HE-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 7

"HE-MAN IN WONDERLAND" | "SHAKEN TO THE CORE" | "THE LAST SURVIVORS"
Story: Chris Weber | Art & Lettering: Gérald Forton
Colors by: Connie Schurr | Editor: Karen Wilson

We're back to the absurd with our next HE-MAN story arc, as Prince Adam and Cringer explore the royal library and come across the books Queen Marlene brought with her from Earth. Then while Adam browses through ALICE IN WONDERLAND, at Snake Mountain, Skeletor casts a long-distance spell on He-Man. The Sorceress appears and tells Adam to transform so that Skeletor's spell will be triggered and He-Man can overcome it. Adam agrees, and one "By the Power of Greyskull" later, our hero is sucked into Skeletor's version of Wonderland.

He-Man wanders around, meeting the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Hearts and White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, March Hare, and Doormouse, and so forth, eventually battling the Jabberwock as the queen's champion. The Cheshire Cat reveals himself as Skeletor in disguise, leading to the nightmarish sight of He-Man battling a giant feline with a skeleton face before triumphing again and returning to Eternia.

Honestly, this isn't as awful as the premise sounds. The beginning is a little iffy -- how does Skeletor know to create such an elaborately accurate Wonderland if he's presumably never read the book? But from there, it's actually kind of fun as He-Man wanders around on the same path as Alice. This seems like one I should dislike for it's weirdness, but unlike some past outings, Chris Weber executes that weirdness well, leading to an entertaining story.

HE-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 6

"A WORLD IN THE BALANCE" | "AT THE EDGE OF THE DARKEST NIGHT"
Story: Chris Weber | Art & Lettering: Gérald Forton
Colors by: Connie Schurr | Editor: Karen Wilson

Things have calmed down on Eternia since the defeat of Iandir the Ice Queen, which prompts Prince Adam to decide a vacation is in order. The past several strips have played with the idea that Adam is beginning to resent He-Man; that he would like to go adventuring as himself now and then -- but he feels he can't show himself physically competent in any way, lest he blow his secret identity as a foppish layabout. So Adam asks Randor for leave to depart the palace for a few weeks. A bit of soap opera ensues, during which Randor chastises his son for shirking his duties -- but recent strips have also taken pains to depict Adam maturing into a capable member of Randor's ruling council, and when the king realizes this, he agrees that Adam has earned some time off.

Gwildor gets wind of Adam's plans and invites himself along, suggesting a trip to a neighboring planet called Naxos. Before leaving, Adam transforms Cringer into Battle Cat, then recruits Clamp Champ and Ram-Man to help safeguard Eternia in his absence. The Sunday page coloring issues which I mentioned last week continue here, though I'm not absolutely certain all the errors can be laid at the feet of Connie Schurr this time. Clearly there are some Sundays which were printed with missing color plates; there's too much drab brown for these to have been intentionally colored as they are. But even on the strips which appear to be faithfully reproduced, Schurr's colors leave much to be desired. Randor has his brown hair back, but his clothes change color, seemingly randomly, from Sunday to Sunday -- as do Adam's. It's as if Schurr simply gave up entirely on the Filmation palette, and on any sort of consistency in general, and started throwing random colors at the strips for the heck of it. But on the plus side, we've reached a point in the run where the editors behind this volume were unable to find colored versions of all the Sundays, so a few in this arc are reprinted in black-and-white -- and as the strip continues toward its conclusion, colorless Sundays will eventually become the norm.

HE-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 5

"WHEN YOU NEED AN EXTRA SOMETHING" | "IT'LL BE A COLD DAY"
Story: Chris Weber | Art & Lettering: Gérald Forton
Colors by: Connie Schurr | Editor: Karen Wilson

So after several story arcs which were mostly in the vein of the Filmation TV series that this comic strip ostensibly continues, we now reach... whatever this is. "When You Need an Extra Something" is, so far, the nadir of the strip. "The Time of Disasters", which we looked at last week, was bad, but it nonetheless felt like a sub-par episode of the cartoon. This subsequent arc, however, reads like a pitch that should have been firmly rejected at the earliest possible stage. It's not just awful, it's not HE-MAN. The entire plot is ludicrous and doesn't fit within the established world. (And this is a world that allows for a lot of crazy stuff!)

From the very beginning, we realize this isn't the Eternia we know, as Orko and Cringer argue over what TV show to watch. Prince Adam, meanwhile, is tasked by his father to escort a visiting princess to the theater that night -- and at the theater, the two are accosted by Eternian paparazzi; specifically a reporter and her film crew. Now, look -- I know high technology exists alongside sword and sorcery in He-Man's world. But having the characters watch television and populating the world with roving TV reporters is just absurd. These things are too mundane and "normal" for MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE.

But that's not where the inanity of this tale ends. Before the evening's performance begins, Evil-Lyn appears on stage... to hock her new line of beauty products to the well-off ladies of Eternia. And everyond just lets her do it -- she gives a sales pitch, hands out free samples, and nobody attempts to stop or arrest her. Isn't she, like, wanted for war crimes or whatever? This seems the equivalent of an Al Qaeda lieutenant waltzing into the Super Bowl to hock Tupperware or something. It's offensively surreal and makes absolutely no sense.

HE-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 4

"REVOLUTION IN RONDALE" | "THE TIME OF DISASTERS"
Story: Chris Weber | Art & Lettering: Gérald Forton
Colors by: Connie Schurr | Editor: Karen Wilson

As I've noted in previous weeks, I really like that Chris Weber is injecting some elements into the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE comic strip that would never have been considered for the cartoon series since kids likely would've found them boring. A strip is just the place to do this sort of thing, though -- most action/adventure strips have some degree of soap opera thrown in, so even in a strip aimed primarily at kids, it's to be expected. And soap opera is exactly what Weber shoots for in our latest story arc, "Revolution in Rondale".

In this installment, Man-At-Arms's sweetheart, Miranda, returns to her homeland of Rondale when word reaches the Eternian palace of an uprising there, led by her one-time love, Prince Nicholai. Man-At-Arms and Prince Adam accompany Miranda as part of her diplomatic envoy, with Teela along as well for security. The group soon finds that Nicholai is being advised by an outsider named Count Roteleks. And if you just noticed that "Roteleks" is "Skeletor" spelled backwards, then you're about ten steps ahead of me! Although shortly after meeting him, Adam notes that Roteleks reminds him of someone, I somehow never noticed the reverse-spelling trick until it was revealed near the end of the story!

So we have Skeletor, in disguise, urging Nicholai into an attempt to overthrow his land's legitimate government, in the interest of gaining a new ally against the kingdoms of King Randor. Meanwhile, Prince Adam befriends young Prince Corwin, the rightful heir to Rondale's throne, and teaches him a few things about ruling compassionately. But when Skeletor shows his true colors and kidnaps both Corwin and a second-guessing Nicholai, Adam changes to He-Man and tracks his enemy down, saving the hostages. In the end, Nicholai renounces his rebellion and peace returns to Rondale.

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.

HE-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 2

"NINJOR STALKS BY NIGHT" | "TERROR TAKES TIME"
Story: Chris Weber | Art & Lettering: Gérald Forton
Colors by: Connie Schurr | Editor: Karen Wilson

What's that? You say you want a He-Man adventure that introduces a formidable new villain, that features a compelling plot, and that even throws in some soap opera style material, along with a better look at the Eternian governmental structure than anything ever seen on TV or in prior comics? Then friend, "Ninjor Stalks by Night" is the story for you!

Seriously, though -- I know we're only three story arcs in as of this tale, but it's easily the highlight of the newspaper strips thus far. We begin with a new villain, Ninjor, plotting to kill He-Man while, at the Royal Palace, Adam performs his usual "uninterested goof-off" routine to make sure no one realizes he and He-Man are the same person. Adam lamenting the fact that his secret forces him to keep up this front was something that popped up now and then in the Filmation series, as was his father's occasional disappointment in him -- but for the most part, it was usually case of "Oh, that Adam!" as everyone laughed things off in the end. (Which isn't to say the cartoon didn't delve into the relationship further than that once in a while; it certainly did. But mostly it was superficial.)

Ninjor's plan involves kidnapping Man-At-Arms and Extendar, to use them as bait for He-Man. Adam is about to change into He-Man and search for the missing duo when Randor finds him and assigns him "homework" for a council meeting the next day. But Adam blows off the assignment to search for his allies, instead. Interestingly, when Randor spots Adam holding his Power Sword above his head, the king tells his son to be careful handling the sword, because it's an heirloom. Now, while later MASTERS continuities would indeed establish that Adam and Randor are descendants of King Greyskull, the first warrior to wield the blade, in Filmation's storyline, it was established that the Sorceress held the weapon until the day it was time to give it to Adam. So, while the line was probably written as a throwaway, it turns out to disregard Filmation continuity and support an as-yet-uncreated continuity instead.

HE-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 1

"DAY OF THE COMET" | "VENGEANCE OF THE VIPER KING"
Story: Jim Schull (story 1) & Chris Weber (story 2)
Art & Lettering: Gérald Forton | Colors by: Connie Schurr
Editor: Karen Wilson

So... from what I've gathered, when the HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE TV series ceased production, Mattel wanted to keep the characters appearing for children on a daily basis somehow. Obviously the cartoon would remain in repeats alongside new episodes of SHE-RA, but while the latter series would introduce some MASTERS characters into the Filmation canon, others would be skipped. So, in order to keep on showcasing the newest toys, Mattel commissioned a HE-MAN newspaper strip. The strip apparently had pretty limited circulation (I sure never knew it existed until Dark Horse published their collected edition a few years ago), but it ran for over four years, outlasting the original MASTERS toyline and even running alongside the sequel line, HE-MAN, which started in 1989!

Filmation was apparently pretty heavily involved in the strip as well; according to writer Chris Weber, they packaged the entire thing for syndication, using their own in-house talent to do so. As a result, a few Filmation-exclusive characters show up in these storylines; for example, Shadow Weaver, Hordak's right-hand sorceress, appears in the very first arc. Thus, ostensibly, the strip is a direct continuation of the cartoon series -- though as we'll see momentarily, at least for the first arc this isn't exactly the case.

As a result of having a Filmation artist on the strip, nearly every character is beautifully on-model with the TV show. Gérald Forton takes some liberties, but for the most part, He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Teela, Randor, and so forth look very much like their animated counterparts. The villains, meanwhile, are pretty much all spot-on to the Filmation model sheets, perhaps even moreso than the heroes (especially the Evil Horde characters), though somehow Forton's Skeletor never looks quite right.