- by Owen Morton
Today’s subject for discussion (and, of course, ridicule) is the much-vaunted publication of – as you may have guessed from the above title – the Masters of the Universe magazine. Actually, it’s probably not a magazine, it’s more like a comic, but I don’t like to think of myself as a person who buys comics (it brings to mind memories of myself buying the Beano and the Dandy for several years after it was either socially acceptable or intelligent to do so), so for the sake of my ego, we’ll call this wee beastie a magazine. Now, normally, I’d be tempted to call it a He-Man magazine, but since the front cover has the words ‘Masters of the Universe’ scrawled across it no less than four times (and, for the record, the words ‘He-Man’ only once), I thought it must be pretty adamant that its subject matter was really Masters of the Universe, and not He-Man at all.
Now, it should be stressed that, even though I thought it was a magazine and not a comic, I would never normally make a purchase like this, especially at the exorbitant sum of £1.99 for 32 such inarticulate pages. However, I am ever in mind of possible subjects for Heath the Rat’s Silly Page, and there are, if you ask me, few things sillier than a He-Man magazine. Plus the freebie offered with this publication was, frankly, too much to resist. I quote the large red strip at the top of the magazine:
”FREE POWER CHAIN KEYRING! Which will you choose? He-Man or Skeletor?”
Well, with a tagline like that, how could I resist? Especially since said tagline has a small picture of Skeletor’s cat, Panthor, next to it, with the words ‘Masters of the Universe’ above it, lest you are so stupid you might forget. It might be pointed out, however, that everybody seems to have chosen He-Man, because there weren’t any keyrings of him left. This strikes me as a stupid decision, to be honest, since He-Man looks rubbish in the new series, while Skeletor looks almost cool. Still, we can probably put this down to the stupidity of children who buy this magazine from WH Smiths, whereas the ones who buy it in Woolworths, which is just next door, are infinitely more intelligent (well, as intelligent as you can be when you actually buy things like this), in that they all seem to have chosen Skeletor. On the other hand, I have to display confusion as to why this thing should be a ‘power chain’ keyring. Admittedly, I haven’t taken it out of its packet yet – and probably never will: the coolness factor of having a Skeletor keyring would undoubtedly blow my little mind out – but it doesn’t look all that powerful to me.
Well, having discussed the freebie in some detail, I suppose we could move on to the rest of the cover. The headline advertises GOOD vs EVIL! A Fight To The Finish!, though a cursory glance through the contents will reveal that this is untrue, as there is no finish to the bloody thing – the magazine ends with the story unresolved, which is an obvious marketing ploy to make people buy the next issue. I mean, the last page has a large picture of three nasty looking people dressed up as grey and purple bats, accompanied by the helpful caption ‘SCRRREEEEEEECCH!’ and in small letters at the bottom of the page ‘Next Issue: Bat Attack!’ With enticement like that, who could possibly resist buying the next one?
But to return to the important issues presented by the front cover. Next down is the offer of an ‘Exclusive Toy Give-Away! Be The First To Own Snakemen Figures!’ which I’ll admit is pretty darn tempting. But more on that particular giveaway later. Below that is, in eye-catching yellow letters, the offers of ‘Action Stories * Magical Puzzles * Awesome Give-Aways’. We’ll take each of these claims in turn. With regard to the first, there’s no doubt that there’s certainly plenty of action, though I would in fact contest the claim that the illiterate cartoons within actually constitute a story. As to the second, there are indeed puzzles, but they are patently not magical. I’m sorry, but I just feel that the magic of ‘Spot the Difference’ is somewhat limited. And as to the third, the only thing given away with this publication (aside, of course, from a He-Man or Skeletor Power Chain Keyring) is irreversible brain damage, which, in my humble opinion, is not overly awesome.
Well, having spent some considerable while discussing the front cover, we’re now going to take a chance and open the first page and see what awaits us. On the inside front cover is a stupid picture of the He-Man and Skeletor figures attacking one another, with the somewhat erroneous title ‘Clash of the Titans!’, which is described rather ambitiously as a pin-up. For the record, the back cover also calls itself a pin-up, being a picture of some of the goodies from the cartoon. I’m sorry, but these things are not pin-ups. I would never pin these stupid things up, and I’m probably one of the most obsessed people ever. Therefore, they are not pin-ups. They are scrunch-up-and-throw-aways.
The contents page is equally enlightening. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to go into this much detail about every single page of the magazine.) It begins with a Voice From Snake Mountain, in which Skeletor is reduced to the level of pleading readers to buy the magazine, and describes it as the ‘most magical of publications’. I won’t comment. Next, the first of the ‘magical’ puzzles becomes known to us: apparently, there are four mystical moduli hidden within the pages of the magazine. I’ve checked, and there aren’t. There’s four pictures of mystical moduli, admittedly, but actual mystical moduli there are not. (A mystical moduli, for the information of anyone who’s interested, is a dull pink blob, which makes one wonder why they should bother trying to find the bloody things in the first place.) Below this is an advert for the Masters of the Universe cartoon, telling us when we can watch it, though it describes it as ‘TV with Muscle!’ As far as I remember, when I watched it, the TV did not acquire muscle.
But enough of this pointless quibbling. The contents page also contains a brief summary of the events of the cartoon prior to this issue, finishing with the conclusion that Man-at-Arms, having been sucked into a dimensional vortex, was lost to the Masters of the Universe forever. This is clearly an unusual definition of ‘forever’, since on Page 7, just two pages after the cartoon begins again, there are phrases such as ‘KRRACK!’, ‘KRRRRACCKKK!’, ‘CRRKK’ and ‘THUD’, which herald the return of Man-at-Arms from wherever he was. (Prior to the recommencement of the cartoon, by the way, were character profiles of Man-at-Arms and Beast-Man, which I would recount if they were in any way amusing, but sadly they’re not.)
The cartoon continues, and I would describe the plotline if it actually had one, but it is mostly punctuated by pictures of Teela that my housemate described as pornographic, and many other inarticulate phrases like ‘KRCHKLLL’ and ‘KRRRRACCKKK!’ There are three sections of the cartoon, which are described rather ambitiously as ‘chapters’. The cartoon is split into three so that the ‘magical puzzles’ can be fitted in, in between the chapters. The first puzzle is a picture of He-Man and his friends, specifically the same one as is on the pin-up on the back of the magazine (which makes the whole endeavour even more pointless, since if you’re really stupid enough to get stuck doing the puzzle, you can just look at the back). The picture is divided into twenty five square boxes, but six of these boxes are blank. Then, at the bottom of the page, the six missing pieces are shown. However – and this is the clever bit – there are also two pieces that do not come from this picture! The reader is challenged to discover which two pieces do not fit. It’s bloody easy, since it’s obviously the ones that are of Tri-Klops and Panthor, who are baddies and thus have no place in this picture.
On the opposite page is the Snake-Men competition that was advertised on the front cover. There is an introductory paragraph, beginning, “From deep beneath Snake Mountain they are coming …” The competition is then explained, informing us that the five Snake-Men figures are unavailable in the UK until September, but if you answer the question, you can win them all now, presumably to become the envy of all your friends, if you have any. The question is stupidly easy:
“From where are the Snake-Men coming?
a) Deep beneath Snake Mountain
b) A galaxy far, far away
c) Deep beneath Grayskull
d) The reptile house
This being printed directly beside the introductory paragraph which tells us in the very first sentence where the stupid Snake-Men are coming from, the competition isn’t going to be very hard, really is it? I’d enter myself, but I do have some qualms about depriving some poor child somewhere being the most popular child in the school. Plus there’s probably something in the terms and conditions about the winner having to take part in Masters of the Universe publicity. I’m really, really not enthusiastic about that prospect.
The magazine then goes into Chapter 2,which I’m not going to bother with, other than mentioning that it contains a rather gratuitous ‘CRRREEEKK’ on Page 20. After this exciting interlude, we are presented with another magical puzzle. This one is Spot the Difference, though with the rather glorified name of ‘Battle Log!’, and to tell you the truth, it’s bloody difficult. There are apparently five differences between the two pictures (which I’d scan in if I could be bothered), and the only one I can see after about thirty seconds’ perusal is that the moon is missing in the bottom one. It’s also not entirely fair, since the top left corner of the top picture is obscured by a pointless picture of Man-at-Arms waving a big green stick with a ball on the end. On examining the answers page, I discovered that the other differences were that a big rock behind Two Bad had vanished (which I should have spotted, really), a bit of Teela’s bra was red rather than yellow, Ram-Man was missing a chain on his helmet, and Tri-Klops was missing an eye. Well, that was exciting.
The magazine gets ever more interesting on the following page, when we are presented with a black and white picture of He-Man in a seven-by-seven grid, and invited to “Help the Sorceress summon the mightiest man in the universe by copying the image of He-Man into the bottom set of squares. Add colour to complete the magical picture.” I haven’t followed these instructions – I do have better things to do with my time, believe it or not – but I am willing to bet my He-Man DVD collection (which currently consists of one DVD, though this afternoon that number will go up to two when I buy Volume 2!) that were I to do this, the mightiest man in the universe would not appear before me. I’m also fairly certain that the picture wouldn’t be magical. This magazine seems to have trouble with the concept of magic, actually: I’d say magic is a bizarre trick that can’t be explained by science. Copying and colouring a picture, therefore, is not even slightly magical.
Anyway, the magazine then goes into the final chapter, in which we are treated to a ‘CRRRRKKK’, a ‘HHHMMMMMMM’, two ‘HHMMM’s, a ‘HHHMMMM’, a ‘KCHHCKK’, a ‘WHRRCLICK!’, a particularly exciting ‘BAAOOOOM’, and the ‘SCRRREEEEEEECCH!’ that I mentioned earlier, as well as the ever-welcome sight of Man-at-Arms topless. Don’t say this magazine doesn’t give you everything you asked for.
All in all, this is a most disappointing publication. The story is rubbish: there’s no action in it at all. Moreover, the puzzles are not magical (though I could probably have guessed that), and the give-aways are less than awesome, if you ask me – if truth be told, I haven’t ever really longed for a Skeletor keyring, whether it be a power-chain one or not. Plus the pin-ups are really useless: I bet no one is insane enough to put these things up on their wall. And – worst of all – Skeletor isn’t in the bloody magazine! If you want my honest opinion, it ain’t He-Man if it don’t have Skeletor.
And I’ve now had enough of talking about this dangerously sad topic.