Hordeing

Grizzlor the Legend Comes Alive! was the first Masters of the Universe mini-comic illustrated (penciled & inked) by Bruce Timm.

Why does Man-At-Arms call his daughter “fair Teela”?

Here Teela learns of Hordak’s existence for the first time and seems to already know her relationship to the Sorceress. Also note that the rift between Skeletor and Hordak is usually placed when Adam was an infant, making Teela less than two years old.

“The fiery maiden still has some fight in her! Just when Skeletor once said!”

*WAAAH! thrash*

And of course Hordak and Grizzlor are living at a camp site, matching the Fright Zone toy rather than the industry and skyscrapers of the cartoon. 

Here are all of the intelligent insectoids in Masters of the Universe, I think. Let me know if I missed any!

The best-known insect person is Buzz Off, who belongs to a species called Andreenids or simply “bee people”.

Queen Andreeno, 2002 cartoon:

Filmation bee people (”The Good Shall Survive”):

This  episode also featured a  rival insectoid people called Tycons.

Beefore Buzz Off’s first appearance, the Filmation cartoon had already created its own, generically named Insect People (first appearance “Eye of the Beholder”).

L: Shaman, R: Garth. Garth later metamorphoses into a conventionally handsome superhero type with butterfly wings:

“Orko’s Return” introduced a fourth insectoid race on Eternia, the Polti.

Now, in the comic whose cover I posted above, which was packed with Buzz Off and some other 1984 action figures, the Insect People of the title are none of the above, but another called the Kex.

We still have one more species to count on Eternia. Webstor the spider person, sometimes called an Arachna, counts because of the 2003 cartoon episode, “Web of Evil”, where Buzz Off says that they’re related.

Now let’s move beyond Eternia to wrap up

The She-Ra toy line and ‘80s cartoon had its own bee people, their main representative being Sweet Bee.

Unlike most Princess of Power characters, the cartoon established these Bee People as NOT being from Etheria, but having a colony ship in outer space. They share their name with Buzz Off’s people and it’s not impossible that their ship came from Eternia, but they all have human hands and feet, lighter skin, and their wings might be different (though it’s hard to tell).

And finally, at one point Hordak gained a humanoid mosquito henchman, named Mosquitor.

The lore from the Power Tour, the Masters of the Universe stage show that toured the US and Canada from autumn 1986 to some time in ‘87, was wild.

A long Youtube video with commentary from Powercon 2017 can be found at: https://youtu.be/0hsWqe918Vw

Shorter video without commentary here: https://youtu.be/p6nyQ7OmzBQ

They brought out an Eternian bard named Songster to sing about the origins of the main characters (well, most of them: not Teela, Orko or any of Skeletor’s henchmen). What does an Eternian bard look like?

It’s the eiiiiiightiiiiiies! Do a lot of coke and vote for Keldor Miroson!

His first song was about Eternia before Castle Grayskull. The planet was ruled by five good wizards. They had to keep fighting the disorganized Snake Men, who “lacked but one thing: a leader to lead them! Then one day he appeared! Hordak!”

(What, were you expecting King Hiss? Maybe the five good wizards are the Ancients who banished him right before this story.)

So they fought a war, and the evil forces were defeated. Hordak retreated to another world with some of his Snake Men, swearing that he would one day return and get his revenge.

“Knowing that Hordak would indeed return,” the five ruling wizards decided not to die natural deaths but rather sacrifice themselves setting up a system containing all their power/the power at the Heart of Eternia/the Starseed/whatever.

“ULTIMATE SACRIFICE!”

They transmuted their bodies into the walls of Castle Grayskull! The first Sorceress appeared, to protect the Power Sword.

Fast forward to the time of King Randor. The astronaut Marlena crashes on Eternia. They fall in love, get married and have twins.

Then Hordak returns! Baby Adora is stolen from the nursery and Prince Adam grows up being told that Eternia’s peace and freedom is all up to him. We see him as a young man being trained by Man-At-Arms.

Now here’s an interesting divergence from any other ‘80s version of Hordak’s story: rather than “Skeletor betrayed me many years ago!” or “Hordak abandoned me when the Queen and Man-At-Arms subdued me in the nursery”, the stage presents a diptych where Hordak continues teaching Skeletor while MAA teaches Adam. Skeletor is an apt pupil, while Adam is a complete failure. The Sorceress appears behind him to sing inspiration. But it seems to be of no avail, and even when Hordak’s forces invade Eternia, Adam whines “Father I can’t!”, to which Randor says “Then Eternia is lost” as the royal parents and Duncan go out to fight. But eventually the Sorceress inspires Adam with confidence and he summons the Power of Grayskull through the Sword.

Duncan doesn’t recognize He-Man as Adam, and they briefly fight until he identifies himself as the Prince, not one of Hordak’s champions. They fight Snake Men, then Hordak says “Let’s see if you can face a REAL warrior!” … the performer playing She-Ra! Grown Adora puts up a better fight than a Snake Man but is still knocked down by the Power of Grayskull. The Sorceress has to tell He-Man not to slay her, for she is his sister. Shamefaced, He-Man splits the sword in two, one half being the Sword of Protection. Adora powers up by the Honor of Grayskull, and that is how He-Man and She-Ra came to be!

That’s all the lore. The show then moved on to silliness like Skeletor challenging the twins to Good vs Evil on roller skates and such. 

The five wizards, seem to be inspired from the six elders/wizards that appeared in UK publications - the comics, and the magazine I mentioned:

The number being five, as one of the Elders turned evil

The fact Hordak lead the Snake Men is fascinating, as it does fit a theory I read that the Unnamed in the 80s was possibly Hordak himself, seeing it would be revealed the Unnamed was he one who turned Keldor into Skeletor (like Hordak did in the 200X series, MOTUC and DC comics). In the unmade Filmation He-Ro series, after the series moved a bit from the MOTU/Mattel roots (for some reason) the equivalent of the Snake Men - “Saurians” would be not lead by King Hiss, but by a cyborg called Aurasaur (or Horrorsaur or Horrosaur), who looked kinda like Hordak, but red and more reptilian:

The equivalent of King Hiss, oddly, would be Aurasaur’s comical, abused lackey - “Slimey”, his design based on Hiss’ alternate true form design from Newspaper comics:

(I have an alternate theory the Unnamed was meant to be Horde Prime, like in the unused 200X comics storyline, but that’s another thing to discuss).

Skeletor has had three pets. First was Panthor.

This purple big cat was first mentioned in the December 1982 cartoon bible. Mostly a recolored version of He-Man’s Battle Cat, he lacked a helmet, possibly to show off his cute face since he was Panthor all the time unlike BC’s dual identity. He also never spoke, so we don’t know how intelligent he is.

He’s reappeared in the 2002 cartoon and MotU Revelation. Even Anti-Eternia Keldor had a Panthor in the comic Masters of the Multiverse.

Dragon appeared in “Skeletor’s Dragon”, the mini-comic packed with the Dragon Blaster Skeletor and Battle Bones toys. He acts like a dog. Sadly, I don’t think he ever appeared in another story.

Random classic She-Ra review! Well not that random, since I mentioned this one a couple posts ago.

This one opens with Catra presenting Hordak a berry pie. Hordak is a trusting soul when it comes to his subordinates and gobbles it down. Imp bounces into the throne room with intelligence on the Rebels of Whispering Woods. When they leave the room, Skeletor pops out of hiding to have a chat with Catra.

It turns out that Skeletor does his own baking, and this pie was baked with doomberries, which cause whoever eats them to fade out of existence over a matter of many hours. Skeletor believes that Horde Prime will need him to replace Hordak if this happens, which certainly raises questions about how the Horde appoints planetary commanders. It’s also not clear what Catra’s motive is, since she talks like she’ll still just be a Force Captain. I guess she just likes Skeletor better than Hordak.

Meanwhile, Hordak and a force of Horde Troopers attack the Rebels and manage to whisk Glimmer off to the Fright Zone as a prisoner. But in the midst of this display of competence, Hordak suddenly becomes sick and weak from that pie he trustingly ate.

(The first improvement I noticed in the reboot was that Glimmer’s powers worked consistently.)

So now the Great Rebellion has the commander of their planet’s occupation force as a sick prisoner. So what does She-Ra do? Fly her winged unicorn to magical advisor Light Hope to ask for a cure for Hordak.

OK, considering that by the end of the movie/5-part pilot that introduced these characters, She-Ra was telling Hordak “Leave Etheria forever!”, you’d think this calls for some unpacking, but writer Carol Baxter’s not giving us that. I don’t know if it was the heads of Filmation, some child psychologist they hired (the late Lou Scheimer’s daughter Erika has talked about doing this because they cared about their stories being appropriate to the audience’s age) or what, but this show was allergic to just saying “I still care because, while he’s evil, he’s my dad.”

Anyway, Light Hope tells her that the only cure for doomberry poisoning is tears. So someone’s going to have to cry for Hordak. She returns to his sickbed in Whispering Woods and asks him who might shed tears for his situation. Is he going to say “Imp”, whom he always dotes on and was established at the beginning of this episode? His runaway daughter Adora, for the superhero “you don’t know that I’m…” gag?

“Noah, the old wizard of Woeful Mountain would help me! He taught me my magic.”

Whaaat? Uh, Hordak, exactly how long have you lived on Etheria?

J. Michael Straczynski claims that he and Larry DiTillio were the story editors for She-Ra, and the reason they left between Seasons 1 and 2 was because Filmation wasn’t crediting them or giving additional pay for that work. And in the continuity as JMS understood it, the galaxy-spanning Horde was still in the process of conquering primitive Etheria when Castaspella was ~10 years old.

(That’s a pre-Horde Shadow Weaver with her in the JMS-written “The Price of Power”.) Plus the Sorceress of Grayskull told Adora “we searched for the dimension where Hordak took you but could not find it”, which is circumstantial evidence for Hordak only coming to Etheria after she was born.

Anyway, She-Ra carries Hordak up Woeful Mountain, while Catra attacks them. There won’t be any repercussions for open treason against Hordak in future episodes, which is explained as him suffering memory problems during his fading sickness. They make up to the top and meet Noah, who Skeletor has trapped in a force bubble. So what does the wizard who was Skeletor’s magic teacher’s magic teacher have to say?

NOAH: [to Hordak] Once I would have helped you, but you took all the years of magical training I gave you and turned it all to evil. You’re no friend of mine anymore. SHE-RA: Don’t you have any feelings? Have you no sympathy for his suffering? SKELETOR: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE] Of course I don’t have feelings! What sort of villain do you take me for? NOAH: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE] The only suffering I sympathize with is that which he’s inflicted on this entire planet for years… and which he’ll CONTINUE to inflict until he’s done away with forever. SHE-RA: I don’t believe you can just stand there and watch someone suffering, someone you have the power to help! Once Hordak was powerful. Now he’s alone, abandoned, unloved! It’s wrong… and it’s SAD. NOAH: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE] Naturally he’s abandoned and alone. That’s because he’s an unloving person who doesn’t RESPOND to sympathy! What you’re asking me to do wouldn’t help him at all; it would just let him create more strife all over Etheria! [something about caring] NOAH: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE] Oh, they’ll care, all right. When he’s gone, all of Etheria will cry - with joy! SHE-RA: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE] You don’t think that’s sad? The very idea of anybody being so feared and hated that others would actually rejoice at their… at their - their… [breaks down and can’t continue]

SKELETOR: You’re crying for Hordak? I don’t believe it! NOAH: How can you cry for someone like him? SHE-RA: I’m not just crying for Hordak. I’m crying for the saddest thing I know: a wasted life. To be given that most precious gift - the gift of living - to do with as we choose… I’m crying because this man has chosen to throw it away. And when he’s gone, nobody will care.

… with that, Hordak is cured, Skeletor runs away, and Noah teleports Hordak and She-Ra back to his throne room. She-Ra breaks Glimmer out of her cell and they book it on Swift Wind. Oh, and Bow is in this episode too. The episode ends at an outdoor dining table in Whispering Woods, where the Rebels seem rather blase about their leader saving Hordak’s life and not even keeping him as a POW, which she justifies as “What’s important is that I know I helped another human being, and that makes me feel good.”

(Pictured: another human being.)

Possible plot holes aside, this is a great episode. It’s a victim of the format of American TV in general at the time, in that we never get to see the status quo disrupted. We learn more about Adora/She-Ra’s feelings for Hordak and we learn that he was not an evil man (so to speak…) when he was a magic student, but there’s never a deeper understanding of what Adora wants. After running away from Hordak to join the Rebellion but also treating him like this when he was at his most vulnerable, what’s her endgame?

Nothing quite says "a grand entrance" quite like Skeletor wielding his magic staff on top of a giant attack mechanical spider beetle.

How many gargoyles atop the transformed Castle Grayskull?

The door requires an extra bat. How else would anyone know who dwells within?

Hordak's flagship... Impressively intimidating, intended to initiate dread-trembles in miserable, meek mortals? I just want to pat the cutie bat atop its head and boop its nose.

The same with these:

This detail of the flagship is my favorite. It possesses no function whatsoever, and appears incredibly hilarious.

Extra mini-batmobile!

The Horde flags now sport splendiferous skulls!

How many bats and bewinged shapes in Hordak's throne room? Is his bed also bat-shaped, and the sheets patterned with some more?

grayskull some 3ish episodes later:

So once upon a time they were going to make this vehicle for the third wave of toys called Effervescent the Bubble Carriage, sort of the Enchanta/Sea Harp of its generation, right? Well, they pulled the plug on the whole line before it came to fruition. But it made it in the style guide, and the minicomics, so... it gets a post, toy or no toy.

this is so sad

Then there was that time that Superman teamed-up with He-Man to battle Skeletor in DC Comics Presents #47 (July, 1982).

Hey babe, do you want to go conquer some lesser planets with me???

Finally completed for Valentine's Day!! What can I say? Motu Rev did a good damn job and I have to fangirl XD