J. Brynne Stephens

Lou Kachivas

Skeletor's new Collector is rampaging around Eternia turning good guys into stone! He-Man goes on a desperate quest to find a way to reverse the condition before sundown, but he doesn't realize there's a much larger problem looming: Colossor!

Orko, Queen Marlena, Man-at-Arms, Teela, Prince Adam (He-Man), Cringer (Battle Cat), Stratos, Ram Man, King Randor, Sorceress (Zoar)

Skeletor, Panthor, Beast Man, Evil-Lyn

Eternian guards, Colossor, bald Eternian farmer, swamp bat

Collector, Wind Raider, sky sled (evil), Attak Trak

Skeletor wakes up a sleeping Beast Man to boast about having finished building his "Collector" vehicle. At the palace, the other heroes spectate while Duncan faces Orko at a fantastical chess game, which Orko ends by dumping a goblet of water over his opponent. Skeletor then swoops in with his new weapon, zapping people and turning them to stone. Adam changes into He-Man just in time to catch a stone Man-at-Arms, who has fallen off a tall tower. He also prevents Teela from being petrified. Skeletor then demonstrates the Collector's other ability: it can make stone things come to life! For instance, a suspiciously undetailed lion statue that we've never seen in the palace gardens before - it makes an appropriate opponent for Battle Cat. Then Stratos and Ram Man show up just in time to face off against some manly statues that have just been brought to life.

While their allies do a creditable job of taking care of the stone men (and lion), He-Man and Teela hop into the Wind Raider to attack the Collector, but get zapped and have to make an emergency landing. The Collector flies off, and Prince Adam has to act real surprised when he walks into the lab to find Duncan turned to stone. Marlena, who apparently has a good grounding in Earth science (from her astronaut training?), tries to help vivify Duncan, to no avail - merely pronouncing that the condition will become permanent at sundown.

Having successfully distracted the good guys with a stone Man-at-Arms, Skeletor gets Beast Man to tote a gigantic energizer to an unnamed location, where it is shot into a gem at the base of a giant statue of the title character, Colossor. He-Man visits Sorceress to ask how to help Man-at-Arms, and she tells him he will need fire jewels. "I will need help... on this quest," says He-Man, dropping unnecessary pauses like William Shatner. Cut back to Skeletor, who apparently is just flying around Eternia turning random bald farmers to stone. Evil-Lyn calls him to let him know that He-Man has visited the Sorceress and so must be after the fire jewels; Skeletor sends his best man, Beast Man, to solve the problem. He then continues his petrifying strafe run, hitting plenty of good guys with the beam. In an aside, Skeletor makes an off-hand comment that clarifies what's been going on: his "Collector" is collecting the energy from the people it strikes, and that energy is then being relayed into the body of Colossor, so the more people he zaps the better.

Meanwhile, Teela, He-Man, and Battle Cat have driven off to the swamp in the Attak Trak to find the jewels. Beast Man tries to sic a swamp bat on them, but He-Man scares it off with a flash ball. Not only has Beast Man failed; he has also revealed Skeletor's part in the evil plot, something of which the heroes have been ignorant until now (the skull-shaped ship was not a big enough clue, I guess). He-Man nabs some fire jewels out of an altar in a cave, but like Indiana Jones he triggers a booby trap that leaves him surrounded by a river of lava. He makes a pole-vault-like escape with a stalactite, but by this time Colossor has awoken! Skeletor commands the huge creature to capture Grayskull.

In an unfamiliar lab in Grayskull, Teela watches as Sorceress and He-Man work with the fire jewels. He-Man crushes them to fine powder and Sorceress works some magic in a bowl. They have created a tiny little white infinity symbol, sort of like two of those joined plastic rings that hold soda cans together, which He-Man identifies as a "ray fuser." He then proceeds to relate a dizzyingly complicated explanation of how the ray fuser works, which the Sorceress must have coached him on beforehand. All unaware that a very large problem is approaching Grayskull, He-Man flies off on a sky sled to put the MacGuffin on Skeletor's controls and free all the stone people; he is two-thirds of the way through beating up everyone in the Collector when the Sorceress contacts him telepathically to tell him to get his butt back there. He takes the few extra seconds necessary to place the ray fuser over the two levers of Skeletor's controls and flies off - not to Grayskull, but to the palace. He is in time to watch a clueless Skeletor accidentally undo his stonework by zapping people with his fused controls.

With all the heroes successfully released from stone, He-Man takes the whole crew to Grayskull to deal with Colossor. They pull an AT-AT tripping move on the creature, which takes all of their combined abilities. Turns out it has an Achilles heel, because when He-Man punches it in the foot, the whole thing crumbles. He-Man emerges from the rubble in time to deflect Skeletor's Collector bolt and send the ship tumbling away.

End with a Joke: Orko is busy telling Adam a story about how he single-handedly defeated Colossor, when he is menaced by Duncan's shadow and freaks out. And they all laughed...

• Cringer (to Prince Adam just before the transformation): Why don't you go ahead without me? I make a lousy statue.
• Beast Man: He-Man's allies are more clever than you thought, Skeletor! Heh-heh...
• Marlena: I don't understand all of Man-at-Arms's inventions, but my Earth science training should help us.
• Skeletor (to Beast Man): You'd better be twice as clever, or I'll make a rug out of you!
• Skeletor: A green ray?! You will pay for this, He-Man!
• Orko (having just been freed from being turned to stone): That's the longest I've ever stayed still!

• Skeletor leans in close to the viewer: Twice
• Skeletor shakes his fists, front on from below
• A look through widespread legs: He-Man landing after his jump over lava; and later, landing inside the Collector
• Sorceress spreads/unspreads her wings: Transforming into Zoar
• He-Man swings sword overhand: To break Beast Man's whip
• He-Man picks up and throws a rock: Just the picking up part, used to show He-Man tipping Colossor over
• He-Man punches the viewer: To smash Colossor's ankle

One full

Brought to you by Teela and He-Man
Teela and He-Man are going for an invigorating run through the woods. They conduct a contrived discussion about the benefits of exercise, and how you should check with a doctor before doing any exercise, which comes off sounding like a pharmaceutical commercial. Teela has to remind He-Man that his performance is reaching many television viewers, so he tells us all: "Be good to your body, and it'll be good to you."

Skeletor summons a monster
Evil-Lyn power punches the glass ceiling: This episode is the first in a category I created for calling out instances of Evil-Lyn striking out on her own, separate of - and often working directly against - her so-called boss. You go, Lyn!

• We are treated to our first view of a sort of hangar bay in Snake Mountain, and the first appearance of Skeletor's Collector, a gray skull-shaped flying ship with little claws which for some reason was never made into a toy.
• He-Man demonstrates his ability to call the Wind Raider and the sky sled with a whistle. Sort of like the Doctor opening the doors of the TARDIS with a snap of his fingers...It's a particularly useful trick when you've just leapt out of another flying vehicle and are plummeting through space.
• When the Wind Raider gets shot, it talks to its occupants, telling them it is "beginning landing procedure." But it doesn't sound nearly as smart as Attak Trak, and is probably not sentient.
• This is the first episode where Evil-Lyn demonstrates what I would have thought of as her main characteristic: her desire to supplant her boss. When she interrupts a joyriding Skeletor with a video call, he naturally asks "What do you want?" To which she replies, "Your power, Skeletor!" She follows it up with a big belly laugh, like she's kidding; but Skeletor doesn't join in for some reason. (See MU017 for more Evil-Lyn shenanigans.)
• Skeletor calls Beast Man "Beasty" a couple of times in this episode, which is just weird.
• Note that Skeletor introduces himself to Colossor as "Master of the Universe."
• This episode has a very high character count! Aside from the pilot, only MU009 has seen this many Heroic Warriors in one story.
• We get a new interior view of Castle Grayskull: a very high-tech looking lab where Teela, He-Man, and the Sorceress gather to process the fire jewels into the ray fuser.
• This episode is one of three that were edited together and screened in movie theaters across the US to kick off the airing of the television series. The other two are the pilot, MU004, and MU006's "Teela's Quest." This premiere occurred on September 24, 1983. The three-episode compilation was titled "The Greatest Adventures of All" and was later released on VHS. The movie included added-in segments of the Sorceress introducing the episodes as pictures on the "living windows" within Castle Grayskull.

• The monster-filled chess-like game Orko and Duncan are playing at the beginning of the episode is very reminiscent of the holo-chess game in Star Wars. This chess game will pop up in a few other episodes, the next one being MU026. It will also play an important role in the beginning of MU069's "The Gamesman."
• As often happens with close-ups of Cringer, in an early scene in this episode he is colored incorrectly with his nose being the same green shade as his fur.
• When Stratos shows up he is holding a sword - which is very out-of-place for him and did not come with his action figure. He appears to be holding it entirely so that he can smash it to bits in his first attack against a stone man.
• The animation of He-Man running to catch stone Duncan is identical to his all-out run to catch the Spellstone in MU007.
• In the panning shot where everyone is looking at stone Duncan lying on a slab in the lab, Teela's hands are incorrectly painted white.
• For those of us who just watched MU013, "Like Father, Like Daughter," where Teela was revealed to be just as handy adjusting gadgets and inventions as Man-at-Arms, it seems particularly odd that Queen Marlena is the one trying to use Duncan's instruments to cure him. It also seems hilarious that she thinks "Earth science" will help her deal with any of the problems that come up in an episode of He-Man.
• During the scene where Beast Man is holding the energizer there are several animation errors. First, when Beast Man gets growled at by Panthor, the blue bags under his eyes are not there and only appear partway through his expression change. Second, though a few seconds earlier Panthor appeared with his green saddle/armor, he is suddenly in the buff while the energizer is firing.
• Sorceress's headdress is the wrong color (orange on top) when she is helping He-Man with the fire jewels.
• A great monster episode: I love a big monster and Colossor is plenty big.
• He-Man gets into Skeletor's Collector by leaping off of a flying sky sled, landing on the Collector by gripping the metal hull with his bare hands, and then ripping it open. Pretty bad ass...
• Interesting that He-Man doesn't instantly react to the Sorceress's summons. He finishes his fight with Skeletor, then flies to the palace instead of to Grayskull, only returning to the castle once he's ensured no one will be stuck as stone statues. It works out for him, but I'm surprised at the delay!
• Continuity error: after heroes at the palace have been freed from stone, we return to Teela and Battle Cat, who at first appear to be standing right in front of Grayskull, where they were when we last left them. But seconds later they are shown in a completely different stretch of terrain.
• Teela bravely (or very foolishly) brandishes a sword at the giant foot of Colossor. After avoiding being squashed, she comments, "And I thought nothing could be worse than the volcano." Seems like a very odd thing to say. There are way nastier things that Teela has faced than a volcano. She wasn't even threatened by the lava in this episode, but simply watched as He-Man jumped away from it.
• I find it amusing that, when all the heroes fly to Grayskull to help fight Colossor, Stratos is obliged to carry Man-at-Arms, since the two seats in the Wind Raider are filled. There wasn't a spare sky sled lying around anywhere? Anyway, unless there are different trims available of the Wind Raider with varying levels of seating, this is an inconsistency, since we have seen and will see a back seat in the vehicle.
• Given that this episode is called "Colossor Awakes," it's odd how little time the heroes spend actually dealing with Colossor - or even being aware that Colossor is a threat! Even the Sorceress, who usually seems to be able to sense these things, seems focused only on helping free the stone people, and doesn't realize Colossor is a problem until it shows up at her front door.
• It's perfectly charming that every time Skeletor has to push a button on the Collector controls, no matter what he's trying to do, he always pushes exactly the same button.
• During the PSA, when we see He-Man running from the side and he turns to look over his shoulder, his head looks far too large for his stubby little arms.