He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe #13 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Dan Abnett
Art By: Pop Mhan
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: May 28, 2014

The Red Feast

We're going to take a short break this month from King Hiss and his shenanigans with He-Man to jump back in time during King Grayskull's rule, and see how a badass king takes care of his kingdom.  Now I know some of you watched the episode of 2002's He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe and are all like "Yeah I saw that episode with King Grayskull what are they going to do that I don't already know?"  Well let me tell you this isn't your King Grayskull from that far back time of 2002.  Hell no, and I'll tell you why.  Let's dive into this badass prequel, to the final moments of the Hordak War.

Explain It!:

Like I said we begin this story at the end of the Hordak War where King Grayskull drives his power sword through Hordak, sending him and his Evil Horde into the dark dimension Despondos.  Now instead of King Grayskull dying afterwards and putting his soul energy into the power sword like we saw in the 2002 He-Man and The Masters of The Universe, he totally survives and is barely hurt at all and we have a month long feast celebrating the victory over Hordak.

But all good feasts must come to an end.  King Grayskull's Queen Veena is the current Sorceress and she's received a vision of the future.  There will be a war between two of King Grayskull's descendants, one will bring destruction and the other will fight it back.  Yeah so a bit of a downer during a celebration.  But the bad news wasn't shared alone, we see hiding in the shadows that Adi the most trusted of all the Council of Elders is eavesdropping.  

Now for a little history lesson in this re-imagining of King Grayskull.  The Council of Elders, and a lot of people of Grayskull's Kingdom are a people called "The Gar".  You'll recognize these people because of their blue skin, and even Cyclone in the future is one of the Gar.  So lesson concluded let's get back to the story.  Now King Grayskull's handmaiden Saryn is of the Gar persuasion, and good ole King Grayskull sees her as a daughter, and she sees him as a father figure.  So yeah there's a lot of trust and love there.  But when the trusted sage Adi goes to the Gar people and tells them of Queen Veena's prophecy, he starts a treacherous coup to wipe out the people of Grayskull, and even gets beloved Saryn to betray her King to make sure that no heirs are ever born.  It's not only the prophecy he feeds her and the Gar people to get them on his trolley, he also tells them how the sword of power is corrupting the King, and no one man should ever have that much power.  As Saryn agrees and walks away we see a bit of shenanigans when Adi's eyes slit up and a snake tongue pokes from his mouth.  Oh King Hiss, you scoundrel.

We find our King Grayskull alone in the main hall still drinking and pondering on what his wife has told him of future events.  Saryn brings her weary King a cup of wine, and after drinking it he sees the glow of the fires outside the castle.  The Gar revolt has begun, and before the mighty King can grab his sword of power and go to the rescue of his people, he realizes that his wine has been drugged.  King Grayskull sits in his throne as Saryn slits his throat while crying.  In the end the King is dead, Saryn weeps at his feet, the kingdom burns, and we just witnessed an awesome issue.  Holy shit!  The hell with Game of Thrones if this is what He-Man's going to be like from now on.

Bits and Pieces:

I'm just going to come right out and say it.  This issue blew me away.  While normally I hate prequels, this issue makes me wish that there was a spin off series purely with King Grayskull, and now that I've said that, I'm kinda pissed there isn't.  For all the Masters Of The Universe fans out there, you need to read this book.  they're doing shit that will blow your mind, and changing things up enough to keep you interested, but not enough to piss of the normal fanboy.  I really hope that the creators didn't blow their wads on this issue, because if the series continues in this vein, it might be the book I look forward to the most month after month.  So go check it out, and enter the pre He-Man world of King Grayskull.

9.5/10