- by Owen Morton
When I say ‘The New Adventures of He-Man’, I do not refer to the new series of He-Man which is currently airing in the US (or at least that I assume is currently airing in the US – it could easily have been dropped by now, especially if it’s as good as the previous incarnation). I am instead talking about the late-1980s or early 1990s series which sought to revive He-Man. This series is almost universally reviled by He-Fans, and – oddly enough for people who call themselves He-Fans – they are right.
The New Adventures of He-Man had a very short life, fortunately. Realising that the repeats of the original series of He-Man were still very popular, some bright spark came up with the idea of creating a new series of it. Had the creator of this new series kept to the original format, all might have been well. But what they came up with was He-Man in name only, not in spirit.
The series started with a feature-length episode, which I suspect was about an hour and a half long, but seemed oh so much longer, which was set on Eternia. All seemed well. One could have done without the updated look of He-Man (he actually looked in this series very much like he does in the current series) and certainly without the deeply stupid updated Skeletor. The latter had the appearance of being very stoned, actually, to tell the truth. He had also abandoned his traditional stupid blue outfit in favour of a stupid purple outfit, which was very stupid indeed.
As far as I can remember, the episode started with He-Man and presumably his cronies repelling yet another of Skeletor’s cunning plans, a plan which ultimately ended with Skeletor falling headfirst into a pit of slime which he had presumably arranged for He-Man’s delectation. I clearly remember his face as he stared directly at the camera and uttered some profundity or other, and I was inexplicably reminded of Droopy. (You know Droopy? Oh, well, if you don’t know, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to remind you, and if you do, well, in that case you know the kind of expression Skeletor had.)
This was the point at which it all began to go wrong. Round about now, I would estimate (and I’m operating purely on guesswork here – I know the basic semblance of plot for this feature length thingy, but I can’t get any more details because even the He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Website refuse to talk about this series), we cut to a different planet, where we see a benevolent kingdom inhabited by deeply annoying people, who are rather lacking in technological expertise, preferring instead to manage their crops and tend sheep. Sadly, these people are being menaced by a group of stupid baddies, led by an individual called Brakk. Brakk – as far as I remember from my 1990 He-Man annual which featured this group of characters – was a deeply stupid looking fellow. To illustrate this, I will here attempt to describe Brakk.
Brakk wears a red jumpsuit with little bits on it which make him look a little bit futuristic. To be fair, he doesn’t look all that much more stupid than He-Man characters we’re all used to, or at least he wouldn’t if it weren’t for his head. This was perfectly circular, and of a size reminiscent of Moon-Face from Enid Blyton’s ‘Up The Faraway Tree’ series. He had large and frankly unpleasant eyes, no nose to speak of and a very big mouth which was filled with very sharp teeth. He was wont to wield weapons such as energy pistols, and he was about as intelligent as, to take two totally random examples, Beast-Man or William Hague. In answer to the very important question of quite how he managed to become leader of these baddies, one can only theorise that despite his numerous shortcomings, he’s still a lot cleverer than the other baddies. This theory can equally well apply to William Hague in relation to his appointment as leader of a certain political party.
Okay, you get the picture. A kingdom of annoying but forgettable characters (hence I can’t remember any of them, other than the deeply irritating little boy who, as I recall, was a shepherd, which one would think would keep him out of the series up in the hills looking after sheep, but sadly it didn’t) are under threat from a selection of mind-bogglingly stupid villains. They need someone to save them – but there isn’t anyone on their planet capable of such a feat (i.e. there isn’t anyone on their planet stupid enough to want to save them). So what does this community do?
Well, ordinary communities such as the ones you and me belong to might work to repel the invaders by building weaponry for themselves. But the most immediately obvious solution to these technologically backward people is to build a great big machine capable of disappearing and instantaneously appearing on another planet, where they hope that planet’s hero will enter it and be transported back to save them.
Surprise, surprise, this machine arrives on Eternia, and so begins a dark chapter in He-Man’s history. Through circumstances too convoluted to properly recount, or even remember, both He-Man and Skeletor manage to get themselves trapped inside this machine, and are transported back to the other planet. They emerge, locked in mortal combat, in front of the benevolent community, thus prompting one of the worst pieces of voice acting I’ve ever heard, in an overdramatic line: “They’re both powerful! But … which one of them is … good?” The answer to that question becomes obvious pretty quickly, when Skeletor, realising that, once again, he is losing, buggers off and aligns himself with Brakk and his friends, swiftly using his (slightly) superior intelligence to become their leader. Meanwhile, He-Man discovers what’s going on and elects to stay on the planet to help these irritating people. I can think of several reasons for this, and because I can’t remember what the justification used in the episode was, I’m going to put them all down here.
Firstly, the machine was only capable of making one trip, and so He-Man is now trapped on the planet. It’s a possibility, but it would indicate bad design on the part of these technologically backward yokels (hang on a minute ...). I mean, if it had been designed like this, and had brought back, say, a duck instead of a hero, all the time and effort they’d put into making the machine would be rendered useless. I suspect, however, that this was the explanation used, because writers of He-Man episodes never seemed to think things like this out as carefully as I do. Odd, that.
The second explanation is that He-Man realises that this planet is now in greater danger than Eternia is, given that Skeletor is now here and not back home. Therefore, Eternia’s greatest problem is likely to be one of Beast-Man’s cunning plans, which were even less cunning than Skeletor’s, believe it or not. On the other hand, without He-Man there, there’s no one on Eternia capable of repelling any attack from the remaining baddies, because everyone else on Eternia (apart, of course, from the immortal Man-E-Faces) is completely useless. But this probably slips He-Man’s mind, and he decides to stay and help the inhabitants of this planet.
I did think of a third explanation earlier, but I’ve completely forgotten it now, so you’ll just have to do without hearing it.
Anyway, the premise of the series is now set up: Skeletor with a new group of baddies sets about making pointless attacks on a group of shepherds, which He-Man must help to stop. If you think about it, Skeletor’s attacks in the original series were fairly pointless, because his aim was to gain the secrets of Castle Grayskull. To do this, all he had to do was get inside and look round till he found them. He went about this in a perfectly ridiculous manner i.e. by attacking King Randor of Eternia, who had absolutely nothing to do with Castle Grayskull. But Skeletor’s behaviour in this series makes even less sense. What, precisely, does he stand to gain from attacking these shepherds? It’s not like they’re guarding the secrets of anything. For that matter, I can’t remember why Brakk was attacking them, but I’d be willing to bet it’s so he could nick off with a sheep or two for his own nefarious purposes. And we won’t go into what those might be. Skeletor though, for all his shortcomings, has no use for sheep.
And that’s as much as I want to say about The New Adventures of He-Man, other than that I hope the current series of it is much better than this one was.