Quite a few of the goings-on here, frankly, don’t make a great deal of sense. In just pages, Skeletor goes from unstoppable sword collector to castle owner who clearly has no idea what he’s doing. In the first book, he tried to capture Teela and marry her; here, he gets a friendly Teela ready to serve him, and he can’t wait to drop her down a pit. At least we get Battle Cat (although he’s not talking yet). This story does do a good job with its primary objective, though, which is to show off the finer points of the Castle Grayskull playset.
Alcala’s art is solid, but it’s not used to as good effect as in the previous book. His outdoor night scenes are the best, and we do get a little of that in the end.
On the whole, I’m not impressed.
I had the Viewmaster version of this comic (which I think was just slightly abridged). Especially in the final few scenes, the 3D of the Viewmaster worked well with the natural drama of the illustrations to create a truly memorable effect. This is one of my best He-Man memories.
ReplyDeleteNow you've made me go dig out my Viewmaster...
ReplyDeleteI have the same slides. I completely agree - the last few scenes, which are the best in the comic, look great here too.
"Slightly abridged" - each page has a two- or three-word caption on the image and then a short, one-sentence description on the card. So it's abridged considerably - however, in my opinion this makes the story a lot better because it leaves out all of the plot holes and dumbness.
Viewmaster slides: RECOMMENDED