eternia's currency! Per Adam, the coin of the realm is called a krugerandor. Presumably named after the king, though that prefix makes it sound oddly Germanic. Still, it's nice to see Weber continue to fill in little mundane details like this which I find fascinating, but which likely would have distracted from the straightforward action-adventure style of a cartoon series aimed at children.

We also get more soap opera material than ever before, as a pair of romances apparently begin to blossom. Man-At-Arms is sweet on Miranda, his partner in the anti-gravity experiment, while Teela pretty brazenly comes on to He-Man while aboard the spaceship to Merrian (and continues to flirt with him after landing). Teela and He-Man always had a bit of chemistry in the cartoon as well, but I believe it was Filmation's belief that their target audience -- young boys -- would have no interest in "mushy stuff", so for the most part the pair was presented as colleagues and little more. I'm pretty sure it was only when SHE-RA, whose target demographic included girls, hit the air that He-Man began to show even the mildest interest in the opposite sex.

"Attack on Snake Mountain", sees Skeletor, absent save for cameos in the previous two story arcs, return as the main villain. He's been redesigned as well by Forton, to hew more closely to his movie look as well -- though in this case, Skeletor is sort of a hybrid of the Filmation design and the big screen version, and it works much better. If Forton had done something like this with Beast Man, I wouldn't be nearly as put off.

The soap opera material continues, as Man-At-Arms and Miranda grow closer while Teela finds herself pining for He-Man more than ever. At the same time, Skeletor hatches an elaborate scheme in which a corrupt palace guard used a magical talisman to trick Randor's prime minister, Duke Tiberon, into proposing an assault on Snake Mountain. Randor tables the discussion, but Tiberon orders Eternian hero Clamp Champ to infiltrate and destroy Skeletor's stronghold. The Sorceress senses Skeletor's plot and summons He-Man to Castle Greyskull, sending him to Snake Mountain via a secret tunnel beneath the castle that leads through the "Heart of Eternia". Teela arrives at the castle soon after for a heart-to-heart with the Sorceress about her feelings toward He-Man, but winds up accompanying the hero on his mission instead. Meanwhile, Skeletor sends Evil-Lyn and Beast Man to fight Clamp Champ.

Upon passing through the Heart of Eternia, He-Man is imbued with more power than ever before (plus a crown and cape). Skeletor appears to fight him directly, also drawing power from the Heart -- but He-Man proves stronger and, overwhelmed with power, prepares to kill Skeletor until Teela and the Sorceress talk him out of it. Skeletor and his minions escape, and He-Man and friends head home.

...This story is an absolute mess. There are good bits; don't get me wrong. The soap opera stuff has really ramped up, which I like quite a bit. But the plot itself, unless I missed something, makes no sense. Skeletor tricks Clamp Champ into attacking Snake Mountain, then sends Beast Man and Evil-Lyn out to fight him, but the reason for these machinations is never revealed! Whatever Skeletor hopes to gain through this bizarre plot remains in his head, never explained to the audience. Further, nothing ever becomes of his "inside man". The guy just lures Clamp Champ to Snake Mountain, and is never exposed or captured or anything. In fact, he seems to sort of vanish by the story's conclusion.

On top of all that, this is probably the weakest art so far in the strip. This Best Man design simply does not work alongside the Filmation-influenced stuff, and on top of that, Forton has begun to draw He-Man harness a bit differently. He always drew it somewhat larger than the Filmation version, but that looked okay -- however now he's also dropped it down on He-Man's chest, so it almost appears to be covering his stomach rather than his chest. His pectoral muscles are consistently illustrated entirely above the iron cross emblem, rather than being behind/covered by it. It looks ridiculous (and I'll provide some pics backing that up next week, when the change is shown more overtly).

Here's hoping for a return to form next week in terms of both story and art, because we've still got a lot of this strip to get through, and I'd hate to think it'll all be written and drawn this way going forward!