J. Michael Straczynski

Steven Clark

Fed up with his bony, egomaniacal, idea-stealing boss, Modulok takes his gatemaker invention to Etheria in a bid to change allegiances to the Evil Horde. But ex-boss Skeletor will have something to say about this - as may a certain Eternian princess and her visiting twin brother!

Princess Adora (She-Ra), Kowl, Cringer (Battle Cat), Prince Adam (He-Man), Sorceress

Modulok, Tung Lash (Tung Lashor), Skeletor, Mantenna, Hordak, Shadow Weaver

Horde soldiers, tar swamp lizard, Twiggets (including Sprocker, Spritina), electroid, pink critters

wagon, destructo tanks, Horde space fleet

It's clear right away that today is going to be special, because Prince Adam is coming to visit! Princess Adora and Kowl have ventured out to a clearing a good hike away from the rebel base in the Whispering Woods, to the spot where the portal between Etheria and Eternia always opens. But wait! There are Horde soldiers patroling nearby, tipped off by spies to rebel activity in the area. Our heroes make a quick plan to get rid of these party crashers: Kowl deftly lures the pair to stick their upper bodies into the opposite ends of a hollow log. When they're both good and stuck, Adora changes to She-Ra and gives the log (and its attached men) a good twirl and toss. The way is clear for a family reunion with no problems and distractions! Right?

Well, no; as it happens, today is also a special day for Skeletor, who has browbeat his scientist inventor Modulok into building a gatemaker. In the dungeons of Snake Mountain, as Skeletor and newbie Tung Lash look on, Modulok sets up the device and activates it. The gatemaker can make a portal to anywhere, and it comes in XXXL: whole armies could travel through this thing! Or castles; Skeletor's plan is to push the entire royal palace of Eternia through the portal and into Etheria, thus simultaneously ridding his world of its pesky good guys and passing the problem to his irritating former boss, Hordak. After opening a normal-sized test portal into Etheria, however, Modulok decides he has his own plan: take the gatemaker through the gate, give it to Hordak, and get a new job with the Evil Horde! Our defector makes a classic villain mistake, though, when he narrates his whole plan to Skeletor before leaving. Old Bonehead can't let Hordak have the MacGuffin, so he dashes through the portal after his disloyal minion, just before it closes.

On the other side of the door, in Etheria, She-Ra has been replaced by Adora, and Prince Adam and his pet Cringer have come through their own, Sorceress-sourced portal. The prince is just greeting his sister and preparing for a boring old family visit, when they spot Skeletor off in the distance. Certain from past experience that this purple goon is up to no good, the twins do their transformation and get the jump on the villain. After a brief scuffle leaves him restrained in a giant metal manacle made from She-Ra's sword of protection, Skeletor decides he might as well tell the heroes why he's here. Since nobody there wants Hordak getting his own gatemaker, and Skeletor knows more about the device and its inventor than He-Man and She-Ra, the villain offers a temporary team-up. With perhaps questionable sense, She-Ra agrees, and they all head off to the Whispering Woods to plan their next move.

While the heroic twins are looking at maps in the rebel base, Skeletor makes a throne for himself and tries to get comfortable. But he can't stand the hospitality of the Twiggets, and decides it's already time to betray his confederates. Sneaking off unnoticed, the villain makes his way into the Fright Zone. By this time, Modulok has already had an audience with Hordak and given a very successful pitch for his gatemaker. Freshly hired as a Horde scientist, Modulok warns his new manager that Skeletor is very likely on his tail. So old Bonehead has barely set foot inside the Fright Zone before being confronted by Hordak. A one-on-one battle ensues, which is fun but fairly inconclusive, ending with Skeletor running off and Hordak deciding that it's time to try out his gatemaker by sending the Horde through into Eternia to conquer his ex-lieutenant's claimed territory.

Rounding up Shadow Weaver, some tanks, some soldiers, and his new hire with proprietary invention, Hordak sets up camp in an open glade. He has an entire starfleet orbiting in space above Etheria, poised to make an interdimensional journey and darken the skies of Eternia. Modulok has just opened the gate when He-Man and She-Ra finally make their belated appearance on the scene. (Skeletor, "skull"-king nearby in the bushes, decides his own cause will best be served by sitting this battle out and dealing with the winner.) Our heroes have some fun smashing the Horde destructo tanks into smithereens, and She-Ra ties up the soldiers with her sword lasso; but then Shadow Weaver has the idea to summon a giant electricity beast using the energy powering the gatemaker. As big and nasty as this "electroid" appears, She-Ra realizes that she and her brother can beat it - with science. They allow the beast to grab them in each of its sparky paws, then raise and cross their swords; which apparently causes some kind of short circuit, because positive and negative poles? I don't know. Anyway, zapping the electroid also makes the gatemaker go haywire; according to Modulok, the power surge has interfered with the accuracy of the device, which could now send its users just about anywhere. Hordak desperately radios his ships, attempting to abort the mission, but it's too late: the entire fleet passes into the portal, which promptly vanishes, and the gatemaker explodes.

Hordak is not ready to give up just yet, and tries to reassure his minion that Modulok can just build another gatemaker; but Modulok dejectedly informs his master that the gatemaker was one-of-a-kind, made from rare materials that can't be collected again. A furious Hordak demotes his new minion to "Horde cook," turns into a rocket, and flies off, leaving the rest of his people to flee on their own. He-Man, deciding that he's had about enough for this visit, has his sister call up a Sorceress-portal on her sword-phone - er, gem. Spotting Skeletor lounging unhappily nearby, the beefy hero snidely offers him a way home. The defeated sorcerer is at first too sulky to take up the offer; but when a troop of Horde soldiers begin firing at the villain in an attempt to capture him for Hordak, Skeletor decides to follow his burly nemesis back to Eternia.

The Horde soldiers are left facing an armed and ready She-Ra, and deciding they don't have any specific orders to capture her, they prudently depart. Left to herself, She-Ra wonders just where that Horde fleet ended up. We the audience get to find out: the ending shot shows the entire armada crashed on the surface of a dismal, tar-swampy planet, peopled with two-legged pink critters with orb-shaped bodies, who are hopping on the heads of the hapless survivors. A bemused Horde soldier posits that they might not have made it to Eternia.

• Horde soldier (to Kowl): Don't you call me a swamp slug. / Kowl: You're right; we mustn't insult the swamp slugs.
• Princess Adora: So tell me, Brother; what's the problem? / Prince Adam: Problem? I'm just here to see my sister. You and I don't spend nearly as much time together as we should.
• Spritina: So you're Skeletor. Would you like some spoo? It's very good. / Skeletor: No, I don't want any spoo; I hate spoo! I don't even know what spoo is. Now go away! (to himself) I can't take much more of this.
• Hordak: Give it up, Skeletor; you couldn't find your own face on a sunny day.
• Skeletor (from a hiding place in the bushes, considering how to react to a battle between Hordak and He-Man and She-Ra): I could help them; I could work with them instead of against them; we could defeat Hordak together! Neehhhh; I think I'll wait and see who wins instead.
• Modulok: You know, sometimes it just doesn't pay to be evil.

• He-Man punches the viewer: To smash a robot tank
• She-Ra spin kicks the viewer: To take care of her own tank
• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: In preparation for departing Etheria

Two partial (missing Spirit/Swift Wind sequence)
Variation - the second partial transformation is interwoven with a full transformation from Adam and Cringer, as the twins prepare to deal with an interloping Skeletor. The editing of the double transformation actually omits the sequence where Adora is shown on the Grayskull background, slowly changing from the top down into She-Ra, instead cutting back to her already fully changed with the Crystal Castle behind her.

10:35 - Our elusive friend can be seen in the upper-right quadrant of the screen, looking right out at us from behind a pile of crates and barrels in the rebel camp. (He will use an almost identical hiding place in 67052's "The Wizard.")
Did I spot him? YES!

Loo-Kee (and whichever poor sap at Filmation whose job it was to come up with these PSAs) doesn't seem to have been able to come up with a good lesson to take from today's episode, and in desperation grasps at the story's title, "Gateway to Trouble." He advises us (with unsettling vagueness) that if we ever find ourselves at a similar gateway, to not go in. Um... thanks? I guess?

MOTU crossover
Landmark Episode: I feel like I've already overloaded my quota of landmark episodes, but I just can't resist adding this one: a crossover in which Modulok permanently changes sides, with Skeletor and the Sorceress? Come on!

• As sometimes happens with MOTU, we have a case here of an episode being placed well out of sequence with the surrounding episode codes. According to my source for such things, a Wikipedia article, this story would more logically be positioned as the 35th episode of the first season; but my DVD set has placed it as the 18th. It's an interesting coincidence that this episode puts Modulok in a central role, considering that one of the more blatant MOTU sequencing mix-ups also had to do with that character. On my MOTU DVDs, the natural order of MU123 and MU113 were swapped in order to bring us the origin story of Modulok (MU123) before his already-transformed appearance in MU113. Here, we are given 67035 early so we can watch as Modulok becomes a full-fledged member of the Evil Horde. Yay!
• I'd just about resigned myself to the conclusion that the Horde soldiers are all robots, after several episodes gave me undeniable proof of the fact (see for instance 67012 and 67015). My only evidence to the contrary has been the emotional reactions of the troopers, and some early suggestions that they were capable of eating food (67001, 67006). However today Kowl muddies the waters by taunting a Horde soldier with, "Only a coward hides inside a tin can." Um... I thought he was a tin can!
• Mark this as the day we were given undeniable proof that Kowl does, in fact, know Adora's secret, as she has been consistently claiming at the beginning of each episode. You could argue that Kowl bringing an imprisoned Adora her sword of protection in 67014 implied that he knew what she was going to do with it; but for my money that scene was inconclusive. Here, Adora straight up does her transformation sequence in full view of her flappy friend, leaving no doubt. (We saw Adora transform in front of Madame Razz and Broom in 67013 - another Straczynski-penned story.)
• Add to the list of things that exist on both Eternia and Etheria: the tar swamp. This scenic spot showed up in several episodes of MOTU, notably MU018, and in this episode She-Ra tosses a couple of Horde soldiers into the Etherian version. In fact, it seems as if tar swamps are common throughout the universe, as the unnamed planet on which the Horde fleet crashes at the episode's conclusion also seems to have one!
• Ah, another MOTU crossover episode; and as a special bonus, this one comes with our favorite green tiger, Cringer! We haven't seen him since 67005.
• Oddly, considering that He-Man's mount will be featured in this story, this is now the second episode in a row completely without Adora's horse, Spirit.
• Over in Eternia, we're treated to a visit to Snake Mountain, where in addition to Modulok and Skeletor, a brand-new - and very confusing - minion is moistening up the place. It's Tung Lash, one of the Snake Men from Mattel's 1986 fifth wave of MOTU toys! At least, he's supposed to be; the animated Tung Lash, with his red skin, blue chest armor (sporting an incredibly incongruous and frankly illogical Evil Horde logo), and yellow leggings, looks absolutely nothing like his eventual toy version, which used a purple and orange color scheme. In fact, even his name doesn't match up with the toy's; the action figure was called "Tung Lashor," but Skeletor definitely drops the "or" when he refers to this guy. (We will eventually hear Tung Lashor called by his correct name; see 67043.)
• We'll see Tung Lash again in the very next episode, 67019, where he will continue to confuse us by appearing as a Hordesman in Etheria.
• Swiss army sword: She-Ra commands her sword to change into "handcuffs" - but in a Madame Razz-level mix-up, the weapon actually changes into one gigantic metal clasp, which fits itself around Skeletor's upper torso. Is that what you wanted, She-Ra? Or is the sword of protection going off the reservation with its shape-changing?
• Skeletor's description of the danger Hordak could pose if given the gatemaker - sending an entire army through the gate into Eternia - recalls the bony villain's own plot to use a giant interdimensional gate to invade Eternia with a goblin army, in the famous MU110's "The Problem with Power."
• Spritina makes a failed attempt to get friendly with Skeletor by offering him a bowl of "spoo," a rather Seussian-sounding foodstuff that was probably named from its rhyming with "stew." Perhaps I'm thinking of Dr. Seuss because the whole sequence reminds me of Green Eggs and Ham, with Spritina in the role of Sam-I-am. Would you try spoo on the loo, Skeletor?
• It's trapdoor time again, and again time for poor Mantenna to take the brunt of it! Just to prove a point in his conversation with Modulok, Hordak drops Mantenna down the old hole, with which the minion will by now have become very familiar - since he's been sent down it in 67015 and 67013 (twice in the latter episode).
• Hordak transformations: After threatening Skeletor with his typical arm cannon, Hordak changes his lower body into a giant rocket thruster. This is a different form than other rocket-based ones he's taken in the past (see his jet form in the recent 67017, or his more usual full-body rocket seen first in 67004). He does get around to using his classic rocket form in the closing minutes of the show, to make the typical villain escape. We'll see Hordak using the thruster again late in the second season - see for instance 67082.
• By the way, Hordak and Skeletor's face-off recalls and mirrors their reunion battle in Snake Mountain at the end of 67004. This one doesn't end with them making a truce, though!
• In a rare move, we're shown that Hordak has an entire fleet of spaceships at his command! We saw some similar-looking ships flying behind him in his throne room in the scene that introduced his character in 67001; but there hasn't been any need for Hordak to travel through space until now, since his continued oppression of Etheria makes him a bit of a homebody.
• Swiss army sword, redux: She-Ra again finds it useful to change her sword to a lasso, during a very brief sequence in which she ties up a bunch of troopers. She last used this exact trick in 67014; in 67015 her sword became a length of coiled rope, which wasn't quite the same thing.
• Shadow Weaver uses her magic to create a giant electrical monster to face off against our heroic twins. It looks very similar to electrical monsters we've seen on MOTU before: consider the minuscule Byte of the classic MU068's "Day of the Machines," or the other actual giant made of electricity that the wizard Hexon created for He-Man to fight in MU115's "Time Doesn't Fly." Hordak, however, refers to the creature as an "electroid," a very specific type of entity that He-Man and crew also met in MU048's "Return of Evil." MU048's electroid looked absolutely nothing like this; it was Aremesh, a robot guy with a cape who was probably channeling Darth Vader more than anything else. We'll see electroids come up again in the series - this time with a more direct connection to Aremesh - in 67065's "The Greatest Magic."
• I'm amazed to find that this episode features a segment from our recurring MOTU series, "Science Hunks;" only today's guest lecturer is not Professor He-Man, but Professor She-Ra! She explains to our blonde emeritus that she knows how to defeat the electroid: "electricity has two poles, positive and negative, and if we put our swords together..."
• Our good old bird lady, the Sorceress, puts in a very brief last-minute appearance as a floating head in She-Ra's sword. Hello, bird lady!

• Why did Adora wait until Kowl endangered himself by luring the Horde troopers into the hollow log before changing into She-Ra? She was already hidden from their view in the bushes when they showed up, wasn't she? It's also a bit surprising that the usually retiring Kowl was willing to volunteer for soldier-baiting duty.
• As long-tongued animated characters go, Tung Lash is one of the grossest I can remember seeing. He's constantly flicking out the pink organ, accompanied by a host of slurping sounds and animated sprays of saliva. When the minion uses his tongue to wrap around and pull a lever on the gatemaker, it's easy to sympathize with Modulok's reaction: "Next time, use your hand - that is disgusting!" Apart from all this salivating, the character contributes very little to the story, serving mainly as a fawning counterpoint to Modulok's employee dissatisfaction.
• Skeletor offers a deal to She-Ra and He-Man: he can help them get back the gatemaker and stop Modulok from giving it to Hordak, if they free him. This seems like the kind of thing that the twins would need to discuss privately before deciding on; but She-Ra, without even glancing at her brother, accepts the deal. Yeesh, I guess we know who wears the pants in this team! ... Well, actually, none of them wear any pants. But you know what I mean!
• To release Skeletor, She-Ra apparently uses telepathy to cause the big "handcuff" to vanish off of his body. But that was her sword! Where did it go? She'll be needing that later... One also wonders how she gets her sword back after using it as a lasso to tie up the Horde troopers, during the ending battle. As soon as she retrieves the weapon, they can just run free, right?
• I love the idea that no matter where Skeletor is, he feels the need to create a throne for himself. He uses his havoc staff to carve one out of stone so he can lounge regally in the Whispering Woods.
• He-Man and She-Ra's choice to put their heads together back at the rebel camp makes very little sense, and is clearly only done to provide an opportunity for Skeletor to run off. They all know exactly where Modulok is going, and they should realize the only way to cut off the minion in time is to hurry to the Fright Zone, so why stop to think about it?
• It's wonderfully ironic that Modulok, in search of a boss who will treat him better, opts to try to join Hordak, who - as we were just seeing in 67017 - is possibly an even worse manager than Skeletor. He regularly tortures and threatens his employees for fun, and he has an itchy trapdoor finger. Maybe check the Glassdoor reviews for the Horde before you jump ship, Modulok!
• The question of whether it was a sensible choice or not aside, it's great to see Modulok being sort-of retconned into the administration that matches that of his action figure; up until now it's been hard to reconcile this Snake Mountain minion with his 1985 toy's labeling as a member of the Evil Horde. Now all is right with the worlds!
• It's also interesting to consider Modulok's character arc (his "villain's journey," if you will) over his appearances in both MOTU and POP - particularly since it's so rare for any Filmation characters to have an arc that lasts more than one episode. In MU123's "Mistaken Identity," for instance, fresh off of transforming himself into a red many-legged monster, he desperately wanted to join Skeletor's band. But he had his initial request for employment summarily rejected by the bony villain, with Skeletor dismissing him as a "wimpy scientist." The story of how he was eventually hired we never got to see on-screen, with later MOTU episodes just showing him hanging out with the other minions of Snake Mountain; but clearly by the point of today's story he's had time to become very disillusioned with his choice. His aspirations seem on the rise when Hordak takes him on as a scientist; but he ends this story as the "Horde cook"! His final comment about it sometimes not paying to be evil gives us hope that one day he might be sensible enough to quit this whole gig and maybe become a beekeeper. (However, we'll see Modulok still with the Horde and still referred to as a "cook" in his next appearance, 67042's "Enemy With My Face.")
• Another consideration here is the real value that an invention like Modulok's gatemaker really has. In previous MOTU episodes, we've had it pointed out to us that the Sorceress's ability (granted to her through the powers of Grayskull) to make gateways to other planets and dimensions is almost unique on Eternia, and incredibly special. There are plenty of examples of the Sorceress being depended on to transport people to other places, including He-Man's use of her "space portals" way back in MU005, Adam and Adora's dependence on her for going back and forth between Eternia and Etheria, and Sh'Gora's racing for Grayskull's travel corridors in the fabulous MU075's "To Save Skeletor." (Indeed, though we never learn the real "secret" of Castle Grayskull, its use as a mode of transportation is one of its few clearly stated advantages.) For evidence of interdimensional travel's importance outside of the Sorceress's sphere, see for instance MU069, with Teela wondering over her shady paramour's Stargate device; or consider how popular Orko's (spoiler alert?) dimension-hopping "secret" was in MU048's "Return of Evil."
• Hordak's interest in conquering Eternia, depicted in this episode, is in direct contradiction with his complete indifference to the idea in 67004 and 67005. In the SOTS storyline, Hordak claims that he hates Eternia, and doesn't even want to spend any extended time there. Today's conquering plot is also a weird move, considering that he certainly hasn't secured a steady hold over Etheria, the planet he's currently in the process of conquering. Why this change of heart? Perhaps at the time of SOTS he was too caught up in his obsessive pursuit of Adora to spare a thought for anything else; and too annoyed at having to team up with his hated former colleague, Skeletor. Certainly his feelings for old Bonehead haven't changed! It's actually possible that he wants to invade Eternia now just to piss off Skeletor.
• Continuity error: He-Man punches a destructo tank. In the brief split-second we see it flying through the air, it has clearly been deformed and smashed with the force of his punch; but when She-Ra subsequently catches and throws the tank, it is back to being undamaged. That is, until it lands from her throw, and becomes smashed again.
• It's cool how She-Ra used science to get rid of the electroid and all; but if it was anything like the electricity monster that He-Man faced in MU115, he could have just sucked the whole thing into his power sword like he did that one! Still, that method may not have had the same beneficial side effect of short-circuiting the gatemaker.
• Straczynski does not disappoint with this one! A firecracker of a story, with tons of great lines and great character development and interactions, particularly the evolution of Modulok and the sparring between Hordak and Skeletor. It was great getting to see Snake Mountain again, with the brief debut of Tung Lash(or); and the gimmick of the gatemaker device was well used. The ending situation with the stranded Horde fleet happily recalls the conclusion of Straczynski's first Filmation plot, MU073's awesome "Origin of the Sorceress."