Today’s Comic> MOTU: The Origin of Skeletor

“Suzy, your date’s here.”

Masters Of The Universe: The Origin Of Skeletor

DC Comics (December, 2012)

This is Skeletor’s backstory in this continuity. It kind of goes back and forth but the gist is that Randor and Keldor’s father was involved with the Gar, a race that I guess people are bigoted against, so Keldor can’t be king even though he’s the oldest. Instead, it’s Randor’s other son, with a human woman (no acknowledgement as to whether they’re going the Earth woman idea from the Filmation cartoon or the Eternain woman of other continuities) who then gets to be king. Angered, Keldor makes a deal with Hordak, and events of a failed coup (we’re not told what outside of the final step) lead to Keldor becoming Skeletor.

That’s kind of a problem here as we delve less into Skeletor’s origin and more into his psyche. Personally I’m not a fan of the “they were brothers” idea (or in this case half-brothers) but let’s go with what we see. Randor shows mercy to his assassin by not letting Keldor kill him. This works better for the divide than some racism sub-plot. Have Randor chosen king because he has the compassion needed to be king, while Keldor has a darker nature. I’d have accepted that.

I think what bothers me most, though, is that Fialkov is trying to make us sympathize with Skeletor because of the racism angle and it doesn’t work for me partly by presentation (we don’t know what the issues are with the Gar or anything about either of their mothers and what became of the relationship) but mostly because why I think Skeletor works as a character. I get that in the real world evil people don’t believe they are evil, that they are the righteous ones and therefore making a character who is evil just because he’s evil is seen as silly. Ordinarily I’m good either way. You just want him greedy for power or pursuing what they believe is a noble cause, or is actually a noble cause but using less than moral methods without “grey areas”, or just plain insane and I’m behind it if the villain is interesting to watch.

What makes Skeletor different to me is that following evil isn’t just another kids show cliche. Skeletor is evil, knows he’s evil, and delights in being evil. He knows right from wrong, but ignoring that one Christmas special happily does the wrong thing because it’s fun and he hopes will get him the power he wants, whether it’s the throne of Eternia or the secrets of Greyskull. This desire to serve evil knowingly and willingly is what makes a great character and while other villains in kids fiction can be given a better backstory, Skeletor shouldn’t be sympathetic or a good guy gone bad. He’s evil to the bone and done right that’s what makes him so fun to watch.

Also, the comic uses the painted art style and while it kind of works in some areas as Keldor remembers his youth and has a vision, it doesn’t serve the rest of the story well. Beyond that, I can’t say it’s a bad comic exactly. However, this really doesn’t get how I see Skeletor working and I’m not big on the brothers angle. So it doesn’t work for me, but I can see how someone else might enjoy it.