Larry DiTillio

Gwen Wetzler

The appearance of a mysterious sword prompts the Sorceress to send Adam and his kitty through a portal in Castle Grayskull to another world, where the Eternian prince gets entangled in a Great Rebellion against the Evil Horde. Where is the mysterious owner of the magical weapon, whom the Sorceress claims could hold the safety of the entire universe?

Sorceress, Man-at-Arms, Prince Adam (He-Man), Cringer (Battle Cat), Bow, Kowl, Glimmer, Madame Razz, Broom

Hordak, Catra, Leech, Scorpia, Mantenna, Shadow Weaver, Force Captain Adora

slow tow, Etherian citizens (including innkeeper, harpist), Horde soldiers ("Hordesmen," including Marg), Horde informer, Arrow (Bow's horse), Sprag the Twigget, various rebels, other Twiggets

carriage, Horde ships, Horde slave transport

In bed at Castle Grayskull, the Sorceress is awoken from a nightmare memory of an evil-looking fellow kidnapping a baby away from herself and a younger, cleanshaven Man-at-Arms to find a glowing sword hovering over her. The sword, which looks exactly like Adam's power sword except that it has a gem set in the base of the blade, floats off, leading the Sorceress to a spider-topped doorway which opens onto a glowing portal.

Off at the royal palace, Prince Adam is stirring a bowl which contains the dough for his famous spice bread, while a hungry Cringer looks hopefully on. Adam receives a telepathic summons from the Sorceress and drags his cat off to Grayskull to hear what's up. It obtains that his favorite bird lady wants to send him on a mission through the portal, to track down the true owner of the magic sword and hand it over. When Adam attempts some follow-up questions, the Sorceress demurs, assuring him that all will be answered if he just does what she heckin' told him to do. But the stakes are high: the very fate of the universe rests on the success of his task!

With this urgency goading him on, Adam sheathes his bonus sword (I guess his sheath is a double-wide?) and steps through the portal, followed by his more ambivalent pet. They find themselves in a lush landscape just near a small village. Since Cringer is still hungry and the village boasts a cozy tavern (the Laughing Swan Inn), the pair step inside. The strangers cause a bit of a commotion, since it seems green pet tigers who speak English are a rarity in this town. Nevertheless, they are served a lovely meal, and Cringer is fortunately able to consume a whole fish before they're distracted by a trio of armored soldiers, who rudely bust into the joint, steal a table, and smash the harp of a musicmaker. Adam wades in to stop the soldiers (called "Hordesmen") from roughing up the harpist, and an altercation ensues, in which a hooded stranger swipes off his cloak and reveals himself as the prince's ally. The stranger is accompanied by a pink owl creature with giant flappy ears, who is not nearly as helpful since he spends the battle hiding under the same table as Cringer. With the help of the human stranger, who sports a mustache on his lip and a red heart on his midriff-baring chest armor, Adam makes quick work of the three Horde soldiers. Introductions are then traded: like the weapon he carries, Adam's new friend is named Bow, and his animal friend is Kowl. They describe themselves as members of the "Great Rebellion," and offer to lead the prince and his tiger back to their secret base in the Whispering Woods.

Cut to a much darker, nastier location: a pollutant-clouded wasteland, built over with black factory-like structures of spidery steel (which, as we will learn, is called the Fright Zone). Within, a crowd of villains stand at the foot of a raised throne, upon which sits that very guy the Sorceress was dreaming about earlier. He is Hordak, leader of the Evil Horde, holding an audience with minions Catra, Leech, Scorpia, Mantenna, and Shadow Weaver. As they listen, a Horde informer describes the fight at the Laughing Swan, which took place in the village of Thaymor within the kingdom of Bright Moon. Hordak's sorceress, Shadow Weaver, relates to her boss a magical warning of an intruder from another world, who spells trouble for the Horde's dominion over the planet Etheria. Catra suggests the intruder, initially detected in Bright Moon, is likely the troublemaker at Thaymor, and Hordak calls for his favorite, Force Captain Adora, who will help execute a plan of retribution against the rebels and the otherworldly stranger.

Speaking of that stranger: Prince Adam, unaware of the dark forces gathering against him, shares Bow's horse on a ride into the Whispering Woods, home of the Great Rebellion. Arriving at the secret base, the Eternians find the rebellion is not as "great" as they've been led to believe: it's a rag-tag group of humanoids and forest-dwelling Twiggets, living out of a small circle of tents and huts, and equipped with the crudest of weapons. Adam is taken into the main tent to meet the rebellion's leader, one pink-haired female named Glimmer. Glimmer has barely had time to check out the handsome stranger before a messenger - the clumsy, bumbling witch, Madame Razz - arrives with news that the entire town of Thaymor has been arrested by the Horde. Sheepishly realizing what the fun battle at the inn has wrought, Bow offers to give himself up to free the hostages; but the prince suggests they find another way to foil the Horde, and speaks of a "friend" he knows who could assist in the effort. The heartened rebels decide it might finally be time to fight back against their oppressors.

The soldiers of the rebellion (possibly all of them) venture out to Thaymor, where they witness the villagers being lined up and teleported inside a Horde slave transport. Time to do some good! The attack begins, but the rebels are quickly hindered by the combined counterattack of Mantenna, Catra, Scorpia, and Leech. The fight on the Horde side is coordinated by Force Captain Adora, a blonde human woman who, unlike her inferiors, is strangely lacking in physical deformities or animalistic characteristics. With his friends engrossed in the battle, Adam finds a private moment to change himself and his tiger into He-Man and Battle Cat, and the pair join the fray. They make some fine headway towards wiping the floor with the Horde minions, until Mantenna's eye rays take away He-Man's sense of balance. It takes some assistance from the Twigget Sprag to put him back in the fight, after which he disarms Adora of her shocker rifle by flinging his power sword at her (Battle Cat helpfully catches the weapon in his mouth). He-Man chases the force captain into a building, where she swipes a sword off a weapons rack. In need of a defensive weapon, our hero draws the other power sword from the sheath on his back. He shatters Adora's sword with it, but is then distracted when the magical blade begins to glow, showing him an image of Adora's face in the depths of its gem. As he is amazedly concluding that the Horde force captain is the person the Sorceress has sent him to find, a Horde soldier sneaks up behind him and knocks him out with a zap from his stun weapon. He-Man - and his fateful sword - have been captured!

• Narrator: Where darkness rules, fights the champion of light. Where hope seems lost, there rides the Rebellion. Together they stand ready against the dark evil warriors of the Horde, and their leader - the terrible Hordak! The Rebellion: armed with hope and ancient powers against the force of an intergalactic army. This is the story of one who will become leader of the Great Rebellion: She-Ra, Princess of Power!
• Prince Adam: Why, except for this jewel, this sword looks exactly like mine! / Sorceress: And like yours, it is meant for someone with a very special destiny. / Adam: But, how - / Sorceress (getting emotional): Adam, please! Ask no questions. Until you find this one, I can say nothing. The very fate of the universe may depend on your success. / Adam: Well, ready for an adventure, Cringe? / Cringer: An adventure?! I haven't even had lunch yet!
• Bow (to Adam): From now on, my friend, you are part of the Great Rebellion!
• Shadow Weaver: My dark magics tell me that a stranger from another world has come to Etheria, and he brings with him the seed of great trouble for the Horde.
• Adora (to an unconscious He-Man): You are mine now, stranger. You and this curious sword.

• He-Man in battle stance on Battle Cat: Wielding his sword, in his impressive introduction to the Evil Horde
• He-Man spins Scorpia in a circle: To get rid of her, in his opening battle
• He-Man juggles his sword: Actually Adora's sword, which he unsheathes as he prepares to duel against Adora

Zero
She-Ra does not appear in this episode because she has not yet been discovered. He-Man, however, does get his typical, full transformation, when Adam makes the change to assist the rebels during the battle of Thaymor.

N/A
In the first five episodes comprising the Secret of the Sword movie, Loo-Kee does not appear.

N/A
There are no PSA segments for the first five episodes.

Landmark Episode: Naturally the first episode ever of the series has to be a landmark; and because the first five episodes tell one larger and very important origin story, you'll see many of them being tagged similarly.
MOTU crossover

• This is an abbreviated entry since the beginning of the series was already featured as part of the movie, Secret of the Sword. For a full analysis of the first five episodes of She-Ra, see my entry for the movie. What I will mainly be focusing on here will be the differences between this episode and the corresponding section of the movie ("Act I"), and connections to later episodes of the series.
• The opening of the first episode is nearly unique since it does not follow the eventual established MOTU-mimicking format. Here, a narrator sets up the battle of Rebellion against Horde, and the "one who will become leader" of the rebellion: She-Ra. As the narrator speaks, various shots of the Rebellion and Horde are shown. The ensemble shot of the Rebellion, which will also be used in the standard opener, shows a couple of female characters (Castaspella, Frosta) who won't be introduced until after the first five episodes, and also shows Angella, who isn't in the first three.
• As already noted, the opening sequence varies from the movie version, the movie having had its own theme song and credits. This one has the narrated sequence I described above, followed by a standard MOTU-style title screen with writer and director credit.
• The next difference comes almost immediately, with the Sorceress's dream. There is an added shot near the end of the dream with Duncan and the Sorceress, where she cries "No!" Then we see the giant ghostly head of an evil, laughing Hordak, also missing from the film version.
• In the subsequent scene where the Sorceress follows the floating sword to the doorway in Grayskull, the backing music has changed. This is true of many later scenes as well.
• The spider-topped portal that leads to Etheria will be reused for Adam's interplanetary journey in the important "The Price of Freedom" (67029).
• In the inn scene, there are some added shots and lines. After saying "I think I'm gonna like it here," Cringer comes back to say "On the other hand: I wanna go home!" and Adam also reacts to the appearance of the Horde soldiers. The soldiers instruct the bard to keep playing, then shove their way through the crowd before reaching the table of patrons they choose to eject.
• The Laughing Swan Inn will prove a recurring setting in the series, with its exterior swan logo and/or cozy interiors showing up in 67006's "Duel at Devlan," 67017's "A Loss for Words," and 67030's "Play It Again, Bow." Also see the later 67038.
• The introduction of Madame Razz is somewhat extended, with Sprag and Bow making a sort of bet with each other over how many trees Madame will be able to avoid before she crashes.
• Hordak transformations: The very first episode of the series is a good time to begin tracking this sub-category, showing all the different ways Hordak can change his body. We start relatively small in this episode, when the villain changes one arm into a laser cannon to blast a sculpture in his throne room (an act which will be repeated in 67015; and we'll see the restored sculpture once again in 67032).
• Before the battle of Thaymor there is a considerable chunk of added dialogue which shows the rebels plotting their attack under the direction of Glimmer, and Adam establishing that his "friend" will show up when he's needed.
• Some dialogue between Mantenna and Adora is added to the battle, with the force captain instructing Mantenna to ignore the plight of Catra and focus his attack on He-Man.
• Once Adora speaks her final line in the story, about having captured He-Man and his "curious sword," a "to be continued" message is super-imposed on the screen.
• We are then treated to some preview shots from what the narrator calls "chapter two of 'The Sword of She-Ra,'" an odd name to use considering that it doesn't match the name of the movie or the show.
• The ending credits show the Crystal Castle as a background and play over a short excerpt from the opening theme song of the Secret of the Sword movie, even though the song wasn't used in the beginning of this episode. This will prove the standard ending credits for the series.

• Again, given that I already provided commentary for this story in the entry for the movie, I will limit my commentary here to just the additions and changes that have been made.
• I wonder at the choice to replace the incidental music. I can understand it if the aim was to swap out some of the more "He-Man" type music with something personalized for the new series, and maybe that was the point; but if it was, there are still plenty of portions of the soundtrack that use typical MOTU music, so it was not a complete overhaul. It's interesting how the different backing track provides a different tone to certain scenes, adding whimsy or tension depending on what was chosen.
• The added lines of dialogue and sequences are all nice to have and add little details to the story. Sorceress's dream becomes more tragic and frightening, and the general menace of the Horde soldiers gets amped up a tad. I like the added bit about Madame Razz, as it emphasizes the familiarity the other rebels have for her clumsiness, and puts Bow on a more chummy basis with the Twiggets.
• The most important addition is the one before the ending battle, because it solidifies the rebels' battle plan, and adds a bit more explanation to Adam's claims of having a "friend," which naturally the rebels would want to know more about. Crucially, it shows Glimmer actually being a leader, taking charge and giving orders (a position and status which will entirely disappear as the series progresses). Similarly, Adora's extra scene shows her controlling the attack on the Horde side, at least to the extent that she orders Mantenna around. Both of these additions give more leading roles to our female opposite numbers on the warring sides, a critical factor for this female-led series.