Today’s Comic> Masters Of The Universe/Dungeons & Dragons Comics Giveaway Day 2026

“If you guys want to fight each other, I can come back later.”

Comics Giveaway Day 2026

Dark Horse Comics (May, 2026)

COVER ART: Tim Seely & DJ Chavis

EDITORS: Brett Israel, Sepncher Suching, & Freddye Miller

PUBLISHER: Mike Richardson

Masters Of The Universe: Telling Tales

WRITER: Tim Seeley

ARTIST: Andrew Krahnke

COLORIST: DJ Chavis

LETTERING: Andworld Design

Dungeons & Dragons: Magefall

WRITERS: Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing

ARTIST:Alessandro Miracolo

COLORIST: Valentina Taddeo

LETTERER: Haley Rose-Lyon

The cover story is a “story so far” style exposition, framed as Adam telling an admiring woman a story, which he didn’t have time to give the moral of: that you should be careful what you ask for because you might get it, like young Adam wanting to be a hero as we learn later in a conversation with Teela. That catch up tells how Hordak came to Eternia, defeated Skeletor, and set up a “fright zone” to drain off the mystic energies of Castle Grayskull. He-Man and Battle Cat escape Hordak’s slime pit by changing back to their regular forms before the slime can brainwash them, then use Grayskull’s own power to overload the fright zone. Between those two events Skeletor unleashed King Hiss and the Snake Men as an ally against Hordak, but when his evil Horde was defeated, Hiss turned on Skeletor, meaning he learned the same lesson Adam was teaching.

This is a better way to catch readers up to this place in this version of He-Man. Through the exposition we get a good story, because Adam was telling a story. The moral, which may or may not be a nod to the old Filmation series using their stories to teach morals most of the time, is a good one to learn. Adam comes off as a hero while the villains keep making mistake. I like the altered Horde Trooper faceplate, but was disappointed that the “fright zone” is just some device out in the middle of nowhere rather than a representation of the Fright Zone playset, given how everything else looked like the classic toys brought to reality. Overall I liked it and it’s a good way to introduce potential new readers to the series.

Now for the Dungeons & Dragons side, inspired by tabletop RPG: Radiant Zael, servant of the dragon god, is sent to stop a mage named Mordenkainen from doing whatever it is he’s going to do that might end the world of Toril. At this point I don’t know if he’s planning to cause the destruction or intending to stop it. In the narration that at first I thought was Zael’s but turns out to be Mordenkainen…I think, or maybe it switches and the text is lousy at showing it…he talks about not believing in good or evil, while he tells Zael that he’s grown fond of the world that isn’t his which is why he needs to be there. No matter, because she manages to strip him of his ties to magic, though he’s not going to let that stop him.

The problem is I don’t know what’s going on, or who to root for. We don’t know what Mordenkainen would have done or whether he would have altered plans if he was straight out told. Instead, Radiant Zael just offers him a choice: give up your power willingly and accept the dragon’s protection (or whatever the “platinum creator” is), but he refuses that not wanting to be a coward, and some second option she never gets around to offering, and just does after his refusal. He doesn’t come off as good or evil, but he rejects the former as a lie and the latter as an excuse, which usually means he’s going to do the evil thing, but he says he’s fond of the world. It makes hard for me to care because I don’t know anything that would make me favor either warrior, so if they both offed each other, I wouldn’t have cared.

So we have one really good story (I do enjoy Tim Seely’s work) with decent art and one not so good story with really good art. In the end I wouldn’t mind checking out more of this MOTU continuity if it avoids the Netflix timelines they were working in, but already not a D&D person this doesn’t make me any more interested in that comic series or the original game. At least both are self-contained, which I would hope for from a Comics Giveaway Day comic as much as I do the Free Comic Book Day offerings.