Comic Review: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: The Sword of Flaws No. 2 by Tim Seeley and Freddie Williams II

Here is my much delayed review of issue 2 of Masters of the Universe: The Sword of Flaws by Tim Seeley and Freddie Williams II with colours by Andrew Dalhouse. For my take on issue 1, go here.

What is more, it has just been announced that The Sword of Flaws will transition into an ongoing Masters of the Universe comic series at Dark Horse, the first ongoing Masters of the Universe comic we’ve had since the DC run ended in 2016.

Shortly after that announcement was made, another comic by writer Tim Seeley came out an issue of X-Men: Age Of Revelation, that focusses on Illyana Rasputin a.k.a. Magik a.k.a. Darkchild and her time in Limbo, being enslaved by the demon Belasco. There were some sexually suggestive scenes involving Illyana on her knees in front of Belasco, which upset a lot of people and as a result Tim Seeley has been receiving death threats and quit Twitter.

Now I have to admit that even at the height of my X-Men fandom, I never liked Illyana Rasputin very much. The writers – and that was still the Chris Claremont era – clearly didn’t know what to do with her, came up with that stupid Limbo plot to age her up into a teenager, then de-aged her again and then killed her off via the Legacy Virus, because her death would cause Colossus and the X-Men maximum angst while removing a character who just didn’t work. Apparently she was brought back somewhere along the line and actually became a popular character, then was killed off again and sent to Limbo again. I missed all of that, because by now I have been not reading the X-Men comics for longer than I was reading them and I’m also completely over the X-Men to the point that I no longer care about the characters at all and am not sure why I ever did.

However, the whole Illyana in Limbo plot was always creepy and problematic as hell. I mean, what did people assume happened to her in Limbo? And the Chris Claremont era X-Men were suffused with sexual violence, BDSM and sexualised imagery anyway. The comics never quite spelled out what precisely was going on, because the Comics Code wouldn’t let them, but the subtext was always there, the characters in fetish wear were right there on the page and Claremont has since confirmed that all of the mind control plots in the X-Men and other comics of the era were code for rape and sexual assult, since Claremont could not write about that openly. I guess realising that much of the comics I had once loved so much was basically one extended rape fantasy where pretty much every single character has been a victim of sexual assault at some point is part of the reason why I’m completely over the X-Men by now.

So people getting upset over a sexual assault subplot in an X-Men comic of all things is a bit odd, because sexual assault subplots are as much part of the X-Men as heavy-handed discrimination metaphors. As far as I can tell, not having read the comic, nothing happened in that comic that hasn’t happened multiple times to Illyana before. And note that when she first was kidnapped and taken to Limbo, Illyana was six year old (!) and thirteen when she returned (and the sexual assault aspect, though not spelled out, was already there, which is frankly so offensive that I’m surprised that this was ever considered okay).

Finally, calling for a writer to be fired over a comic, targeting other comics that writer has worked on and sending death threats is of course completely beyond the pale. And I’m saying this as someone who was extremely upset over certain plot developments in the X-Men comics of the 1990s, though thankfully had no way of making my displeasure known except writing letters to Marvel. Of course, it’s possible that Tim Seeley just isn’t a good match for the X-Men, at least not the X-Men as they are now (since I think based on what else I’ve read by him, his style would have worked for the Claremont era X-Men). Not every writer is a good fit for every comic.

However, Tim Seeley is an excellent fit for Masters of the Universe, probably because he actually was a fan before he started writing for the franchise. And honestly, if you’d told me thirty years ago, that my love for Masters of the Universe would far outlast my love for the X-Men I could have loved in your face. So let’s get back to the actual subject of this post, namely Masters of the Universe: The Sword of Flaws.

Instead of continuing where issue 1 left off, issue 2 of The Sword of Flaws starts off with a flashback to the childhood of Adam and Teela, who are about six or seven at this point. Both kids are hanging out in Duncan’s workshop in Eternos Palace, while Duncan – without mustache, as the younger Duncan is usually portrayed – tinkers with the Battle Ram. Someone else is there as well, namely Baby Cringer. However, true to his name, Baby Cringer is hiding under a box of tools.

From the dialogue we learn that in this continuity – which is different from the Revelation/Revolution continuity –  Cringer is still an orphaned tiger cub. However, unlike in the Filmation cartoon episode “Battle Cat”, written by none other than the late great D.C. Fontana, where Adam found the injured Baby Cringer in the jungle, rescued him from a Sabrecat and brought him to the palace, in this version of the story, King Randor is the one who found the orphaned Cringer in the Vine Jungle and brought him home as a gift/pet for Adam.

However, little Adam isn’t overly thrilled with this gift, because Cringer just hides and hisses and isn’t at all the companion Adam wants. So Adam decides that even if Green Tiger cubs are rare and valuable and even if Cringer was a gift from his father, he doesn’t want him. And could Teela please play with Adam. Teela, however, just continues reading her book and tells Adam that he’s little and lame.

The fact that Teela mostly finds Adam annoying as a kid is something we’ve seen elsewhere as well. Flashbacks in both the Filmation cartoon and the 2012 DC Comics had scenes along those lines. It makes sense, too, because at certain ages, girls just find boys annoying and vice versa. Of course, Teela and Adam are roughly the same age, but girls do grow and mature earlier and Teela also appears to be a bit taller than Adam at this point – something which we also see in the young actors playing Teela and Adam as children in the upcoming Masters of the Universe live action film, where the young actress playing Teela is more than a head taller than the young actor playing Adam.  Of course, children do tend to grow at different rates and child actors experiencing growth spurts during filming is a common issue for any movie or TV show which employs child actors. So it’s quite possible that the actress playing young Teela had a growth spurt during or after filming. Besides, it’s not uncommon that girls are taller than boys at preteen and teen ages, while the boys catch up later. When I attended my 30-year high school reunion, one of my former female classmates whispered to me and a couple of other women, “In school, they were all little boys, shorter than me. When on Earth did they get so tall?”

Now Duncan steps in and tells little Adam that he is the crown prince and that one day, all of Eternia will be his responsibility. So maybe instead of always asking others to give him something, he could try to give them something. And maybe he could start with the little “Cringer” hiding under Duncan’s tool box. So Duncan once again proves that he’s a great Dad and mentor. Coincidentally, he also is the one who comes up with the name Cringer in this continuity, rather than Teela in the Filmation and Revelation/Revolution continuity. When I first watched the Filmation cartoon as a kid, I didn’t know the word “cringe”.  I suspect most German kids who listened to the audio dramas and/or watched the cartoon didn’t know it either. So I only realised as an adult that “Cringer” is actually a slur of sorts and that Cringer (and Adam) reclaimed it.

What makes the fact that his name is a slur even sadder is that Cringer has a very good reason to be always scared. Cause from the Filmation episode “Battle Cat”, which was the first time Battle Cat/Cringer got a backstory, onwards, it has always been implied that Cringer lost his parents and his family/clan as a cub and was chased by the predator(s) who killed them. A “Battle Cat” one-shot in the 2012 DC Comics run actually showed us what happened before Adam found Cringer, namely that Cringer saw his parents, siblings and his whole clan slaughtered and was then stalked by the creatures – here a pride of dylinxes, i.e. Panthor’s species – who killed them. So the reason Cringer is always scared is that he’s traumatised and has PTSD.

Adam clearly takes Duncan’s advice to heart and replies that he already gave Baby Cringer some sardines, which he ate, and offered him his toy rocket ship, which Baby Cringer didn’t want. So what else could he give him? Duncan replies that Baby Cringer is far from home and all alone and that his parents are gone. What would Adam want in that situation?

So we next see little Adam reaching out a hand to Baby Cringer and telling him that he knows Cringer and nervous and scared and that it’s okay to be scared, but that Adam promises him that no matter how scared he gets, he’ll never have to be alone again. And thus a beautiful friendship was born.

The opening flashback is a very sweet scene. I’m a sucker for Adam, Teela and Cringer childhood flashbacks anyway and this one not only gives us yet another version of Adam and Cringer’s first meeting and how their friendship was born, but also once again shows us Duncan as a great mentor and father figure for Adam. Plus, Adam gets a lesson in responsibility and how to be a good king one day. Considering that Randor is usually not portrayed as a great father, though he eventually learns better, Duncan’s influence on Adam and Teela cannot be underestimated. Finally, Freddie Williams’ art style is well suited to portraying Adam and Teela as kids and his Cringer, whether cub or adult, is the cutest and cuddliest Cringer has ever looked.

The one thing that bothers me about this depiction of Cringer is that he doesn’t speak, because I prefer Cringer and Battle Cat being able to speak. The thing about Cringer is that he represents everybody’s beloved childhood pet (or beloved stuffed toy for those kids who didn’t have a pet), except that this beloved childhood pet is not just your best friend, but also able to speak and can transform into a creature you can ride on and who will rip your enemies to shreds. And this is something every kid secretly dreams of.

However, because the Filmation cartoon often used Cringer as comic relief, some subsequent more serious versions of the story – the 200X cartoon and the 2012 DC Comics run most notably – often didn’t know what to do with him and so elected to turn Cringer into a non-speaking pet. These iterations of Masters of the Universe often didn’t know what to do with Orko, who is after all the other comic relief character, either and so sideline him. The otherwise very good DC Comics run did Orko particularly dirty by turning him into a traitor and then having him vanish for most of the story (ditto for Marlena, whom they abandoned on Earth and the Earth of the DC Universe at that for some reason). Meanwhile, in Masters of the Universe Revelation/Revolution both Orko and Cringer are very much the characters you remember from the Filmation cartoon, except that the series also shows how awesome both characters can be. And Stephen Root (Cringer) and Griffin Newman (Orko) give amazing performances and make you fall in love with these characters, if you weren’t in love with them before. BTW, H.G. Francis, who wrote the German Masters of the Universe audio dramas, has said in an interview that Orko was his favourite Masters of the Universe character, because he could write jokes and rhymes for him.

The story then jumps to the present where once again a small hand is reaching out to the now grown Cringer. However, this time it’s Orko’s hand and he is using Cringer as a (most likely reluctant) volunteer to demonstrate a magic trick to the royal family. Orko is performing a typical sleight of hand trick and asks Cringer to locate a gem in one of his hands. Cringer of course chooses the wrong hand. But when Orko proceeds to reveal the gem, there is an explosion and a smoke creature who looks a bit like Slimer from the Ghostbusters appears. Cringer scampers off to hide under a bench, because Orko’s tricks work as well as they usually do, i.e. not at all as intended, though Orko is quick to assure his audience that this was on purpose. King Randor, Queen Marlena and Duncan all laugh, while Adam notes that he should better fetch the terrified Cringer.

But the joy is short-lived, because Teela bursts in. She and a guardsman are supporting Mekaneck who is suffering a noosebleed and is clearly sick. Note that the last time we saw Mekaneck at the end of issue 1 of The Sword of Flaws, he was healthy and part of a reconnaissance team sent to the mountain ranges in northern Eternia to check for tectonic damage caused by Skeletor attacking Castle Grayskull with a seismic war machine.

Mekaneck promptly collapses onto the floor of the throne room, while Duncan and even King Randor himself rush to his side. Duncan removes Mekaneck’s signature helmet and goggles and we see something we’ve seen only once before, namely what’s under Mekaneck’s helmet.

The only time we’ve only ever seen Mekaneck without his helmet and goggles before was in issue two of the West German Masters of the Universe comics by Interpart (there were at least three different publishers publishing Masters of the Universe comics in West Germany in the 1980s) from 1984 and here he was a regular human (and blonde) under his helmet. You can see the panel in question in this YouTube video. The Interpart comic run has been reprinted in recent years by Retrofabrik, but few people outside Germany are familiar with these comics and the creative team behind The Sword of Flaws has likely never seen them.

And so The Sword of Flaws goes a different route and reveals that Mekaneck has a cybernetic skull, eyes and ears under his helmet. Of course, Mekaneck has always been a cyborg, but until now we assumed that his cybernetic abilities were limited to his neck, which he can stretch to epic proportions, making him the heroic human periscope. In most versions of the story (for more, see this post), Mekaneck received his cybernetic neck in response to a serious injury. In the 2012 DC Comics, Mekaneck already had his neck stretching abilities as a young child, though it’s never explained whether he was born that way or received his abilities in early childhood, in response to an injury or illness.

However, this is the first time that we’ve seen that much of Mekaneck’s head is cybernetic as well. If Mekaneck received his cybernetic parts in response to a devastating injury, it does make sense that his head is cybernetic as well. Coincidentally, it also means that he’s very likely blind and only able to see via his cybernetic implants and his goggles, much like Tri-Klops.

Mekaneck may be so sick that he literally collapsed onto the floor of the throne room and is bleeding on King Randor’s carpet, but he’s still able to make his report. And so he reports that the members of the reconnaissance team sent to the northern mountain ranges all fell ill, hit by a wave of sickness and delirium. Stratos, whom we saw feeling a little off in issue 1, was taken back to Avion and Fearless Photog, a very obscure character who was the winner of a create-a-character contest in the 1980s, stayed there in spite of the wave of illness – quite possibly because he is even more cybernetic than Mekanack, since his entire head is a camera. Mekaneck, meanwhile, somehow limped back to Eternos and reports that the quakes caused the peak of a mountain called Heavenspiercer to split open and revealed another Power Sword just like He-Man’s. Mekaneck even displays a holographic recording of this discovery, since his cybernetic eyes apparently double as recording devices. Honestly, this version of Mekaneck is fascinating with regard to his abilities.

Mekaneck also notes that no one can get to the second Power Sword except for He-Man and recommends that King Randor should summon him at once. Of course, He-Man is already in the same room. However, since he is Adam at the moment – and literally carrying the still terrified Cringer in his arms, which takes a lot strength, because adult tigers are big and heavy animals – he needs an excuse to get away and transform.

Unfortunately, King Randor is not willing to give Adam that excuse. And so Randor orders Teela to assemble a team of special agents suited for a mission to an inhospitable place like Eternia’s highest mountain (more opportunity for Heroic Warrior guest appearances) at once, before Skeletor find out what’s up. Randor also orders Duncan to accompany Teela and her team and tells Adam to accompany the reconnaissance team as well, because he “showed the beginnings of courage when Adam and Prince Stahl were attacked” by Skeletor and his Evil Warriors in the previous issue and Randor would like to nurture those beginnings of courage. Ouch. Randor really knows how to make Adam feel bad and inadequate.

Besides, if Adam is to accompany the team as himself, it’s rather difficult for him to transform into He-Man. Luckily, Duncan comes to his rescue once again and notes that Adam’s skills lie in gathering intelligence and that the Sorceress must surely know something about the second Power Sword or at least knows where to find the relevant information in the vast archives of Castle Grayskull.

Interestingly enough, Adam himself begins to object, but Duncan points out that the Sorceress surely also knows how to contact He-Man directly and Adam finally catches his hint. Randor, however, is not convinced and points out that Adam needs to gain experience as a leader. Duncan replies that Adam can gain that experience leading Orko and Cringer and that they need all the help they can get, including the knowledge of the Sorceress.

However, it turns out that the Sorceress has no idea what’s going on and neither the libraries of the Council of Elders nor the Great Eye of the Galaxy (a reference to the 1987 movie, though the Great Eye also appears in Revelation/Revolution) contains any reference any other Power Sword but the one Adam wields. Of course, there still is the Sword of Protection, but that’s one secret the Sorceress is keeping to herself for now.

The Sorceress also tells Adam that there are deeper parts of Castle Grayskull that contain older knowledge from before the Great Wars and that she will find the answer – in time. However, this research is not without dangers (we later find out why), so the Sorceress is reluctant to embark on it all alone. Adam of course immediately offers to go with her, but the Sorceress. However, the Sorceress asks Adam to leave “the magician” (i.e. Orko, who is quite flabbergasted) with her and instead assist Teela and Duncan and their team.

The Sorceress tells Adam that Man-at-Arms and Teela are as special to her as they are to him and that they need He-Man. We also get a flashback of a young Duncan holding Baby Teela, while Zoar sits on one of Duncan’s contraptions and watches them. It’s the world’s most awkward family portrait, but the the words of the Sorceress also beg the question if Adam doesn’t know that Teela is Sorceress’ daughter and Duncan her lover in this continuity. In the Filmation cartoon, Adam finds out that Teela is the Sorceress’ daughter in “Teela’s Quest”, though we’re not sure if he ever makes the connection that Duncan and the Sorceress are a secret couple.

At any rate, Adam agrees with the Sorceress that Duncan and Teela and their team need He-Man’s help. Cringer isn’t all that happy that instead of chilling at Castle Grayskull, he’ll have to become Battle Cat again, but Adam tells Cringer he needn’t worry and reminds him of the promise he gave him as a kid. And indeed it’s notable that Adam is petting or cuddling or outright hugging Cringer whenever these two appear in a panel together.

So Adam and Cringer are off to help Duncan, Teela and their team, while the Sorceress takes Orko to the place where older knowledge from before the Great Wars is to be found. However, as Orko points out, this place is not a library, but the bottomless abyss under Castle Grayskull. The Sorceress explains that when the Great Wars between magic and technology began, the Elders rushed to protect all the magical and technological knowledge available to them at Castle Grayskull and that this knowledge became the Power of Grayskull. We see a variation of this happening in the 200X cartoon where the Council of Elders concentrate all their power and knowledge into the Orb of Power. However, there is also older knowledge that predates the Council of Elders and was beyond them. And this is the knowledge that Sorceress wants to access.

Orko finally catches on that when the Sorceress said that she’d find the answer in time, she meant that she literally planned to travel back in time. The Sorceress takes Orko’s hand and replies that they must travel to Preternia, which in this version of the story is once again the prehistoic Eternia rather than the Eternian afterlife. I guess when the Sorceress and Orko get to Preternia, we’ll get a lot of Easter eggs and cameos and we’ll probably see He-Ro and Eldor, maybe King Grayskull (interesting to see whether they’ll go with the black or the white King Grayskull, though in my headcanon, they’re different kings who just happen to go by the same name), maybe Veena, maybe Sharella and maybe some of the other Preternian characters of which there are quite a few by now. And indeed, the description for one of the next issues explicitly mentions He-Ro.

The glimpse we get of the inside of Castle Grayskull contains several Easter eggs. The bottomless abyss is still a bottonless abyss, but the library is interesting. We see the large computer console from the Castle Grayskull playset, a lot of other screens, including what looks like a 1980s Earth computer (maybe it was aboard Marlena’s ship or maybe the Sorceress stepped through a portal to purchase a computer at a computer store in the 1980s) as well as books, the bird-shaped weapons rack from the Origins Castle Grayskull, which now holds scrolls (part of my now wants to add scrolls to mine) and a bunch of other mechanical contraptions (Duncan was busy, I guess), including what looks like a vacuum cleaner, which may be a reference to the She-Ra episode “A Talent for Trouble”, where the Sorceress is spring-cleaning Castle Grayskull (though she uses enchanted brooms and mops) and Orko offers to help, only to fall through one of the magic doors and end up on Etheria.

While all this is going on, Duncan, Teela and their team are trudging across a frozen wasteland towards the mountain known as Heavenpiercer. Teela is wearing a beautiful long-sleeved and fur-edged cold weather version of her traditional outfit (Can we maybe have this version of Teela rather than the nigh identical New Eternia and Vintage Collection versions?), while Duncan is in his familiar armour. The team Teela and Duncan consists of Roboto, who is a logical choice for this mission, since he is fully mechanical and will neither be affected by the cold nor by the wave of illness and nausea that Mekaneck and Stratos experienced. Plus, Roboto is Teela’s brother and Duncan’s son – or at least that’s how he views himself – and therefore family. Rokkon, the younger of the Rock People, is also part of the team, cause he, too, should be impervious to the cold and possibly the wave of illness and nausea as well, since he’s made of rock. The final member of the team is Clamp Champ, who is a bit of a surprising choice, since he is a regular human, albeit with enhanced senses and reflexes and a mechanical clamp to grab his enemies. Clamp Champ is also clad in his usual armour, which leaves both his arms and legs bare. Perhaps immunity to cold is another of his abilities. That said, it’s always good to see Clamp Champ, since he came along at the very end of the original toyline and is a very underused character, not to mention the only character of colour from the original toyline, though there were other characters of colour in the mini-comics and the Filmation cartoon.

Also along for the ride are Stridor, the mechanical horse, who is ridden by Teela, and Battle Bones. Battle Bones is an interesting choice, since in universe it’s both a creature, an animated dragon skeleton, and a vehicle, which can carry up to twelve warriors, while the toy also doubled as a collector/carrying case for your action figures in the real world. Carrying cases were and still are a common part of toylines. I’m not sure if kids ever clamoured for carrying cases, but parents love them, because they allow for packing up all those annoying toys and making living and bedrooms look neat and orderly. Yes, I’m kind of snarky here.

It doesn’t help that most carrying cases are kind of boring, since they’re basically small suitcases. Nowadays, they’re made from plastic. In the 1980s, they were mostly cardboard covered with vinyl foil similar to children’s suitcases around the same time. I had such a suitcase for my toys – which was all the toys I was allowed to take with me, when we travelled. Considering that thing was basically cardboard, it was remarkably sturdy and survived even intercontinental plane travel.

For Masters of the Universe, Mattel came up with a more exciting version of the good old carrying case (though I faintly remember a vinyl covered cardboard suitcase version, too) and designed a plastic dragon or dinosaur skeleton. The ribs have clamps to which will hold a figure, twelve altogether. There’s a handle on the back and the jaw can be opened to store weapons, shields and other accessories. It’s really ingenious and very cool design. I don’t have one, because the vintage version is notoriously brittle and for some reason the Battle Bones has never been made again in any subsequent toyline, even though it is very cool and also fairly easy to produce. Ramen Toys, who make reproductions of 1980s toys that are just different enough to avoid getting sued by the rights holders, have announced their own Battle Bones version called Bad to the Bone.

Christy Marx – who also created the backstory of Jem and the Holograms and was a staff writer for many cartoons of the 1980s – gave Battle Bones an origin in the vintage mini-comic Skeletor’s Dragon, where Skeletor uses his magic to resurrect the bones of some ancient Eternian creature and then forces the skeletal creature to attack the Heroic Warriors. After the Sorceress manages to break Skeletor’s spell, the creature tells their story. They were one of the last of its kind. Their mate died and so the creature laid down to die as well and gradually became a skeleton, until Skeletor resurrected the poor thing. However, Battle Bones is not evil and would much rather help the Heroic Warriors. It’s not only a remarkably touching backstory for what is basically a glorified carrying case, but this is also the first time we learn that there used to be dinosaurs on Eternia. These dinosaurs would later play a big role in The Powers of Grayskull, the proposed and mostly scrapped 1987 expansion of Masters of the Universe, which would have been set in Preternia and focussed on He-Ro.

Battle Bones does occasionally sneak into the various Masters of the Universe comics, artwork and other media, though mostly just as a skeleton lying on the ground, but rarely as a moving and walking character, so it was good to see them here. Besides, Battle Bones is the perfect choice for this mission, since they are immune to both the cold and the wave of illness and nausea, since Battle Bones is already dead.

We first see Duncan’s and Teela’s team as they trudge through a frozen wasteland called the Cairn of Pantheons. As for why it’s called that, Duncan helpfully quotes from a poem called “The Song of Restless Days” that the old gods of Eternia, frustrated by endless wars, walked out onto the cairn and laid down to sleep until the people would speak their names again, since the neverending wars had made the people forget their gods.

As explained here and here, Eternian theology is remarkably complicated for something that started out as a toyline and a cartoon for children. There are three – sometimes four – Eternian gods, all in animal form. Or maybe, those three/four gods are different aspects of the same deity, representing the Star Seed, a globe of cosmic lifeforce in the center of Eternia. These gods are Zoar the Falcon, respresenting nurturing and protection, Serpos/Ka the Snake, representing passion and carnal desire, Ha’vok the Ram, representing disruption and chaos, and Horokoth the Bat, representing destruction and the end of everything. All of these gods are needed to keep Eternia and the universe in balance. These gods are also definitely not dead or sleeping, either, since they are very much involved in what happens on Eternia, directly intervening via their priestesses who are also their avatars. The Sorceress of Grayskull, avatar of Zoar, is the best known, but we see the priestesses and avatars of the other gods as well and their chosen champions, the four faction leaders He-Man (Zoar), Skeletor (Ha’vok), Hordak (Horokoth) and King Hiss (Serpos/Ka).

Of course, there are hints at other, older Eternian gods as well. The best known one is the Goddess or sometimes the Green Goddess, a green-skinned woman in snake armour who appears in the first few mini-comics and is the one who originally gives He-Man his gear and his powers. Over time, the Goddess from the early mini-comics evolved into the Sorceress of Grayskull, who was then completely redesigned by Filmation for the cartoon.

However, the green-skinned Goddess stuck around in memories and fan art and was eventually turned into a separate character and also finally received an action figure in the Masters of the Universe Classics line and has reappeared several times since then, in different toylines (the Goddess is basically a repainted Teela figure and therefore easy to make) and different versions of the story.

In the Classics continuity, the Goddess is a Sorceress of Grayskull and a successor of Veena, wife/widow of King Grayskull and the first Sorceress. Her real name is Sharella, girlfriend of He-Ro and a character from the Powers of Grayskull line, and the reason she is green is because she received a blood transfuction from Moss-Man. Yeah, that’s definitely one of the sillier Classics bios.

In the Origins mini-comics, the Goddess shows up a few times as a mysterious woman who dispenses advice to Eternian heroes. She does take the name Sharella at one point, though that’s a disguise and Sharella actually exists as a separate character and action figure in the Origins line.

In the DC Eternity War comics, the Green Goddess is the Sorceress of Serpos and what Teela transforms into after she falls into the Star Seed and succeeds her mother. As a side effect, the recently resurrected Snake People start worshipping her and following her around, bolstering He-Man’s forces in their fight against the Horde, which is certainly one of the more interesting uses of the Snake People.

Masters of the Universe Revolution took a similar approach and had Teela transform into the green-skinned Sorceress of Ka, once she gains the ancient snake magic of Ka, though this time without falling into the Star Seed and without gaining an army of Snake People who follow her around.

So is the character known as the Goddess just the Serpos/Ka version of the Sorceress or is she a different, possibly older deity? It’s unclear and depends on the version of the story. But whatever she is, the Goddess is also neither sleeping nor dead, since she tends to show up to dispense advice or interfere in events. However, there are also other Eternian gods. In the Filmation cartoon, Eternia is littered with ancient ruins and temples and occasionally, monsters emerge from these ruins, quite possibly reawakened elder gods. And indeed, we will meet an ancient god or rather two in the course of this issue.

But first Teela asks her father what Eternia was like before King Randor made peace. Duncan replies that in those days, Eternia was a cruel and brutal place and that blood was shed in rivers. The world forgot itself and the enemies of Eternos were scared and ignorant people who wanted land and the approval of their gods. King Randor and Queen Marlena provided both and the endless wars stopped.

Now it must be remembered that Duncan is one hundred percent Team Randor and Team Zoar, so his version of the history of Eternia should be taken with a grain of salt. Nonethless, his words are interesting, especially considering what we know about the history of Eternia.

The oft referred to Great Wars between magic and technology in the ancient past of Eternia go back to the very beginnings of Masters of the Universe, when the line was still called The Fighting Foe-Men, and are mentioned in Donald F. Glut’s (yes, this is the same Donald F. Glut who wrote the novelisation of The Empire Strikes Back) original treatment for what would become the first few mini-comics. The idea that Eternia is a post-apocalyptic world littered with ancient war machines and other remnants from those Great Wars also goes back to this early treatment and keeps reappearing in many versions of the story. Note that Masters of the Universe was created in the early 1980s, when both the danger and the fear of a nuclear war were at an all-time high and “we will all become sword-swinging Barbarians wandering through post-apocalyptic landscapes” was one of the more optimistic scenarios.

Who exactly was fighting whom in those Great Wars is not quite clear, though we do see ancient Eternian conflicts from time to time. King Grayskull and He-Ro (who is sometimes Grayskull’s son and sometimes his friend) fought the Snake People and also the Evil Horde in ancient Eternia. The other Eternian species were also involved in these conflicts – in the 200X cartoon, King Grayskull’s council includes Gar, Aquaticans and Caligar and in the Classics mini-comics, the Beast-People and the Giants are involved as well.

Meanwhile, in the DC Eternity War comics and also in the Revelation/Revolution continuity, a conflict breaks out between King Grayskull and the humans on one side and the Gar on the other, after the Horde and/or the Snake People are defeated, since the Gar worry that Grayskull has become too powerful. This conflict with the Gar plays out differently in each continuity (and is much more bloody in the Eternity War storyline), but it is the reason why the Gar are isolated on their island and want nothing to do with the rest of Eternia hundreds of years later. It is quite possibly also the reason why Anwat Gar is completely deserted in the 200X cartoon.

In more recent times, there was a kind of civil war called The Great Unrest on Eternia. This Great Unrest is frequently mentioned in the 200X cartoon and took place just before Adam and Teela were born. However, considering how often the Great Unrest is mentioned in the 200X cartoon, we know very little about what was actually going on.

What we know is that Randor and Duncan were both young soldiers during the Great Unrest as were Fisto, Ram-Man, Stratos and Mekaneck. Miro was king (or commander of the Eternian Forces in the 200X cartoon) and Dekker was Man-at-Arms. Their opponents were Count Marzo, a warlord named Prahvus and Keldor and the Evil Warriors. Various non-human Eternian species were also involved. The 200X cartoon shows us the Pelleezeans under attack by Prahvus and his forces (also can we have a Pelleezean action figure maybe? I currently use a Gremlins Gizmo as a Pelleezean stand-in, but a proper version would be nice) and we also learn that the Caligar and the Speleans were fighting on the side of the humans as were the Avionians and Andreenids, though these species normally don’t like each other very much. The Quadians (cat people) were also fighting on the side of the humans. We don’t know what the Beast-People or the Aquaticans were doing, though it’s possible they were fighting on Keldor’s side, since their respective leaders Mer-Man and Beast-Man were. We also see the final battle of Great Unrest in the first episode of the 200X cartoon, where half-brothers Randor and Keldor and their respective forces clash at the Hall of Wisdom. Randor wins, Keldor gets his face burned off and retreats to the Dark Hemisphere, which is subsequently sealed off by the Magic Wall.

The Great Unrest is most likely the conflict that Duncan is referring to here and also the conflict that Randor did indeed end by uniting the various Eternian species and defeating the Forces of Evil. Though Eternia also experienced one or more Horde invasions at the same time.

Another aspect that has been present since the very beginning of Masters of the Universe is that even though Randor is referred to as King of Eternia, there are many other kingdoms, principalities and states on Eternia, both inhabited by humans and non-human species. These independent kingdoms and states handle their own issues internally, but defer to Randor in case of issues and dangers that affect the whole planet. In the 200X cartoon, there also is a Council consisting of the leaders of the various Eternian species and Revelation/Revolution appears to be moving in the same direction. The closest earthly equivalent to the government system of Eternia’s light side is probably the Holy Roman Empire, which also consisted of several independent kingdoms and cities, whose representatives, the Prince Electors, came together to elect the Emperor who represented the whole Empire to the rest of the world.

The question is how long this system has been in place. We do know that King Grayskull had a council consisting of delegates of various Eternian species and that Grayskull was leading a coalition of various species against the Horde and/or the Snake People. We also know that a similar system exists in Randor’s time, so it’s easy to assume that this is simply how Eternia has been governed for centuries. After all, the Holy Roman Empire lasted a whopping thousand years before it fell apart and Napoleon Bonaparte gobbled up what was left.

But what if this isn’t the case? After all, we know very little of what happened on Eternia in the roughly thousand years between King Grayskull and King Randor. We do know that Randor’s father Miro was king before him, but again we don’t know a lot about his reign beyond the fact that Miro couldn’t keep his dangly bit to himself and kept falling for sexy Gar ladies. So what if Randor actually was the one who united the various species and organised them into coherent force to fight of some external (the Horde) or internal (Count Marzo and/or Keldor) threat.

We do see a bit of Miro’s and his father King Rannen’s reign in the Masters of the Universe Revolution prequel comics and those comics present a very different Eternos during Rannen’s and Miro’s time. They show that Rannen was a racist jerk who rejected his own grandchild for the sin of being half-Gar and that Miro was a reformer who brought science and technology to Eternos, but also a petty tyrant who rejected magic and who had scholars thrown into the royal dungeons when they didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. So it’s quite possible that the diverse Eternos with different species peacefully coexisting in Eternos City and on the light hemisphere is actually a fairly recent development that only goes back to Randor.

It’s also notable that Duncan specifically says that the King and Queen made peace. And indeed, we shouldn’t underestimate Queen Marlena’s influence on Randor and Eternos. After all, Marlena is a NASA astronaut and probably the only person on Eternia who has experienced a modern parliamentary democracy. And since Randor is absolutely devoted to his wife, she certainly would have influenced his policies. We also see that she is a skilled diplomat in her own right in most versions of the story. So Marlena Glenn crashlanding on Eternia is probably the best thing to ever happen to the planet. Once again, this shows that we really need a comic about the young Randor and his courtship with Marlena (some of which apparently is described in the mini-comic that accompanies the upcoming Origins King Randor and Queen Marlena action figures) with bonus young Duncan and his courtship with Teela-Na.

Like most young people at least of my generation, whenever their parents and grandparents talked about “the war”,  Teela just replies that things aren’t actually easy in the present on Eternia either, since they have to fight Snake Men, aliens (the Horde) and demons who want destruction just for the sake of it. The last bit of course refers to Skeletor, who’s apparently back to being a demon from another dimension or at least thinks he is one in this continuity.

Before Duncan and Teela can talk some more about the history of Eternia and its wars, they are interrupted by Clamp Champ who has spotted something half-buried in the snow. It’s a camera and both Clamp Champ and Rokkon think it’s some kind of surveillance device, quite possibly an enemy camera.

Duncan rushed to examine the device and notes that yes, it is a camera, but no, it’s not an enemy. It’s the Heroic Warrior Fearless Photog, probably one of the most obscure and also one of the weirdest Masters of the Universe characters, because his head is a camera and the images it captures are displayed on his chest.

Fearless Photog was the winner of a Create-a-character contest for kids held in 1986 and the creation of Nathan Bittner, then eleven years old. The prize for winning the contest was a college scholarship, an all-expenses paid trip to California to visit the Mattel headquarters as well as Disneyland and the winning character should be made as an action figure. Nathan Bittner did get his scholarship money and the trip to California, but his creation Fearless Photog was never made in the vintage toyline, most likely because sales were already faltering by that point. Fearless Photog was eventually made in the Masters of the Universe Classics line, though he never had any appearances in any Masters of the Universe media beyond a “Where is Waldo?” type appearance in a giant battle scene in one of the Classics mini-comics (the Classics mini-comics had a thing for giant battle scenes cramming in as many characters as possible). So he is basically making his on-page debut in this comic.

Duncan digs Photog out of the snow and asks what happened. Photog replies that the sickness and nausea the entire reconnaissance team experienced affected him much less severely than Stratos and Mekaneck, so he stayed behind. However, Photog realised too late that his powers were the reason he wasn’t as badly affected as the others. Photog explains that his power is draining the lifeforce and strength of others. This aspect actually was part of his character since Nathan Bittner’s original design in 1986. Photog drains the strength of his enemies and displays their defeat on the screen in his chest.

Photog describes himself as a cybernetic vampire, which instantly makes him one hundred percent cooler than he ever was before and indeed prompted me to finally buy the Classics Fearless Photog figure (which is fairly cheap by Classics standards). According to his Classics bio, Photog was a young inventor who was fused with his invention due to a lab accident, but I guess it’s time to ditch that bio. Because cybernetic vampire sounds like Horde technology, so according to my head canon, Photog was yet another reluctant guinea pig for Hordak’s and Modulok’s experiments, just like Dragstor, Extendar and Snout Spout. Which again makes him a lot cooler than he ever was before.

And the reason Photog wasn’t nearly as affected as Stratos or Mekaneck by the wave of nausea and sickness is because he was unknowingly drawing on the lifeforce of someone else. And this someone else is incredibly strong and also directly underneath Photog’s feet. As for proof, the screen in Photog’s chest shows a giant humanoid being with four arms. Masters of the Universe fans will recognise this silhouette. So does Duncan. He shouts to Teela to rally the others, because they have an angry god waking up.

No sooner has Duncan shouted his warning, that this angry god emerges from the ground and throws the Heroic Warriors around like rag dolls. This angry god is Procrustus, a four-armed stone giant who lives at the center of Eternia and holds the planet together. He only appeared in a single mini-comic, “The Magic Stealer”, where Skeletor finds a device that allows him to absorb all magic on Eternia, which also draws Procrustus to the surface. He-Man, however, tells Procrustus to return to his post at the center of Eternia, because without Procrustus to hold it together, the planet will break apart. He-Man also promises Procrustus that he will deal with the problem of the magic syphon, which he does. And yes, Procrustus is explicitly referred to as a god in that mini-comic.

Ever since then, Procrustus has been relegated to Easter egg appearance such as showing up as a statue built by his worshippers in the background of various comic panels. He did, however, receive a figure in the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline, one of three oversized giant figures. I initially didn’t buy Procrustus, because he basically is a giant nearly naked beige guy with four arms and doesn’t look very exciting. But then I found him for a good price and realised that I liked him a lot more in person than on photos. Because even though he’s beige, Procrustus has a lot of sculpted detail. Here he is, holding the Star Seed (which is of course also a divine artefact that sits in the center of Eternia):

Understandably, Procrustus is not at all happy about having his rest disturbed and his life force drained. Not only did the people stop worshipping him and forgot all about Procrustus, but now his life force is drained as well.

And so Procrustus lashes out with his four arms, throwing around the Heroic Warriors like rag dolls. When Rokkon tries to sneak up on him, Procrustus is furious that a “stone-skinned brother” would attack him from behind like a coward. As for the unfailingly polite Roboto, Procrustus calls him a “soulless dancing goblin”, which is just mean, before throwing him through the air. Clamp Champ attempts to stop the rampaging Procrustus with his clamp, which goes about as well as you can imagine. Finally, Procrustus also rips poor Battle Bones apart, while calling him a creature of black sorcery, even though the poor thing did not ask to be resurrected by Skeletor.

In short, things are not looking good for the Heroic Warriors. But luckily, He-Man and Battle Cat arrive on the scene just in time and charge at Procrustus. True to form, Teela immediately wants to help He-Man, but Duncan tells her that He-Man can take care of himself and Teela should look after Photog and the rest of the party instead.

Meanwhile, Procrustus immediately recognises that he is dealing with a much stronger opponent than the Heroic Warriors he just threw around like rag dolls. “What tribe are you the god of?” Procrustus wants to know, because that’s clearly how he views the universe. Anybody who’s not a worshipper must be a god.

He-Man replies that he is not a god, just a man and his cat. Then he punches Procrustus in the face and tells him to crawl back into his hole, similar to what happened in the mini-comic “The Magic Stealer”, which introduced Procrustus. However, this time around Procrustus is not willing to just return to the center of Eternia.

He knocks He-Man and Battle Cat around, calls He-Man “barbarian” and tells him that he remembers his people of old. They used to worship Procrustus and chisel statues of him out of stone (as we’ve seen as Easter eggs in background of various comics over the years) and aspired to be as strong. But now Procrustus has returned and once he regains his strength, he will walk Eternia once more and be worshipped by the barbarian tribes again. He won’t be just a god of yesterday, but also of tomorrow. “I will be your god, barbarian”, he tells He-Man.

He-Man replied that he appreciates the offer, but that he really isn’t in the market for a new religion. Then he stabs his Power Sword into Procrustus’ chest, which promptly shatters to rubble along with the rest of the four-armed god. Procrustus is stunned, for no blade has ever pierced his stone skin. He also notes that he is weaker than he thought and Photog didn’t have a choice feeding on his lifeforce, for he was fed upon himself. Finally, Procrustus announced that something ancient and evil has returned to Eternia and that it is hungry. As Procrustus, he will not be the god of the future after all, for Eternia has none. Then he crumbles to dust, much to He-Man’s horror, since He-Man only wanted to stop Procrustus and persuade him to return to the center of Eternia. He certainly didn’t want to kill him.

This is as much screentime or page time, as Procrustus has ever gotten in forty years. And you can’t help feeling sorry for the poor fellow. All he wanted was to be left alone and worshipped again and then he becomes a casualty of a battle that has nothing to do with him.

While all this is going on, Skeletor has not been sitting idle either. At the end of issue 1, an injured, weakened and confused Tri-Klops had told Skeletor about the mysterious purple sword that Skeletor’s latest attempt to conquer Castle Grayskull had unearthed. Skeletor doesn’t quite grasp the significance – and to be fair, Tri-Klops is babbling incoherently – but Evil-Lyn does and promptly mounts an expedition to recover the sword.

We see Lyn making preparations for the expedition and selecting a team of Evil Warriors for the mission. Webstor is driving the Land Shark, while Stinkor is riding Night Stalker, Stridor’s evil counterpart. Kobra Khan and Whiplash want to go along, but Lyn replies that they’re cold-blooded reptiles and will only freeze stiff and slow everybody down, once they reach the icy wastelands around the Heavenspiercer mountain. I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t take Icer along, but maybe Tim Seeley and

Tri-Klops is of course going along on the mission, because he is the one who has seen the sword via his enhanced senses and knows where it is. Of course, Tri-Klops is weak and babbling and in no condition to walk, so a very unexpected Evil Warrior, the giant yellow and green gorilla called Gygor, will carry him.

So who is Gygor? He is a character who was originally supposed to come out in the vintage toyline. Basically, Gygor was supposed to reuse the gorilla figure from the Big Jim toyline (which is also where Battle Cat/Panthor and Zor/Screech originated), only painted in yellow and green. Apparently, he was supposed to be a mount for He-Man and/or Skeletor. But while a prototype of Gygor exists, the toy was never released in the vintage line. Like so many other unreleased concepts and prototypes, Gygor did come out in the Masters of the Universe Classics line as an oversized figure. I have him and you can see him below posing in the garden:

According to his Masters of the Universe Classics bio, Gygor actually lived long before He-Man appeared on the scene and dealt with other heroes such as the gladiator Vykron (whom he killed) and Oo-Lar, a previous Champion of Grayskull and wielder of the Sword of Power. Eventually, Gygor was killed and resurrected by Evil-Lyn to bolster Skeletor’s forces (which is how he came to be an Evil Warrior in this comic) before defecting to join the Horde.

Skeletor clearly isn’t the biggest fan of Gygor and points out to Evil-Lyn that Gygor is cantankerous, stubborn and that he stinks. Skeletor is also not convinced that a purple sword is worth all that effort. Lyn, however, tells Skeletor that if the sword can reduce Tri-Klops, who has seen everything and never flinched, to a quivering wreck, it must be very powerful indeed and has the potential to defeat He-Man and conquer Castle Grayskull.

And just in case you were wondering why some of Skeletor’s oldest and most frequently used henchmen are nowhere to be seen in this comic, Lyn explains that Beast-Man and Mer-Man deserted Skeletor, clearly fed up with his constant abuse, and returned to their own people, since they are both kings in their own right. I’m pretty sure this was the best choice to make for both of them, because both Mer-Man and Beast-Man deserve better than to run around after Skeletor.

That said, I do have one quibble with the depiction of Skeletor in The Sword of Flaws and that’s that Skeletor is portrayed as somewhat stupid, while Lyn is the true mastermind behind everything. Now it’s always been clear that Lyn is the smartest person in Snake Mountain and it’s also been implied that she has long sind figured out He-Man’s secret identity. However, just because Lyn is the smartest person in Snake Mountain doesn’t meant that Skeletor is stupid, since he’s definitely intelligent in pretty much any protrayal. The truly stupid Evil-Warriors are characters like Beast-Man in the Filmation cartoon or Clawful in the 200X cartoon.

We next see Skeletor, Lyn and their convoy crossing the Cairn of Pantheons from the opposite side to Duncan, Teela and the Heroic Warriors, where they run into very much the same problem, namely angry old gods waking up. There’s a greta splash page of Skeletor stabbing his Havoc Staff into the chest of some giant black monster with sharp teeth and batwing ears. The thing looks like an updated version of the sort of giant monsters that would regularly pop up in the Filmation cartoon.

Skeletor, meanwhile, is a bit confused. What on Eternia is this creature and why is it attacking them? Evil-Lyn recognises the monster as a Nuitarak, an ancient god worshipped by the dark moon people. However, Lyn has no idea why the Nuitarak suddenly woke up after centuries asleep and attacked the Evil Warriors.

Tri-Klops seems to have some idea. He tells Lyn that she was wrong. The purple does not have any power like He-Man’s sword and that’s why it wants to absorb everybody else’s.

The second issue of the Masters of the Universe comic no-longer-mini-series The Sword of Flaws is a lot of fun, even though the story hasn’t progressed very much, since everbody is still converging on the titular sword. As with issue 1, most of the issue is taken up by a massive battle – this time with Procrustus – though there are plenty of nice character moments for both the good and the bad guys.

Once again, Freddy Williams II’s artwork is beautifully detailed and full of little Easter eggs and callbacks to the various toylines and comics. Little Adam and Teela are very sweet and Cringer has rarely looked cuter and more cuddly.

Issue 3 is supposed to come out today, as I finish this review, though haven’t had the chance to read it yet.