Story - Janis Diamond, Teleplay - Janis Diamond, Paul Dini

Lou Kachivas

A lonely wizard makes a Faustian bargain to win the object of his unrequited love - Captain Teela! But his deal will spell disaster for our heroine and bring He-Man face to face with an enemy too powerful for even him to overcome! Is there some abstract positive concept, even more powerful than He-Man (I'm thinking of a word that begins with "L"), which can rescue our heroes and win the day?

Man-at-Arms, Orko, Prince Adam (He-Man), Teela, Ram Man, Cringer (Battle Cat)

N/A

Mallek, Karyn, Lokus, winged ancient tar swamp beast, Evil (itself!)

Battle Ram, sky sled

Alone in a magical lab inside a tower, the young wizard Mallek rages and moans that he never won the heart of the woman he loves: Teela. His young, pretty assistant, Karyn, shows up to see if she can help, but he rudely brushes her off. Just as he tells himself that he would pay any price to get Teela, a very demonic looking winged imp named Lokus materializes and offers to get Mallek what he wants, in the name of his mysterious master. Without checking on what the cost of the deal might be, Mallek shakes on it, thus sealing his doom. Immediately the imp flies outside and breaks a dam, flooding the crops in the field below. When Mallek tries to magically stop the disaster, Lokus zaps him down.

Off in Eternia, we join Orko and Duncan, already in progress: Duncan is being drenched by a personal rain cloud that Orko accidentally summoned in the lab. Orko switches it to snow before remembering how to banish it entirely. Adam drops by to enjoy the spectacle, then leaves for a combat lesson with Teela. The prince very half-heartedly manages a few swings against a very aggressive captain of the guard, before he is successfully drawn off by Ram Man for some lunch.

Lokus, enacting his half of the bargain, disguises himself as a farmer from Artana and approaches Teela, telling her that his crops were ruined by Mallek, who smashed the dam out of loneliness for a certain captain of the guard. Disturbed by this news, Teela interrupts Adam and Ram Man's lunch to ask them to help, and fetch He-Man (she makes it very clear that Adam's only use is in getting a hold of He-Man). Ram Man and Teela, on the Battle Ram, are met by He-Man and Battle Cat on the road, and they all head for Artana.

Meanwhile, though it should have been blindingly obvious to anyone that Mallek has made a poor bargain, Lokus decides that he can't have Karyn being a Karen and warning the magician about his new imp friend. To solve the problem, Lokus puts Karyn in a jar and brings a winged skeleton back to life. The creature (which we He-Man scholars will recognize from "Creatures from the Tar Swamp") flies off with the poor woman; but luckily just when He-Man and his crew have shown up on the scene. He-Man hops onto his sky sled and, at Karyn's insistence, forces the critter to drop her out of the sky. Karyn is then able to use her own magic to save herself - and He-Man, after the beast knocks out his sky sled. She then returns the creature to its skeletal form, leading us all to wonder why she needed anyone's help in the first place.

Karyn fills in the heroes on the details of Mallek and his bargain. All this time, everyone has been thoroughly irritating Teela by referring to Mallek as her "old boyfriend," so she finally breaks down and provides some back story: when she was training to be a soldier at the City of Wisdom, Mallek was there learning magic, and kept hitting on her. She never returned his affections, but she'd thought he'd gotten over it. Mallek demonstrably proves the reverse by showing up on a magic flying carpet to kidnap her.

Back at his home, Mallek has about two minutes to try to woo Teela in a sickly-sweet little love den he's made up before Lokus appears to collect his due: Mallek's soul! (To add an extra level of creepiness to the scene, it turns out Lokus was spying on the couple in the form of a very unsettling cupid statue.) Lokus's master, we discover, is a villainous creature made out of flame. When He-Man and crew smash through the wall and introductions are made, we learn the fiery monster is Evil Itself! Evil has heard of He-Man and is anxious to defeat him, but quickly discovers that the pair are evenly matched. Having decided that there is no point in further battle, Evil instead decides to grab the soul he's owed and go. Karyn, who really ought to have better taste, decides out of her own love for Mallek to sacrifice her soul in place of his. This turns out to make her untouchable to Evil, as the one power capable of destroying him is the power of love. After zapping Lokus away, Evil angrily departs, promising that his battle with He-Man will be rejoined some day.

Mallek finally having seen the evil of his ways (no pun intended), he helps He-Man repair the dam and offers apologies to Teela, who requests that he please stop calling her and transfer his affections to Karyn, who for some reason seems to like him. And they all lived happily ever after...

End with a Joke: Teela cruelly plays with Ram Man's affections by suggesting that she in fact has a crush on him. Ram Man struts his stuff, hopefully realizing this is all a joke, while He-Man slips us a wink.

• Ram Man: Well, I always try to make a good impression. Ha ha, ha ha - get it?
• Cringer (when asked by Ram Man to sit up and beg for table scraps): The only thing I'd beg is that lout's pardon. Sit up and beg indeed!
• Adam: Won't I do just as well (as He-Man)? / Teela: Oh please, this is no time for jokes!
• He-Man: Mallek? Uh, your old boyfriend? / Teela: Don't you start in on it, too!
• Evil (about He-Man): No! It cannot be! He is as powerful as I . . . I could fight you for years and never win.
• Teela: Actually, there's someone I've been working with that I've grown rather fond of. / He-Man (staring at his fingers knowingly): Really? Anyone I know? / Teela: Mm-hmm. Coming, Ram Man? (giggles)
• Ram Man: Heeeyyy guys, when you got it (heh-heh), you got it!

• Adam laughs, head back: At Cringer's taking offense (though Adam doesn't lean his head back as much as the animation usually has)
• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: Directly after his transformation
• He-Man juggles his sword: Preparing to face off against Evil
• He-Man punches the viewer: Just the windup, as he tries to fight Evil
• He-Man picks up and throws a rock: To help seal the dam
• He-Man smiles close-up, looking at the viewer: For the episode-closing wink

One full

Brought to you by Teela
Teela warns us that when you do something wrong, even though it might seem like you got away with it - in the words of the MCU's Baron Mordo - "The bill always comes due." She might also concur with Mordo's opinion that, on Eternia as on Earth, there are "too many sorcerers."

Main character flashbacks
Skeletor-less episodes in Season 1
Mallek episodes: Yes that's right, Mallek will return! And he'll be much less unlikable. See MU059.
Landmark Episode: Because this episode gives us some insight into Teela's love life.

• Karyn is dressed and looks almost exactly like Oona from MU011; her outfit is just a little differently colored.
• The table at which Ram Man and Adam eat their lunch looks identical to the one at which Duncan and Orko were playing their crazy chess game at the beginning of MU014. It has popped up in other episodes as well; it looks like the same one where poor Ileena was weeping when a disguised Jarvan the Sorcerer offered her drugs in MU010.
• We see that the much preferred use of the Battle Ram is as a one-person vehicle; in order to ride as a passenger while Ram Man drives, Teela has to cling onto the side, which looks incredibly unsafe. (The only other alternative, seen in MU021, would have made for some upsetting closeness between passenger and driver.)
• The skeleton in Mallek's lab that Lokus re-vivifies is one of the winged creatures from the tar swamp, and MU018! Nice to see a monster appearing again. This one proves a fairly popular creature design, as we'll see it recycled in MU032's "Search for the VHO," MU088's "Three on a Dare," and MU123's "Mistaken Identity" - though in all those cases it will represent a different, non-prehistoric beast.
• Another Paul Dini episode, another character flashback: this time we get to see a college-age Teela being annoyed by a clumsy suitor. As we learn from the flashback, apparently there's a university on Eternia where guards and wizards-in-training can go to study, in "the City of Wisdom."
• It's pretty unusual to have a He-Man story with a romantic plot. The show usually seems to deliberately stay away from the topic of love and boyfriends, possibly feeling that its viewing audience was more likely to be concerned about "cooties" than kissing.
• Nice to know that "Evil" has already heard of He-Man, as he reveals when he is introduced to the fellow and comments, "So we face each other at last." This will be their first and last meeting, since sadly He-Man gets no return engagement with this embodiment of villainy.
• It should be obvious if you've read the "Evil Warriors" section, but just to be clear: this episode is one of those rarities that does not include Skeletor or any of his henchmen. Also not appearing are the king and queen.

• In the opening scene, Mallek's animated character rages to the extreme, smashing globes and turning over tables. His voice actor, however, doesn't quite match that level of ire!
• It's very hard to understand how Karyn could have fallen in love with Mallek. He's a whiner, a loser, he treats her like dirt, and - if his decision to bargain with Lokus is any indication - he's also a moron (though who hasn't acted like a moron in the name of love?). However, ladies falling for less-than-ideal men is a theme of romances throughout time, so it's not a problem specific to this episode!
• Teela thinks that insulting and threatening Adam, then coming at him hard with a sword, will make his combat lesson "fun." She also later completely crushes him when he suggests that he might do just as well as He-Man at helping her.
• Lokus, in his disguise as... Lokus, the farmer, has exactly the same high screechy voice as when he's an imp. He says he is from "Artana" according to the captioning on my DVD, but it sounds like he's from Montana. Heh.
• Continuity error: The form of Ram Man's lunch changes from shot to shot. In the first scene, it appears Ram Man is sipping soup from a bowl. Then it appears he has fragments of meat on a plate. After he leaves, Cringer is shown lapping Ram Man's soup from a dish.
• Continuity error: When the heroes arrive at Mallek's fortress, the Battle Ram is unseparated. Seconds later, He-Man leaps onto an already detached sky sled.
• I was strongly reminded of Vader trying to shoot Skywalker's X-wing in the trench battle at the end of Star Wars while watching He-Man trying to shoot the swinging winged beast holding Karyn in a jar.
• Based on He-Man's performance falling from great heights in other episodes (I'm thinking particularly of MU016, where he crashed his sky sled and walked away with only mussed hair), there was little call for Karyn to save him by creating a river for him to dive into. But it's nice to see his perfect form when he dives into it!
• Karyn really does have some very impressive magic powers; it's hard to see why she needs any lessons from Mallek. She should be teaching him! Perhaps another measure of her adoration, that she pretends to be his student...
• You'd think that after fully realizing what a crappy deal he'd made with Lokus, Mallek wouldn't have the gall to come along and kidnap Teela on his flying carpet. But he does. What a dick!
• Given that a guy shakes hands with a little winged imp, and said imp says that that guy then owes his soul to a "master," there are certain assumptions one can make about the identity of said "master." I mean, most people would expect Satan to show up, right? That's what we were all thinking, yeah? Still, I can see why Filmation would choose, in their kids' show, to go a different route. There seems to have been a lot of concern over what content was being served up to the children of the 80s, so I suppose Satan was off the table. I wonder, beyond the whole demonic thing, whether there was an intentional avoidance of any religious matter as well. (If you're talking about Satan, that implies a deity exists on the opposite end of the spectrum, and we want to separate the church from our Eternian state.)
• Sometimes He-Man shows himself to be pretty smart; but throwing his power sword at the avatar of pure Evil isn't one of his biggest-brain moves.
• I love how it becomes incredibly obvious to everyone what the one power is that could destroy Evil; but then He-Man has to verbally blunder in and spell it out for us: "The power of love!"