This post continues my issue by issue review of the Masters of the Universe Revolution prequel comic mini-series written by Ted Biaselli, Rob David and Tim Sheridan with art by Daniel HDR and Keith Champagne with a look at issue 3. Go here for my takes on issue 1 and issue 2.
Warning: Spoilers behind the cut!
Issue 3 continues where issue 2 left off, with the cloaked woman implied to be Shadow Weaver manipulating both Hordak and Keldor for reasons of her own. She tells a meditating Keldor that he must fight a demon and that his legacy waits for him in Eternos and she tells a sleeping or rather regenerating Hordak that once he has dealt with Grayskull’s heir, the secrets of Eternia shall be his, though “Shadow Weaver” claims that “the fog of ha’vok” is concealing the details about those secrets from her. However, she tells Hordak and Keldor that once they have claimed their birthright, they will help her to claim her birthright. The question still is, what exactly does “Shadow Weaver” get out of manipulating the two most dangerous men in the universe and what precisely is that birthright she wants.
It’s interesting that while Skeletor’s and Hordak’s male subordinates are mere henchmen with little ambition or initiative, the chief female villainesses, Evil-Lyn and Shadow Weaver, have always had their own agenda and were perfectly willing to betray Hordak and Skeletor respectively to get what they want. Even Catra, who is more of a subordinate than Shadow Weaver ever was, has her own agenda and does conspire with Skeletor to take out Hordak in at least one episode of the Filmation She-Ra cartoon. With so many independent women both good and bad, is it any wonder that so many little girls became Masters of the Universe fans?
But whatever her motivation, “Shadow Weaver” is playing with fire here. Especially since both Hordak and Keldor are starting to get a teensy bit suspicious of this oh so helpful voice in their heads. Keldor has finally cottoned on to the fact that whoever this voice is, it’s not his mother Saryn and demands to know who the voice is and why she is helping him, questions the voice deflects or ignores.
Meanwhile, Hordak finally realises that “Shadow Weaver” is playing both sides, when she mentions that “our three paths will finally converge”. He emerges from his beauty sleep aboard the Horde flagship and yells for Keldor. However, Captain Keldor is nowhere to be found. The computer helpfully offers Hordak to locate Keldor, but Hordak says there’s no need. He knows exactly where Keldor has gone.
Hordak’s regeneration bed, which we’ve seen twice now in this comic series, is certainly interesting. We know that Hordak is very old, hundreds, possibly thousands of years old. Is that why he needs a regeneration bed? Or is he suffering from some kind of degenerative illness like the Hordak from the 2018 She-Ra cartoon?
The scene now shifts to Eternos, which is where Keldor has gone, just as Hordak predicted. We see Keldor sneaking through the city, wearing his hooded cloak and carrying the Horde’s signature crossbow weapon. I really wish we’d get a Horde Keldor figure in Masterverse – basically they could just give the existing Horde Skeletor figure a new head – complete with Horde crossbow.
In his mind, Keldor is replaying an argument with Hordak, wherein Keldor demands to learn why Hordak never told him about the prophecy that the champion of Ha’vok will triumph over Grayskull’s heir. Hordak wants to know how Keldor can even know about this prophecy (obviously, a certain little bird told him), while Keldor replies that is doesn’t matter, since the Horde doesn’t believe in magic and prophecies anyway (Take that, Hordak). All Keldor wants is to take out King Miro and take the throne of Eternos – all for the glory of the Horde, of course. And that’s exactly why Keldor has returned to Eternos after all these years and why he carries a Horde crossbow. He wants to assassinate his father.
This is quite shocking, since the sweet little boy we saw in the flashback at the beginning of episode 2 of Masters of the Universe Revolution clearly just wanted to be loved by his Daddy and would never dream of assassinating him. Of course, Saryn had nothing good to say about Miro and she had approximately fifteen to twenty years to tell Keldor what a piece of shit his father was. Besides, it’s obvious even from the flashback in Revolution that Miro was not a good father. For starters, he’s a secret drinker, as evidenced by the flask little Keldor finds in his desk, which is never a good sign. Plus, Keldor and Randor are clearly scared of their father. Keldor says that Miro must never notice that they snuck into his study or he’ll be angry, whereupon little Randor replies that their father is always kind of angry. Keldor denies this and says that Miro is just serious, because being king is such a great responsibility. All this suggests that Miro may well have been alcoholic and prone to rage and that he took out that rage on his sons and likely his wife as well. Note that the brief scene between Miro and Amelia is an argument and does not point at a loving marriage. It’s also notable that Keldor tried to shield his little brother from the truth about their father.
So in short, Miro probably has it coming, at least in the Revelation/Revolution continuity, because he is an unambiguously sympathetic character in the Filmation He-Man and She-Ra cartoons. Hordak points out that there is a fatal flaw in Keldor’s plan. The people of Eternos won’t just accept the man who just murdered the previous king as their new king, especially not the disowned bastard son. Though note that there is no evidence that anybody in Eternos has a problem with Keldor being illegitimate and half-Gar other than Miro and Amelia, especially since the people of Eternos happily accept him as their king in Revolution.
We also learn that Hordak flat out forbade Keldor to return to Eternia until ordered to do so. So Keldor is once again disobeying Hordak’s order, but then Keldor/Skeletor was never one to take orders from others. Hordak – who shockingly is the voice of wisdom compared to the young and rash Keldor – also points out that when Keldor returns to Eternos, what he finds there may not be what he left and that things will have changed. Especially since this unauthorised excursion is very likely the first time Keldor has been in Eternos since he was sent away as a little boy.
Of course, it turns out that Hordak was right. Eternos is no longer the place he left. And so Keldor finds himself face to face not with his father in the flesh, but with a statue of King Miro III – Lost at Sea. Keldor needs a moment to process what this means. For starters, he is too late to take out his father. Someone else got there before him (since I doubt a random storm took out Miro). Also, if Miro is gone, it means that Randor is now king.
No sooner realised that his brother is now king that Randor himself appears, looking very much like he did in the 2002 cartoon and the Origins Young King Randor action figure, only that he doesn’t yet have his beard. He is walking around the palace with a still moustache-less Duncan. Randor stops directly in front of the statue of his lost father, a pensive look on his face, while his long-lost brother hides behind the statue. But then someone cries, “Make way for Grayskull’s heir” and Randor’s face lights up. For there’s Queen Marlena and she’s very, very pregnant.
Duncan is concerned about Marlena and points out that she shouldn’t be up, whereupon Randor replies that Marlena is pregnant and not ill. “In my experience…” Duncan begins, whereupon Marlena counters how Duncan can have any experiences with pregnancy, unless he has a secret wife and child somewhere. It’s said in jest, but Marlena, who is one of the most perceptive people on Eternia, considering she figured out Adam’s secret, too, is of course absolutely right. Duncan does have a secret partner and baby. Though apparently Teela was a handful even in the womb, considering that Teela-Na had a more difficult pregnancy than Marlena, even though Marlena is having twins. Though this brief scene not only shows how close the friendship between Randor, Marlena and Duncan is, but also shows what Duncan was denied because Teela-Na insisted on keeping their relationship a secret. Duncan does not get to walk around Eternos with his pregnant partner arm in arm. He only gets left holding the baby, while Teela-Na abandons her partner and child for the Power of Grayskull.
As for Keldor, he’s utterly shocked, for though he must have known intellectually that Randor would be an adult by now, he most likely still imagined him as the little boy he was, when they were separated, and is now shocked to see his little brother all grown up and about to become a father himself. Keldor leaves, crestfallen, his assassination plan forgotten. But even though Keldor was willing to take out his father – and later events in the issue show that it’s not clear if he really would have gone through with it, given the chance – there’s no way he’ll try to kill Randor, since Keldor truly loved his younger brother.
So Keldor walks away, confused and crestfallen. He takes a Windraider and returns to Anwat Gar to pay a visit to Saryn, clearly excited because he has so much to tell her. I suspect he also wants to ask Saryn for advice about what to do now. Return to the Horde or ditch Hordak and reveal himself to Randor. Because I suspect that at this point, Keldor wants to be part of Randor’s family again. And if he had revealed himself to his brother, I’m pretty sure Randor would have taken him back, no questions asked, Keldor would have found his place as royal sorcerer or something like that and the story would have gone very differently.
But when Keldor returns to Saryn’s apartment, he find it empty. Saryn is gone, but there is a strange tree growing in the corner. And in the wall, there is a very familiar hole with a barred door. The entrance to the Fright Zone had returned to Anwat Gar and this time, it’s in Saryn’s apartment.
Keldor ventures into the Fright Zone in search of his mother, but instead he finds a different parent, namely Miro, half-naked and chained to a wall. Keldor is clearly unsure what to do at this point, whether to free Miro or kill him as originally planned.
Before Keldor can decide what to do, the hooded sister of Havok appears. Keldor is confused and asks her, if this another dream. But most of all, he wants to know how Miro can be chained to a wall in the Fright Zone when he was supposedly lost at sea. The hooded woman replies that Miro was lost at sea – twice – which is interesting, because in the DC “Eternity War” comics, Miro was shipwrecked on the shores of Anwat Gar and rescued by Saryn, who nursed him back to health, which eventually led to the conception of Keldor. The comment that Miro was lost at sea twice suggests that the same thing happened in this continuity.
But the sister of Havok isn’t really interested in answering Keldor’s questions anyway. Instead, she tells him that she’s giving Miro to Keldor on a silver platter and also reminds him once again of what Miro did to him – banished and abandoned him, denied him the crown and left him to die on Anwat Gar. And now would Keldor please be a good boy and do what he came to Eternia to do and kill Miro.
It telling Keldor has placed his own body between the sister of havoc and Miro, once again suggesting that Keldor’s resolve to kill Miro is not as strong as it seemed and that it’s quite possible he wouldn’t have gone through with it, even if he had encountered Miro alive and well in Eternos.
But Keldor has yet another shock coming for the sister of havoc lowers her hood and… it turns that she is not Shadow Weaver after all, but Saryn. It’s a great bit of misdirection, though one that makes perfect sense, because everything we see in this comic mini-series contradicts what we know about Shadow Weaver, whose origin story is remarkably consistent across various iterations. Saryn, however, has been portrayed as an ambiguous figure so far – eager for Keldor to learn magic and eager for him to achieve some kind of destiny. Plus, Saryn seemed to vanish from the story early on and was only seen as Saryn for a page or two in the first issue. Though it turns out that Saryn was the third main character of this mini-series all along.
Keldor is shocked. What exactly is his mother doing here and why did she invade his dreams? Saryn assures Keldor that she wasn’t invading his dream, she was just preparing him for the day when he would seize his birthright, the throne of Eternos. And now that moment is at hand, so would Keldor please just kill Miro and take the crown. Keldor points out that someone else is already wearing the crown, whereupon Saryn counters that Miro handed Randor the crown, even though he was the younger brother, and asks Keldor if he thinks that was fair. Keldor says no, it’s not, whereupon Saryn again urges him to kill Miro. In short, Saryn clearly did her best to turn Keldor against Miro and she had years to manipulate him.
But Keldor still hesitates, so Saryn icily says, “…if he doesn’t destroy you first”. As if on cue, Miro – up to now a seemingly powerless old man – breaks his chains, turns into a Hulk-like monster and attacks Keldor. Now it becomes clear that even though Keldor was planning to assassinate Miro, he would never have gone through with it, because he literally cries out that he doesn’t want to hurt Miro. “Miro”, meanwhile, seems desperate to tell Keldor something and starts by saying that he’s not his father.
Keldor uses his magic to keep “Miro” at bay, while Saryn eggs him on to kill his father. Keldor, however, has had enough. He uses his magic to choke both “Miro” and Saryn. “Why are you doing this to me?” he demands. Saryn is shocked, since she clearly did not expect Keldor to turn against her, while “Miro” is still trying to say something.
Keldor just runs away and promptly stumbles onto the withered corpses of the other two weird sisters of havok, cause there were three of them, when Hordak consulted them in issue 1. However, two of the sisters disagreed with Saryn, so she killed them and stole their powers, something Saryn describes as a “regrettable, but necessary sacrifice”.
Keldor, meanwhile, is just confused. “I don’t understand any of this”, he laments and indeed, “confused and lost” is pretty much Keldor’s default state throughout this issue, a sharp contrast to the previous issue where he was pretty confident and competent as a Force Captain of the Horde.
Saryn does take pity on Keldor (and the audience) and explains that she is the “First Weaver, High Priestess of Ha’vok, Mother of Chaos and Shadows” and coincidentally, now the only priestess of Ha’vok, since she murdered the other two. Saryn also explains what the Fright Zone is, namely a place between worlds (which is why the Fright Zone can manifest wherever it wants or needs to be), born in the age before magic. Saryn and her late fellow sisters of Ha’vok use it as a hiding place.
The vintage Fright Zone toy didn’t have much of an interior beyond the cell and the monster puppet which tends to disintegrate. In this comic, the interior of the Fright Zone is a series of caves with the pool of Ha’vok. However, there also are murals on the walls and those murals are quite interesting. They depict the three Eternian gods Zoar, Kaa and Ha’vok as well as the three sisters of Ha’vok and – most interestingly – Motherboard and Skeletor infected by the tech virus. These things obviously haven’t happened yet, suggesting that the Fright Zone exists not just between worlds, but also outside time.
Keldor, however, doesn’t pay much attention to the murals and is far more interested in whether the old man he saw chained up in the Fright Zone and was forced to fight really was his father Miro. Saryn counters that even though Keldor may be Miro’s biological offspring, Miro isn’t his father or his family, but just an obstacle to overcome on the path to greatness. For according to Saryn, Keldor is destined to become the champion of Ha’vok and destroy Hordak. That’s also why Saryn manipulated Hordak into seeking out and recruiting Keldor, so Keldor could get close enough to Hordak to take him out.
As for what Saryn gets out of all this, well, she wants to become Empress of the Horde Empire. She’s certainly ambitious, especially considering that she hails from a world that does not have interstellar travel. Though in the Classics continuity, the inhabitants of Anwat Gar are the descendants of alien refugees who crashlanded on Eternia after their planet was destroyed, which is also why the Gar have advanced technology. Nonetheless, we finally know what Saryn wants, namely nothing less than to rule the entire universe. Megalomania clearly runs in the family.
However, Saryn also wants something else. Because the power of Ha’vok alone won’t be enough to conquer Eternia, let alone the Horde Empire. In order to do that, she also needs the Power of Grayskull. And this where Keldor comes in. Because Saryn, the Gar High Priestess of Ha’vok, would never get into Castle Grayskull. However, Keldor as an actual descendant of King Grayskull via his father should be accepted by the castle and the Power of Grayskull. “This is your purpose”, Saryn tells Keldor, “It’s why you were conceived.”
It’s a shocking moment in an issue that’s full of them. For while it was clear from the moment she lowered the hood of her cloak that Saryn is a master manipulator who has no qualms about playing two of the most dangerous men in the universe against each other, it’s only now that Keldor – and the reader – realises the true depth of her depravity. Because it turns out that Keldor never was a child of love or even lust, but that Saryn deliberately seduced – or raped, since we don’t really know what happened and how consenting a participant Miro was – Miro in order to steal his Grayskull sperm and produce a child that has Grayskull genes, so she can use him to get into Castle Grayskull and the juicy power within. In fact, it’s quite possible that Saryn used her magic to first cause Miro to be shipwrecked on Anwat Gar in the first place and that she’s also behind Miro becoming lost at sea for the second time to get him out of the way.
From the moment we first met her in the DC “Eternity War” comics, Saryn was never a positive figure. But the Eternity War Saryn was a baby-crazy and mentally unstable woman, who harboured an unrequited crush on King Grayskull, and was subsequently duped into murdering him and stealing the Sword of Protection and then spent the rest of her long life in a cave on Anwat Gar – briefly interrupted by an interlude where she rescued a shipwrecked Miro, nursed him back to health and had consensual sex with him – until Adora puts her out of her misery. This Saryn, however, is a monster and has just won herself the 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award, since I doubt that anybody who’s even worth will come along.
Once Skeletor was revealed as Keldor, he becomes a much more complex and interesting character, but you also get the problem that the existence of Keldor, the shunned illegitimate son, makes King Miro, who was an unambiguously sympathetic and likeable character in the Filmation cartoons, look like something of a jerk who has no issues sleeping with a hot blue-skinned woman, but then won’t marry her or acknowledge their kid. Revealing that Saryn deliberately engineered her relationship with Miro to conceive a child with Grayskull genes makes Miro look like less of a jerk, though he and Amelia still aren’t off the hook, because Miro didn’t have to banish Keldor to Anwat-Gar. He could have kept Keldor in Eternos and named him the heir. But even though Miro was not a good father to Keldor, Saryn is so much worse. It’s notable that even Hordak – who literally is one of the worst people in the universe – is horrified by what Saryn has done.
As for Keldor, the revelation that he was just a tool, conceived as a flesh and blood key to Castle Grayskull, is of course doubly horrifying to him. Because through this mini-series, Keldor has been portrayed as someone who’s desperately looking for the love and approval of a parent figure and yet only finds terrible people – Miro and Amelia, Hordak and Saryn – who can’t or won’t give him what he needs and craves. Indeed, Keldor asks his mother, “Did you ever love me?”
The disgusted look on Saryn’s face is all the answer you need. “Don’t be naive”, she replies. Coincidentally, this also explains why Saryn was happy enough to hand her baby over to Miro, though she asked him to return him to her, once he was of age. In the “Eternity War” comics, Saryn did this, because she wanted a better life for her son in Eternos (Anwat Gar is a forbidden, shunned island in those comics and not the cyberpunk high-tech world we see in the Revelation/Revolution continuity). This Saryn, however, obviously is not going to deal with things changing diapers and is only too happy to leave that to Miro or rather his servants
Talking of Anwat Gar, I’m beginning to suspect that the reason that Gar don’t trust magic isn’t because they have no affinity for it, which is the explanation given in the Forge of Destiny comic. Because for a species that has no affinity for magic, there are actually a lot of Gar sorcerers. Of all the named Gar character we meet, about half – Keldor, Saryn, Shokoti, Jarvan from the Filmation cartoon and possibly Adi, the treacherous Gar member of King Grayskull’s council – are magic wielders of some kind. The named Gar who are not magic wielders are Kronis a.k.a. Trap-Jaw, Dash-el a.k.a Sy-Klone, his mother Hera Caine, her general Hail Storm and Ditzstroyer of the Fighting Foe Man, a rather obscure character who does have his own action figure. However, Gar magic wielders all tend to be villains, so I suspect the reason the Gar shun magic is that their main magic wielders are a cult of Ha’vok witches and warlocks. Shokoti was very likely a previous Sister of Ha’vok, until her villainous ways got her entombed in a pyramid in the Sands of Time. Also note that the mural in Castle Grayskull that we glimpse in Masters of the Universe Revolution shows King Grayskull, Tytus and a Gar woman dressed like Saryn and carrying the Staff of Kaa fighting the Horde. The Gar woman in the mural is very likely a Sister of Ha’vok who also wields Kaa magic, i.e. she has two of the three types of magic in Eternia. For Granamyr we also learn that the people of Eternia abused Kaa magic, when he gave it to them, so I suspect the Gar soceress in the mural was not a force for good.
Saryn revealing her true plan and the role he plays in it to Keldor is cut short by the surprise arrival of none other than Randor, who promptly attacks and calls Keldor “half-breed”. Keldor uses his magic to defend himself, while Saryn eggs him on to strike down his bother and remove the remaining obstacle on the way to the throne. However, Keldor has become wise to Saryn’s manipulative ways and realises that everything he saw in the Fright Zone was an illusion conjured up by Saryn and that neither Miro nor Randor are actually there. Saryn keeps shrieking “Destroy him”, while “Randor” implores Keldor to resist her, because Saryn has been manipulating them both. Keldor uses his magic to dispell the illusion cats by Saryn and “Randor” is revealed to be Hordak, whom we’d seen earlier arriving at the Fright Zone on a Mantisaur, stumbling over what was later revealed to be the dead sister of Ha’vok before being knocked out by Saryn.
Hordak once again implores Keldor to resist Saryn and also reveals that he has the Havoc Staff. He’s about to hand it to Keldor, while Saryn demands that Keldor leave the Havoc Staff to her. She also tries to warn Keldor that the Havoc Staff is dangerous – probably the only moment of genuine concern for her son – but her warning is cut short when Hordak blasts her with his arm cannons. Saryn vanishes, as does the Fright Zone. All that’s left is Saryn’s amulet, which Keldor picks up. “Did we kill her?” he asks, “Did we kill my mother?”
It remains to be seen whether Saryn is truly dead, but I for one wouldn’t count on it. I’m pretty sure we’ll see her again. Hordak, meanwhile, tells Keldor that he shouldn’t call Saryn his mother, because she was a power-hungry succubus who used them both and would have killed Keldor, once he’s fulfilled his purpose. He very likely is right, too, since I’m pretty sure Saryn would have killed Keldor as a potential rival and threat eventually. Hordak also tells Keldor that he will never be free, until he embraces his full power and takes the Havoc Staff.
Keldor, however, is hesitant, because he realises that Hordak is just as manipulative as Saryn and wants to know why Hordak has been keeping the Havoc Staff from him, if he had it all along. Hordak replies that Keldor wasn’t ready and also points out that the Havoc Staff isn’t the answer to Keldor’s problems and can’t give him what he needs. It’s a remarkable moment of honesty – because what Keldor needs are love, acceptance and a family, not a Havoc Staff – especially coming from Hordak of all people.
Keldor is still sceptical and wants to know why Hordak is telling him all that, whereupon Hordak replies that his brother Horde Prime believes that superior technology is all that’s needed to conquer the universe. Hordak, however, has realised that both magic and technology are needed, something that Saryn also understood, power hungry and mad as she was.
Keldor agrees that Saryn’s plan was sound, because if he takes the throne and has the power of Havoc and the power of Grayskull at his command, he can finally rule Eternia. Hordak tells him to think bigger, because why settle for Eternia, when you can rule the whole universe? And together, Hordak and Keldor can do just that, rule the Horde Empire with the joint powers of magic and technology. Of course, it should be obvious that Hordak will never share power with anybody else. But Keldor is still looking for a parent figure and so he takes the Havoc Staff. We all know what happens next, since we saw it in Masters of the Universe: Revolution. Keldor gets his face melted off and becomes Skeletor – at least physically. Though the shocked expression on Hordak’s face is interesting, since he apparently had no idea that this would happen. Also kudos to Daniel HDR’s amazing artwork on this splash page and throughout the issue.
In the 2002 cartoon, Keldor got his face melted off, when he tried to hurl a vial of acid at Randor. Randor blocked the attack with his shield and the acid backfired on Keldor, melting his face off and mortally wounding him (you can watch the whole thing here). Hordak than saved his life, but turned him into Skeletor in the process. I’ve always liked the element of poetic justice in this origin story – Keldor tries to murder his brother, but his attack backfires and turns him into a monster. But acid attacks feel a lot closer to the real world than they did in 2002, which is probably why Keldor now gets his face burned off by contact with corrosive Havoc magic (which is also what happens in the CGI cartoon).
As I’ve said before, the introduction of Keldor turns Skeletor from a fun, but one-note villain into a much more complex character. This version of the original story adds yet more layers to the character of Keldor/Skeletor, because this version of Keldor is clearly not ruthless enough to hurl a vial of acid at his own brother. He does plan to assassinate Miro, though as subsequent events show, he likely wouldn’t have gone through with it, but he never plans to kill Randor, probably because his brother is one of the few people Keldor ever loved and who loved him back. And when he sees an adult Randor as a king and expectant father, it’s notable that Keldor doesn’t even try to assassinate him – though he still has the Horde crossbow he wanted to use to murder Miro – but walks away.
It will also be interesting to see exactly what it is the shatters Keldor’s mind and erases his memories and gives birth to the persona of Skeletor. Is it the corrosive power of Ha’vok, paired with the traumatic experiences Keldor just had that send him over the edge or does Hordak have a more active hand in erasing Keldor’s memories and personalities? Of course, Skeletor accuses Hordak of manipulating his memories and creating a fake persona in Masters of the Universe: Revolution, but that doesn’t mean it’s the truth. I guess we will find out next issue.
We actually do catch a glimpse of our heroes in this issue and see a young Randor, Duncan and Marlena – and Adam and Adora in utero – but this comic mini-series is still very much a story about three villains and their toxic relationships with each other.
Of the three protagonists, Keldor gets off the best. In this issue, he mostly comes across as lost and confused, a young man who just wants the love and approval of a parent figure. Also, this issue actually made me feel sorry for Keldor of all people, even though I know exactly who and what he will become. He already is a villain at this point – just ask the people of Zal-Kron – but he’s not irredeemable. Instead, Keldor is something of a tragic figure, because by the time he gets what he clearly craves – love and acceptance by his family and the people of Eternos – he no longer knows what to do with it. He abuses his own henchpeople and Lyn, who genuinely does seem to love him, and once he finally becomes King of Eternia and is accepted by his family and the people, he promptly turns around and betrays them all to the Horde. Indeed, if Keldor had revealed himself to Randor, he wouldn’t have become king, but he would have gotten what he truly needs, a place where he’s accepted and a family who cares about him. In many ways, Keldor is the victim of a toxic cycle of abuse who finally succumbs to it.
Hordak is not just clearly a villain, but also one of the worst people in the universe. He also no more cares about Keldor than Saryn does, but uses him to get what he wants. However, the events in this issue shock even Hordak, which I imagine takes some doing.
Saryn, meanwhile, is the worst. That woman truly is a monster, who not only manages to outmanoeuvre and outvillain two of the worst people – Skeletor and Hordak – in the universe, but also manages to horrify both of them, when she reveals the depth of her depravity. Saryn not only made me feel sorry for Skeletor of all people, but her actions shock even Hordak. So congratulations to Saryn who will never become Empress of the Universe, but who definitely is one of worst people in the Masters of the Universe universe, eclipsing both Hordak and Skeletor and rivalled possibly only be Horde Prime, whom we have yet to see.
I enjoyed the Forge of Destiny comic mini-series a lot, but I enjoy the Revolution prequel comics just as much, even though the protagonists are all villains of various degrees of terribleness. I’m also looking forward to the final issue where I suspect we may see a certain infamous baby snatching expedition.
sending...