He-Man: The Eternity War #13 Review and *SPOILERS*

He Has The Power

Written By: Dan Abnett, Rob David
Art By: Tom Derenick, Mark Roberts, Deron Bennett
Cover Price: $2.99

Release Date: December 23, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

When we started this little Eternity War I couldn't of imagined the journey that this creative team was taking us on.  Shit's flying at us left and right, things that I knew were shoved in my face while they were telling me that I don't know shit and it appears that anyone and everyone could be on the chopping block.  Hell, we even had our title character taken over by King Hiss, while Skeletor killed Hordak and took the not only the power of the Evil Horde for himself, but also the power of Grayskull........ not to mention those time and space death rays that are the castle's eyes.  Yeah, all seems lost as our Masters try to beat back the darkness and hopefully we'll get to see the return of the light here because I'm about to break out my sign that reads "The End Is Nigh" because right now, that's the way it looks.  Let's jump into this issue and see if King Adam can take back control of his body and let's hope that Skeletor doesn't destroy the Universe before he gets the chance.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins by just getting She-Ra right out of the way by having her take on some of those phantom Dark Riders and as the book puts it, she just fought too hard and I guess became too exhausted.  It's very odd, especially because of how much time was put into getting She-Ra into the story right before the Eternity War started.  So yeah, She-Ra hasn't done shit really during this event and it looks like she's not going to contribute much in the end either.  Another strange thing is when we get back into the head of King Adam, instead of having the bad ass classic He-Man that we saw in the previous issue battling it out with King Hiss, he's been reverted back to the form of a child and while I guess you can argue that it's because he's now entered his last keystone memory that dealt with him as a child, it was still a little disappointing not getting He-Man in this issue, especially since I know for a fact that you can be anything in your own mind.......... I'm usually Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China in my head........ mostly for the moccasin boots, but that's a different story all together.  Anyway, this last keystone moment is from Adam used the power within him to stop time to give his father a chance to survive and with the thought of his father encouraging him, Adam uses more of that power to fight King Hiss back and free himself of his control.

Okay, so I've got good news and I've got bad news for you.  The good news is that after getting one hell of a whoopin' from King Hiss in the previous issue, Man-At-Arms is finally back to his senses and to continue that good news, the first thing he does is set off a bomb he placed in Tri-Klops' visor before he was captured and tortured.  That means not only does Tri-Klops "go splody now", but the explosion also destroyed the shield around Castle Grayskull, allowing our Masters and the Snake-Men a way in to finish the battle.  Yeah, that's a lot of good news coming our way, but the bad news is that after King Adam plunges what's left of his power sword into his chest, dispelling King Hiss from him and also killing him, we find out that when King Hiss was impersonating Mendor, he set up a backup plan in case something like this ever happened.  Apparently, Hiss went and used the Doctor as a way to implant his venom into all of the Snake-Men and before he dies, he activates it, killing all the Snake-Men battling with our heroes against Skeletor............ So yeah, the majority of Fisto's army just went kaput.

In the end, the keystone memory of King Randor reminds Adam that he once used the power of Eternia to stop time and if he wants to save the Universe now, he has to tap into that power again...... so that's what he does.  Before Skeletor can harness the power of Grayskull and Horokoth to destroy the Seed Star: the source of creation itself, Adam makes his way to the castle and uses the remnants of his power sword to put out the fire of Horokoth in the forge of Grayskull...... All during the last second of reality.  With that act Adam is burned away, Skeletor's plan fails and as the skull faced fucker turns around to see what happened, he's faced with a fully recharged He-Man, looking to put an end to their feud.

That's it for this issue of He-Man: The Eternity War and even though I was disappointed at the complete lack of She-Ra that this series has given us and the absolute dismissal of the character in this issue, it really did a good job in bringing everything closer to where we originally started in terms of status quo with our characters here.  The Snake-Men are gone, Man-At-Arms is back and the story is even back to simply being He-Man vs. Skeletor, which for everything that's been given to us this year, it's amazing that we're back to that type of normalcy, while the stakes have never been higher.  I'm really interested in how He-Man will appear in the next issue after the Adam part of him was burned away in the fire of Horokoth and if there will be any lasting affect of this for our hero in the future.  The art was amazing as always and even upped the ante a bit for me as we witnessed Adam being distorted by reality crumbling and the fire burning him away.  This book is just a joy to read and to look at.

Bits and Pieces:

While She-Ra gets the shaft in this issue in a way that's way less dirty than it sounds, He-Man gets back to basics by taking everything that we dealt with over the past year and washing it away to get us back to what we expect from a He-Man title.  That's right, just plain old He-Man Vs. Skeletor........ and it's awesome.  Just another great romp in Eternia and another excellent issue to The Eternity War that makes me sad that it's ending so soon.

7.8/10