***SPOILERS***
He-Man: The Eternity
War #13–15 (DC) are written by Dan Abnett and illustrated by Pop Mhan and
Tom Derenick, concluding the run of this title. Here, Skeletor makes his big
play to rule the cosmos or, failing that, to end all life in the universe,
including his own, because go big or go home.
So, Skeletor gets his final form, He-Man gets his final form
(plus, in a callback to issue #19 of the previous but identical run, the
convenient ability to stop time since he’s also the “master of eternity”).
Anyway, they look pretty silly. The undercard is She-Ra versus the ghost of
Hordak for the simple reason that she wouldn’t have anything to do otherwise.
Skeletor’s defeat is abrupt and underwhelming: he talks a
lot of smack, and then Dragonball He-Man just kinda walks up and shanks him in
the chest while he and She-Ra shout “We have the power” a bunch of times. It’s
all just mostly dumb.
It’s also all out of the way by the end of issue #14. Issue #15
is kind of an epilogue; it feels like setup for a storyline that will probably
never happen, but one that seems infinitely more appealing than the grim and
gritty slog we’ve just been through (I really
could have done without mangled, cadaverous Prince Adam in #13) but probably
wouldn’t live up to even my severely tempered expectations.
So what have we seen in all these comics? A lot of
spectacle, but nowhere near enough setup to make it compelling; a decent
Skeletor, but a He-Man who doesn’t do much and a cast of underdeveloped
characters; King Hsss shoehorned awkwardly into the comics from the start out
of obligation, and a lot of convenient plotting and abrupt resolution.
Issues #13–#15, then, are the underwhelming conclusion to an
unimpressive run of comics. If DC’s got any more He-Man comics along these
lines in the works, I could just as soon do without them.
NOT RECOMMENDED
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