He-Man: The Eternity War #9 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Dan Abnett, Rob David
Art By: Pop Mhan, Mark Roberts
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: August 26, 2015

Oh How The Mighty Have Fallen

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

As we all saw in the previous issue, it looks like our heroes are fucked.  Not only has Prince Adam broke his Sword of Power because of what the power of He-Man might turn him into in the future, but Skeletor betrayed She-Ra when he left her locked in the dark dimension of Despondos after the two teamed up to gather power against Hordak........ So yeah, our heroes are out of the picture and after Hordak laid claim to the Eyes of Grayskull, he showed Eternia his true power when he activated them and destroyed the future world of Primus.  That's right, the Eyes of Grayskull are like a deathray that can access all of space and time....... so game over man!  I really don't know where we can go from here because as Hordak proclaimed at the end of last issue, he's the master of the Universe and after the display he showed, I'd have to agree with him.  Let's jump into this issue of The Eternity War and hopefully see how our Masters escape certain death.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with just doom and gloom.  We see that Hordak has used the Eyes of Grayskull to conquer the Universe and the only thing that comes off with any semblance of a good time is we get to see Queen Marlena on Earth, telling people to get to shelter because Hordak has risen........ the rest is just terrible people selling out their planets and the Horde Troopers busting heads.  If that wasn't depressing enough, in King Adam's throne room Teela can't see the future because it's clouded, Moss Man says that Eternia itself is poisoned with Hordak's evil and Fisto and Rattlor are arguing about what the next course of action should be.  Eventually Adam is fed up and orders everyone out and we realize that our heroes aren't going to save the day this time.

We move on to the mighty conqueror Hordak in Castle Grayskull and now that he's become the Master of the Universe, he decides that he should take a queen....... and since the only person he's met lately happens to be Evil-Lyn, he chooses her to be his bride........ should of held out a little longer Hordy.  After Evil-Lyn accepts Hordak's proposal, he begins to tell her about the age of Horokoth, when the Horde Troopers go and loose their damn minds.  We all know that these troops are faithful to the last, but out of nowhere they begin slaying Hordak's mystics and going after their master.  It seems that this isn't just an isolated incident either because outside of Castle Grayskull, the troops are going nuts as well, calling for Hordak's blood.  Once we see Tri-Klops turn off the Horde shields around the castle, we realize that all of this is the master stroke of our boy Skeletor.  I really wanted to believe Skeletor when he told She-Ra that he wanted to be on the winning side....... which to me meant a "good guy" because the idea of our Masters and Skeletor working together for a brighter tomorrow really intrigued me....... but then he had to go and play the bad guy and make me look like a dope for all my hopes and dreams....... but thankfully he did because he's using the souls he collected from Despondos and putting them back in their bodies that happen to be the twisted cybernetic Horde Troopers, who at this point only want to see Hordak suffer the way he made them.  It's a brilliant move by Skeletor, but it all seems doomed when Evil-Lyn steps inside the forge of Grayskull, speaking the chants to bring about the age of Horokoth and actually becomes the sorceress for that age.  BUT THAT'S A RUSE TOO!  WOO!  Skeletor is Bobby Fischer and shit because man did he just pull a checkmate against Hordak out of his ass.  Evil-Lyn uses her power to make Hordak drop his sword and Skeletor plunges it deep into him...... thus ending the short reign of Hordak: The Master of The Universe.

In the end, Skeletor has won and to solidify his win he contacts King Adam and tells him that it was always going to come down to the two of them.  This interaction becomes more of a taunt and when King Adam seems unwilling to yield to Skeletor's power, our Master of Death calls Adam out for one final battle before hanging up his mystic Skype.  While at this point we'd like to believe that King Adam will somehow repair his sword and call upon the power again to face Skeletor, instead we see that King Adam isn't King Adam at all and as this issue closes it appears that King Hiss is playing his games again.......... but where is our hero?............ and why doesn't this snake King Adam seem to care about Skeletor defeating Hordak?..... even if other shit is going down, it seems like kind of a big deal....... you know, since all was lost a few minutes ago.

That's it for this issue of He-Man: The Eternity War and goddamn!  How does Dan Abnett pull off this kind epicness over and over again?  Every time that I think that the story will zig one way, it tells me to suck it and zags the other and after reading this series for as long as I have, I really just have to stop trying to predict where Dan Abnett and Rob David will take us next because apparently nothing that I can think of will actually be as cool as what we get.  The characters in this book are just constantly shifting and evolving in the most interesting ways and this continues to be one of the best series that DC Comics puts out.  Pop Mhan continues his wizardry with a pencil here and Mark Robert's colors are perfect as always.  This entire creative team is on point issue after issue and I'm so glad that they work so hard for us......... Yeah, I'm stroking pretty hard here, but this was an excellent issue.

Bits and Pieces:

Dan Abnett is at it with his black magic again as he gives us another tale of epicness that just continues to wow me month after month.  Speaking of the witchery that is this creative team, the whole lot of them just knocked this issue out of the park and issue after issue they keep evolving what you thought you knew about He-Man in the best of ways.  So if you haven't already, go get some Eternity War!

9/10