Art By: Tom Derenick, Mark Roberts
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: November 26, 2014
It's The Circle of Life
Last issue of He-Man and The Masters of The Universe, we saw the end of She-Ra's origin where we learned that the evil witch of Anwat-Gar was King Grayskull's murderous handmaiden Saryn, who's been secretly hiding the Sword of Protection for her son, not only that but as she laid dying at the hands of She-Ra we saw that her son is Skeletor. All I'm left wondering is did she use a glamor spell on herself, or was King Miro into some strange shit? Now I'm skeeved out. So Adora got the Sword of Protection and now it's time for her and He-Man to put a stop to Hordak's Fright Zones and his hold on the world of Eternia........... But first a prequel, we all love those right? Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our story begins with a young Prince Adam having himself a pretty good day as we see he's getting his first kiss from Teela. The two argue for a bit about who kissed who and it's a really sweet child like moment that works really well. Then Adam almost eats it when Man-At-Arms almost runs him over. It's a good thing that Teela pushes him out of the way and we get this story started. When Duncan stops his vehicle to make sure that Adam is alright, we find out that Man-At-Arms is on his way to settle a trade dispute between the Avions (Stratos's people) and the Adreenids (Buzz Off's people) and to help matters along he's bringing those two Masters with him. So after seeing the bad ass-ness that is Stratos and Buzz Off, Prince Adam goes to his father and tells him that he wants to become a Master himself. This is the part of the story where the loving father tells his child that he can be anything he wants to be........... Wait, wait, he actually tells him the exact opposite and Prince Adam runs out of the room crying.
Seeing that the young Prince is upset, his Uncle Keldor comes to his aid and tells him that they are a lot alike. Keldor tells him how him and King Randor only share a father, but his mother was one of the forbidden Gar, who saved King Miro when he crash landed on Anwat-Gar. Keldor goes on telling Adam that when the King finally left, his mother asked him to raise her son as one of the heirs to Grayskull, but to bring him back when he's grown. Even though he agreed, King Miro wasn't about to shame himself by taking his bastard son back to the people that killed King Grayskull, so Keldor stayed in Eternos City in the shadow of his brother Randor and like young Prince Adam his potential became invisible to others. You see, it was Keldor's idea for Prince Adam to bring up to his father that he wanted to be a Master and after a rousing story about Keldor's past, Prince Adam decides to go to the rough part of town to prove his worth.......... That always turns out well.
This is about the time in the story when I realized that this all seemed really familiar and then I realized that I was reading the Eternia version of Lion King. An Evil Uncle sends the young Prince out in the world and creates a trap for him, just this time instead of hyenas we've got Beast Man and some weirdo gorilla things. So King Randor hears about where Adam is and goes off to fetch him before he can get into trouble and leaves Keldor to sit in his place........... Where he murders all of the high council with acid wine. So yeah, besides for the acid wine, this shit is Lion King. Now I don't want anyone replying to this telling me the differences between Lion King and He-Man because that shit's annoying, all I'm saying is that this is closer to Lion King than it ever should be.
In the end Prince Adam is attacked in the bad neighborhood of Eternia and King Randor and the guard come to his rescue, but King Randor gets pinned under a beam and Prince Adam says those magical words we all love to hear and even though he's not imbued with any power yet, he actually manages to slow down time to allow someone to come to his rescue. It's at this time when The Sorceress and Zodac appear, watching the young Prince and they wonder if he's the hero that will save Eternia. Even though King Randor was supposed to die that day, the two spectral beings decide that they will allow this boy to change his father's fate because with the power he's displayed here, they know that he'll one day become the true heir to Grayskull.
That's it for this issue of He-Man and The Masters of The Universe and man did I expect The Sorceress and Zodac to start singing Hakuna Matata when they showed up at the end because Rob David sure took enough of the Lion King for his story that I figured he'd just take it over the top. Okay I'm going to stop trying to be funny here and give it to you straight. There really doesn't seem to be a real point to this issue besides for reminding people that Keldor is Prince Adam's uncle and that his mother was Saryn, who killed King Grayskull. Tom Derenick's art is really good, but I just find myself missing Pop Mhan's style now that I don't have it and that sounds dickly as hell, but I like what I like. Make sure you're back here next month when we begin the Eterna War and see Hordak get his ass whooped by the Siblings of Power. See you then.
Bits and Pieces:
I say this throughout the review, but for those of you who only read the blurbs, you already saw this story when you saw Lion King as a kid and you'll really see no reason to see it again. Yeah, I'll complain about the story but that's only because it seems like it was just thrown in for no reason at all and I'm really not a fan of prequels to begin with. So if you want a pre He-Man one shot, then go for it and get this issue, but really you'll just want to hold off for Eternia War next month.
5.5/10
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