Free Comic Inside: King Of Castle Grayskull

It’s been awhile since we’ve looked at the original He-Man adventures, the illustrated booklets that is so far off from the Masters Of The Universe we know it’s hard to recognize it. I never owned these; my introduction to He-Man and friends were the Gary Cohn comics. So here’s the review of the first story if you want the full refresher course. I wasn’t sure if I was going to go back here since our last installment was also a Masters comic…and then I heard that the “Masters Of The Universe Classics” line was introducing a figure based on the original version under the name Oo-Lar. (Seriously? Oo-Lar? That’s what you came up with? Granted, Mattel seems to think everyone in this line needs a normal name and a…what, superhero/supervillain name, but Oo-Lar?) So it seemed like good timing.

Here are the highlights of this version. He-Man is just some barbarian villager who got up one morning and decided to go defend Castle Grayskull. He met a green-skinned woman in snake armor called the Sorceress, who gave him a harness that boosts his strength and creates a force field around himself for saving her life. Oh, and a vehicle that can travel warp space for some reason. He fought Skeletor, a being from another dimension trapped on Eternia hoping to use the power of Castle Grayskull to open the gateway for an invasion force from his planet. He failed and the two halves of the Sword Of Power are now all over the planet. This is where our next tale begins.

I thought it was dogs that liked bones?

Masters Of The Universe: King Of Castle Grayskull

Mattel (1981)

WRITER: Don Glut

ARTIST: Alfredo Alcala

He-Man and Battle Cat are riding past Castle Grayskull when He-Man decides to stop and tell him all about the history of the castle. Can Battle Cat talk like he did on the show later? Beats me. This is the first time prior to the mini-comics reflecting the Filmation series that Battle Cat has actually been in a story I’ve read. All I had was a throwaway mention of his existence in “The Power Of Point Dread” while he hung out with Zoar in at least two comic in my collection. How He-Man and Battle Cat met is given as much history as how Man-At-Arms knew to contact He-Man in the first story. In other worlds, zilch.

Not that there’s a lot to tell about Grayskull anyway. Nobody know who built it. It just popped up sometime before the Great Wars and whomever controls it rules the universe. I know just enough about Game Of Thrones to know there should be a reference here. As they leave Skeletor is watching from the parapet. How he got up there is anybody’s guess. What happens next isn’t really clear. It looks like he’s creating Teela (and when this story was adapted into a View Master reel I own…and I wonder how many of you younger readers know what a View Master is…that’s what it said he was doing), but the comic says he’s creating some magic lens and I think it’s seeing inside the Castle or something. Anyway, the Spirit Of The Castle tells her that she is to be the guardian of the castle (which would be her mother’s job in the television shows) and someday the rightful king would come to claim it.

“But what if some evil person forms the sword?” “Oh, that won’t happen again.”

Although you don’t need to BE the rightful king to get in there. Just find the two halves of the Power Sword and you’re good. Skeletor deciphers the spirit’s riddles as to where they’re hiding with a skill that Adam West would be jealous of. The first half is embedded in a rock at Stratos’ mountain top. It’s Stratos’s first official appearance and he gets his butt kicked rather easily.

The other half is somehow right near He-Man’s place. (Guess the Power Sword loved the “sword in the stone” idea so much it did it twice.) In this version He-Man doesn’t wear his super power harnesses all of the time, so Mer-Man beats him. Mer-Man. MER-MAN! If that doesn’t tell you how different the original tales were from the show we all know and love then you’ve never seen that show at all.

Now Skeletor has both halves of the Power Sword, but how to get past Teela once he’s inside? After all, the last time they met he kidnapped her to force her to marry him. You don’t forget that Skeletor is going to need one doozy of a disguise. Like putting clay on his skull face so that he looks so much like the castle that Teela is sure he has to be the rightful owner. He has the two swords and the Sorceress said last time she would keep the sword away from that evil skull-faced guy who tried to take over before so this has to be the rightful king, right?

I think the Spirit Of The Castle chose his guardian poorly.

As soon as he sits on the throne Skeletor knows he can spin it around and drop Teela into the dungeon. Yes, the toy does this but it brings up a few design questions, like why design a throne that only turns to the person you’re talking to when you drop them into a dungeon? That would make conversations very short…even with allies. The place has a lot of computers and weapons instead of unnamed magical secrets or an orb containing all of the magical energy of a magic counsel. Early Eternia doesn’t even have the technological level of the show and later, and everyone not of or working for royalty used horse-drawn giants carts.

“Avon? I could use a new facial. My skin feels like it’s falling off!”

He-Man and Battle Cat arrive and this time He-Man has his force field harness on and Battle Cat by his side, so Mer-Man gets himself a whoopin’. Then he tries to use his super strength to open the Jaw-bridge to the castle. Since he’s not strong enough Skeletor opens the door from his new whole-house control app and hits He-Man with a knockout lighting strike. Give the creators credit, they knew how to make a security system. Except that anyone can use the key. He-Man has no trouble ripping the door off of the cell he wakes up in next to Teela. What did Skeletor think it was, a sticker on the wall? He should have been prepared for that.

Skeletor next sends an army of empty armor at the heroes. (Speaking of stickers, that explains the armor on display on the toy.) He-Man takes them out and Teela knocks the Sword from Skeletor’s hand and it splits back into two pieces. He races to the parapets (at least we know how he got up there this time) and uses the laser cannon. Sadly for you flag fans that doesn’t get used. It’s the only part of the toy that wasn’t in this story. Lucky for our heroes Skeletor is a lousy shot and He-Man is upon him like he was on American Gladiators, and knocks them both off of the castle. Battle Cat is waiting to chase Skeletor off and the day is saved. The Spirit says he will send the two halves to another dimension…which it should have done in the first place since the Sorceress didn’t hide them very well. As our heroes leave the Spirit decides that someday He-Man will be the rightful King Of Castle Grayskull.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this story was intended to sell the Castle Grayskull playset. Skeletor gets to play with all of the special features and accessories and even the stickers (except the monster pit) are shown off to be important. The story itself is negligible. It’s not bad but Teela and He-Man do some dumb things, like Teela falling for Skeletor’s weak disguise. Also, He-Man gets his powers from changing garments, which would have made sense later on in the line when things like Battle Armor and Flying Fists were added to the line, but outside of not wanting to make He-Man too strong I don’t see the reasoning for having to change between the force field and strength-boosting harnesses when the toy had no connection to this feature.

But I could still be jaded towards the Cohn material. I think I’ll try to move away from Eternia for a while, though. There are two more of series one to go and I’ll get to them but I really want to expand my promo mini-comic subject matter. If you guys know where I can find the pack-in mini-comics besides He-Man/She-Ra stories or Super Powers Collection let me know. I do have that other Drakes Marvel story, I could do that and finish those off I guess. I’ll decide by next time.