This is Man at Arms, and you are listening to
the Masters of Grayskull. I am Adam, Prince of
Eternia, defender of the secrets of Castle Grayskull.
This is Cringer, my fearless friend. Fabulous
- Hello, this is optimus solo and welcome to
the 122nd chapter in our powers of great skull
series Yeah, you thought you were done with us
You can't get rid of us that easy with me for
this journey into the masters of the universe
franchise is TFU and Mike Hello. Hello. Oh if
they The plans I have ladies and gentlemen, you'll
find out much later than this podcast episode
So sir, are you ready? Somehow? We're we still
we're gonna return to Eternia Yeah, we are sort
of All right, in this episode of Masters of Grayskull,
we'll be giving you our thoughts on the unaired
episode that got turned into a comic book, and
that is called Captured, basically episode 40
called Captured. And this is a comic book that
was created, illustrated by Emiliano Santalucia.
and involves Cobra Khan and Skeletor and kind
of how they're interacting and deals with King
Hiss and all kinds of other stuff. So I know
you're more of the comic expert out of the two
of us. Ladies and gentlemen, it is so crazy every
time I ask him to do some sort of Masters of
the Universe or Back to the Future or something
I know he's going to. At least a franchise that
I know he's like, I would never ask Optima Solo
to sit here and review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Power Rangers with me because I know he doesn't
like Power Rangers. So I'd have to get somebody
else for that. But screenplay originally obviously
done by the late great Dean Stefan. The comic
adaptation script was done by Ryan Foley. As
you already mentioned, the illustrator, the colorist
was Val Staples. Most of you probably know who
Val is. Val has had a storied comic book career
working on various comics. He is also the head
guy over at He -Man .org. I'm hoping to get Val
on the show at some point here in the future.
What were you going to say? He -Man's grabbing
a snake and it's like a multiple snake heads,
but there's like one, two, three, four, five,
six. I don't know what character this is that
he's grabbing, but there's more involved than
any character I've ever had. But I do like the
art on this comic. I think it's very and I especially
like how they do Skeletor. I think that's well
done. I think the artwork on Tila is really good.
I was pretty good. I always find that no matter
what people do with He -Man or Prince Adam, that
it's always comes across almost as inconsistent
to me, almost in the same way as like in the
pullback when we talked about Marty McFly. I
think it was kind of how Like I feel like even
just throughout this comic like Prince Adam and
he man changes a little tiny bit here and there
But that is like the most major nitpick I guess
more like a minor nitpick that you can possibly
come up with because I think from an illustration
point Everything else is great. Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
The art is amazing in this I'm not so sold on
the story. Maybe it's because it's only a 22
page comic Maybe it's because it's because they're
adapting a script that was supposed to be a 22
minute episode. Maybe if this had gotten more,
maybe if this had gotten more issues to, to say,
okay, we're done with the cart, the cartoon series,
but here, here's a continuation of comic form
kind of thing. Uh, maybe that would have worked.
The thing that I am kind of screwy on here is
there's a, it's, I forget which page it is. I
think it's like. Page three There's a picture
of there is a panel of Adam and Tila and man
-at -arms and whatever Adam's colors are not
his vest color is not dark enough. It's almost
like old filmation It's not pink, but it's not
a dark enough red to me and his sword should
be the other way It should be over his left shoulder
not his right shoulder because in the entire
series He was left -handed with his sword I never
noticed that. Yeah. Oh, I think it would be a
benefit for us because obviously a die -hard
human fans probably have access to this in some
way shape or form I'm sure it's leaked onto the
internet somewhere but technically this is on
like you have to have the DVD ROM you have to
have the DVD of This series in there. You have
to have it in your computer You have to be able
to pull up the DVD ROM drive to open a file that
has the comic. Yeah Be having it so I'd like
to at least somewhat kind of give like the cliff
know what happens in this because nobody else
is gonna have a clue unless they're Access to
this so let me kind of go through a little bit
by a little bit. So it starts off Which is the
newly reformed snake Mountain which snake Mountain
because Serpos has been back and banished back
to his form back where he is now surroundings
Well, etc. Yeah, so we start there and Skeletor
is kind of you know bemoaning the fact that you
know His his layers still then we kind of saw
this a little bit in the last episode That's
why I said like yeah, I get it could have been
like foreshadowing to future episodes I just
wish we would have got a little bit more Skeletor
last episode But this is kind of the culmination
of that where he's upset about this and he's
gonna do something about it but basically King
his Is not around His he's headless I guess we
didn't talk about that in the last episode, but
King Hiss somewhat died in the last episode as
much as a snake can. So the thing is that King
Hiss was taken out, so now Skeletor doesn't have
that to worry about, so he's saying he's going
to get his revenge on anybody else, all the other
snake men, etc., etc. We have Cobra Khan appearing
and he's seemingly switching his loyalty to Skeletor
and saying that he'll be loyal to him and he'll
do what he needs to do, etc., etc. So that's
kind of how it starts and then we go to a panel
where we have man -at -arms kind of showing off
the new Snake prison we already had this is this
is the part that gets me in this comic. This
is what rubs me the wrong way We've had a snake
prison For most of the series because snake face
or whatever you call them. Mm -hmm That character
has been in prison the whole time without ever
getting out I'm until you know I get I get at
the end that we had rattler got out etc etc but
for the most part that was a pretty fail -safe
prison that seemed like it worked yeah but now
they need to redo it so he's installed all these
other things that are gonna have snake sensors
and are gonna be able to detect cold -blooded
snake metabolism and Any type of reptilian things
like so nobody's gonna be able to come anywhere
near to let them out All this type of different
stuff, right? Even though they already had an
attorney I'm lying to prison they needed all
this and even if that doesn't work it says that
there are laser security grids. And obviously
we have light that comes in all the time because
that's gonna prevent some king has from regenerating
so this is the first time that we can see that
can his isn't dead and that there is a chance
that you like regrow his head I guess. So they
have to make it light at all times, which means
in my mind that you're like setting something
up where. They're going to have to find a way
to. Stop the light, make it dark, you know that
I was thinking that's where it was going to go.
Like the people were going to do different stuff
to this prison to try to like shield the light
or shield the light from the royal palace area
or whatever the case may be. That's not how they
went. They went a different route, but so we
have all this right. And he just, there's literally.
Two comic book pages dedicated to describing
this new snake prison. Like we have one two three
four five six seven eight cells is that what
they're called individual. Talking about this
thing right and it goes to the snake man and
they're talking about oh you know it's going
to take the bait from con etc etc and then. The
evil warriors show up Get on top of the snake
dome prison thing cut a hole in it Take the glass
out Drop down through the laser field. Mm -hmm.
We're talking about beast man is one of these
characters Pick up snake face and king hiss and
take them away. Mm -hmm. Okay So you're telling
me that the stuff that was like the shackles
that King Hiss is entrapped in are that easily
undone? First of all, the lasers are that easy
to repel down like your freaking Tom Cruise and
and not touch any of them and then pick up another
human being body, you know, another snake body
carried. Notice this snake has like five heads
that are waggly all right. So Beastman is going
to carry King Hiss and all his snake heads back
up through the laser field, never touching one.
Not to mention the fact that no alarms go off
when this place is broken to begin with. When
a hole is cut in it by Trapjaw. Head and Arms
is like, oh, I built this to prevent snakes from
breaking him out. I never thought the evil warriors
would break him out. We just spent eight panels
of you telling how this is like. Fort Knox the
hardest place to break in there's lasers. There's
all kinds of security things and it was this
easy Yeah, I don't care who it was doing it.
It shouldn't have been that easy So I have a
big problem with the head is the main jugs of
this so then we have a prison break They got
King has they got snake face. They're going out
and then we have to have you know the the masters
and he meant are basically gonna Go off to try
to stop it because they don't want King his to
come back to life. So we have Quite a few panels
there where it's the chase between he man and
the masters trying to track down triclops trap
drop Eastman Merman and their and their. Their
prize you know snake face and King Hess so that's
all fine you know the panels are fine for that
it shows some good action I'm sure I could have
seen this being a cartoon this part of it. So
all this is fine cuz we're finally getting evil
warriors involved in the master or is what we
kind of go for right. Really the masters fail.
Um, so the evil warriors get away with their
prizes and then we have, you know, Stratos and
man -at -arms and Tila and He -Man, et cetera,
who are kind of, I guess, commiserating in their
failure. And then man -at -arms just takes off.
Yep. Like a renegade master of the universe.
Yeah. He -Man actually has to order Stratos to
go stop him. So I have a problem here too, because
This is out of character Like I get man -at -arms
is very stubborn and he's his own person and
he does all these inventions or whatnot But when
in a hundred and twenty one episodes covering
multiple episodes of different series throughout
the last eight to ten years that we've been doing
this Have we had man -at -arms single -handedly
go try to take on an entire? Force Yeah, I mean,
there have been times in the episodes where he's
wanted to do so, but. And there's been times
where he's been mad about his inventions not
working on this side and the other, but dude
literally with no discussion just takes off and
it's like, I'll just take on everybody myself.
Yeah. Anyways, we go back to Snake Mountain,
Skeletor's there, Beastman brings in King Hiss,
who doesn't have a head still, and he leaves
it up to Beastman to decide where he's going
to put King Hiss. I do like the fact that he
says, oh, I can put you in a cage with the serpent
of tours because that, hey, reference to a past
episode or the end or the shadow beast. So we're
all getting those cool little things right there.
Yeah. But of course, he has to mention that the
shadow beast can only exist in total darkness.
King is is able to talk. So he says, oh, you
know, blah, blah, blah. You probably don't have
somewhere where they can exist. So, of course,
he throws them in the total darkness, which is
then going to allow him to regenerate his head.
His head. Yep. So then we have beast man standing,
you know in the throne room basically and it's
almost like They almost could have shown him
being killed right there Like I expected when
he fell to have there be a knife in his back
or something Yeah, something like the way that
he just falls and King his is standing behind
him Yeah, he says basically he gave him some
of his venom so then we have a battle between
King has and Skeletor my favorite part of this
is in the animation or in the cells in the illustrations
here. King has talks about hey you know I used
to live here so I know everything about this
and he basically pulls down a part of the wall
and there is a staff behind it a snake staff.
Yep. Almost like a havoc staff but it's a snake
version right in this the staff that the toy
of Tila always for some reason has. I think so
when she becomes the goddess because she at some
point in her future. Becomes the goddess who
I was confused as a kid Because Tina always had
the snake staff yet. I had never saw her with
a snake staff in the show Yeah, maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I just missed it. I mean, let's see her
staff. Hold on It looks almost identical to that
So that's what King Hiss is wielding and he is
going to use that to kind of battle with Skeletor
and Skeletor's Havoc staff and we have a pretty
cool sequence of about You know three pages actually
almost Almost six pages where King Hiss and Skeletor
are battling back and forth and that part is
very cool Yeah, cuz that we've been waiting to
see Yeah, there's a cool Panel where Skeletor
is grabbing King Hiss's foot while he's dangling
over the cliff There's a lot of stuff dealing
with like the lava We have another instance where
the snake men's skin can be molted off and then
we don't have to worry about it. So that's kind
of cool and ultimately King has basically is
looks like he's about to get the better The better
of him we have evil in Who kind of interjects?
Good and then we have man -at -arms who comes
in and interjects So this whole battle has been
going on multiple people have been coming in
we got snakemen We got evil warriors and now
we have man -at -arms involved as well Stratos
is somewhat involved, but he kind of gets pushed
to the side right away And then we have a whole
page where he man and tila are basically like
holding each other like lovers. Kind of weird
cuz she's got her hand on his chest. And i know
it's just like a more of a comforting thing like
where he's just trying to hold almost looks like
their husband and wife and picture. Yeah and
there have been in other comics where they like
the comics that a despair and i have covered
over on the pool bag. There have been a time
where he man and tila were married right so i
mean that. Yeah that's sort of strados comes
back and informs him that he couldn't help man
at arms and then we get the final page which
is man at arms and king has king has is telling
him that he's going to create. inventions and
weapons and vehicles for him. He says, no, you're
not. They kind of do a reference here because
of the, um, the Fidians spire, which we've seen
before, uh, somewhere along the way. And, you
know, man in arms says, yeah, but you don't have
the whatever the other MacGuffin, the snake ring
or something like that. And it says, yeah, but
you've already been stabbed with this and you've
already been a snake man. So I don't need it.
So he stabs man in arms and man in arms becomes
one of the snake. Now this goes back to when
in the show they were snake people. Right, so
now he becomes a snake person once again. And
he says, yes, how may I serve you my king? And
then it has the end with a question mark. Yeah.
What do you think? I love the art. Art's good.
I love the colors. King Hiss looks better on
this than he did in the show. He does. He does.
I love the shadows of when he's in the darkness.
I love the fact that they play up the whole beast
man being a moron angle because most of the time
beast man is a moron. He's not one of Skeletor's
evil warriors that's gonna come back and, and,
uh, right. You know, try to do smart things.
Um, Evelyn is not here at all. Is she? Yeah.
She comes in at one point and then it's on page
like 21 or 20 or something where she. Use her
power to stop king has one time. Okay, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, Of Evelyn trying to bring back Hordak like
she basically all but besmirched Skeletor the
last two episodes of the show and then Skeletor
just fades away in the show. And this comic doesn't
even address that at all. And I, I understand
where they're going with it, but I don't think
man at arms being turned back into a snake person
should have been the cliffhanger. If this was
supposed to be. And I know they're running off
of Dean Stefan. His script and like i said at
the beginning of this may the man rest in peace.
I wish this what like if we had one more like
this was deans thing but if they had done one
more thing or if somehow some way like i said
within the next two years they come back and
say hey we want to give you guys. A true finale
whether skeletor is defeated or not what even
if it's a cliffhanger but just. A better, I liked
this more than I liked the last episode, but
at the same time, I still wanted more from this.
I think this could have been an episode, five
episodes ago or so, like where we had some of
those other ones that seemed like it was just
filler where it wasn't doing much. This would
have been one of those episodes that was leading
towards, that happened along the way of the snake
men eventually getting to Serpos and whatnot.
That I would have been fine with. I think where
they made a mistake was teasing Hordak and then
not bringing Hordak in. That's where we wanted
to go. We were done with the Snakemen. We've
dealt with them for a while now. Like, have them
have their climax, have Hordak take over as the
new bad guy for what would eventually have been
a new season. Even if we didn't get it, I would
have rather stopped at that. Like that's where
I wanted to go is more to the Hordeck because
then that also opens the door to She -Ra coming
in eventually. It just opens up a lot of good
stuff. So I forgot to mention, and I know this
has nothing to do with what we're talking about
right here, but I did notice it when I was looking
at one of the cells of He -Man that we forgot
to mention in our last episode. I didn't get
to ask you a question I wanted to ask you, which
was what did you think of the power sword? opening
up as it did in the final aired episode. There
wasn't enough explanation for that. It's like
it had an extra extra amount of power once it
opened up. Yeah, somehow it got a new power and
whereas man at arms had a good explanation for
getting snake D the snake armor like he actually
built the snake armor. I didn't see any. Any
explanation at all as to why he might he meant
sword split open and some other snake gem something
or other came out of it and I It was weird to
me because it was very weird Like it would have
been different if it was like Oh all of a sudden
you can do something else that you didn't know
you could do with a sword But now it like became
a different sword like a different chemistry
and not chemistry different physical properties
to it almost i was like where did this come from
but yeah it was very confusing i like that you
can finally summon the the true power of the
elders and do stuff like that i just thought
it was weird the way that they did that with
the sword but that's another deck but um so that's
kind of episode 40 guys so we end up with man
at arms being a snake man yep so i mean if i
was great in this one i'd probably be around
a three um If I'm grading the visuals of the
comic, I'd give it a four and a half and five
maybe. I'm right at like a three and a half or
four for the comic specifically. Yeah. I just
think that there was a problem with the cell
being so easily broken into. And I know that's
getting hung up on plot point, but whatever,
that stuff bugs me. I really enjoyed the King
Hiss and Skeletor back and forth, which is the
majority of the comics. So I get how that's good,
but it's like, we basically have like the first
couple of pages, which explains how they get
broken out. We have the majority of the comic
that's dealing with their fight back and forth.
And then we just have like the end right at the
end where it's like, Oh, and man in arms is a
snake man. So I feel like the beginning and the
end could have been fleshed out differently.
The middle I have no problem with. So I'd be
three, three and a half somewhere in there. Um,
that's three and a half or a four. Yeah. We've
exhausted everything we can talk about with this
series outside of, uh, summarizing the whole
series overall and giving our general thoughts
on the series. Pretty much. This is, this is
all we get. This is all we get and next time
around is when we'll do the He -Man 2002 recap
where we've got our overall thoughts on the entire
series. I'm sure we'll do like top five or top
10 favorite episodes. We'll do the same thing
that we did with all the other series. Then we'll
let you know in that episode what else you can
look for. We're not done with He -Man. No, we're
not done. So we'll just eat some stuff. We're
kind of done with He -Man, but we're not done
with He -Man. We'll tease themself. We'll keep
telling them that they're making a new series.
They're going to keep the content coming and
they're going to keep us coming back. I just
had somebody say to me, sent us a, and this is
a while ago by the time this podcast will air,
but somebody sent us a message through Facebook
through the GeekCast radio thing asking us if
more from the Command Center stuff was going
to happen with the Power Rangers series with
the current generation of the last three series.
And I'm like, there's sort of a plan, but I don't
know when it's gonna happen kind of thing. So
hey, people with the two series that were being
planned for Netflix, I don't know. Yeah, I like
I said last episode, I don't know if it's in
last time's episode or not. I might have said
this to you off air. I have no no clue what's
going on with MOTU right now, other than the
fact that Mattel is releasing the origins line
for toys. I have like, as far as I saw, I've
seen when I've actually looked, I think the Kevin
Smith Netflix thing is on hold. And I think the,
um, the other movie thing, I don't know if it's
in theory. There was two different series. Yeah.
Yeah. That's what I'm saying. The Kevin Smith
thing. And then the Noah Emmerich movie thing
is two different thing. There's two different
series plus the movie. Oh, really? Yeah. And
there's a Kevin Smith one, but then there's an
all a whole different one as well. Um, series
that's also being planned. So I just, I'd have
to do some research to see what happened with
COVID and how it puts stuff on hold or whatever.
Cause I know that they will even had a voice
cast for the Kevin Smith one already. Um, recent
cast as their characters, et cetera, et cetera.
So, um, we'll keep you in touch as stuff happens,
but. Yep. And the last thing I want to bring
up because they've been sitting on my computer
this whole time that we've been recording this
episode last week's episode in the. at two episodes
before this. Funko finally got the masters of
it's they've had it back but there was a time
last year in 2019 or it might have been 2018
where it was like oh my god Funko's gonna lose
the MOTU license and they lost it for a while
but they came back and brought in new stuff.
I have a Prince Adam Funko pop he looks just
like Filmation Prince Adam pink purple white
uh, with his power sword. Very, very cool. And
I actually had to grab this off eBay because
some of the Fun Co does limited convention shared
exclusives. So if you're going to something like
Emerald City Comic Con out here in Seattle, Washington,
and you go, you get a con sticker on your pop,
but it's also shared with something like GameStop
or Box Launch or Hot Topic or whatever. I went
on eBay and I had to get Slime Pit He -Man. It's
basically He -Man in his classic filmation with
the classic filmation sword, but it's translucent
green plastic. It doesn't glow, but it's translucent
green plastic. He's all in green. The sword's
in green. He's got red eyes. It's so freaking
cool. I love it. Excellent. Yes. All right. So
how can people keep in touch with us and what
do they got to do to comment? Oh boy, there's
lots to do, folks. You guys have homework. Thank
you for listening as we are the Powers of Grayskulls
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We hope you enjoyed the Grayskull goodness and
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we will be recapping the 2002 Mike Young Productions
He -Man and the Masters of the Universe. For
now, I am TFU and Mike with... One and only Optimus
Solo. By the power and for the honor of Grayskull,
we have the power. Oh, whatcha doin', He -Man?
Practicing! Why? You're He -Man! You're the best!
And practice helps me stay that way, Orko. You
learn your lessons and you put them into action.
That's the key to success. Gotta go! Where to?
Gotta practice my magic! Until next time!