He-Man Week: ‘Masters Of The Universe: He-Man And The Sword Of Power’ Retro-Review
by Benjamin Hall
Summary
One of the building blocks of He-Man’s franchise is this mini-comic. This tale features several key Masters of He-Man’s universe. It is a historical piece that may or may not stand the test of time. Do you have the power necessary to handle this retro-review of Eternia’s champion’s first adventure?
Overall
5.5/10Writer Don Glut and artist Alfredo Alcala are the only creators of this mini-comic that get official credit. Similar to other comics that have typeset style lettering there is no credit for the person responsible for putting it on the page.
Glut’s scripting is extremely debatable. Part of this is because there are a lot of generic elements to it. There is also a lot of telling versus showing. Not to mention there are problems with consistency when it comes to passive and active wording. Consistency is also lacking with plot points and the sequence of events. In the case of the plotting Skeletor has multiple differing goals he is wanting to achieve. As for the sequencing, some of the momentum stops and starts during the big battle, particularly when He-Man is fighting Beast Man.
Alcala does a debatable job with the visuals. While it is without a doubt true Alcala creates a lot of beautiful illustrations that should appeal to many readers there are problems. The smaller flaw occurs with the consistency in his art. For example at one point He-Man undresses, but a few pages later he is suddenly fully back in his He-Man garb. There are also characters like Merman who visually appear on one page and then disappear entirely. Though this example of disappearing characters suggests a larger lack of care by those who share involvement in the creation. A final problem is the art being more children’s book single panel versus a multi-panel dynamic comic.
Despite the rather poor execution there are still reasons to read and like this mini-comic. The primary reason is how He-Man would not be as popular without this building block of the franchise. Secondly, in spite of the problems that exist it is arguably a serviceable story that could possibly entertain most readers to some extent. Yet, another reason is that though the lore is very generic it provides a basis for both future creators, and those playing with the toys, to build upon. After all, in the end He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe is for the young and young at heart
Masters Of The Universe: He-Man and the Power Sword is out now.