Story - Jeffry O'Hare & Teleplay - Patrick Duncan

Lou Kachivas

Nepthu, a power-mad villain, finds the magical talisman called the Sun Scarab buried in the Temple of the Sun and begins flexing his new-found powers. Unfortunately, one of his first feats involves enslaving the falcon Zoar! Can He-Man stop the evil wizard and save his weakened Sorceress?

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

Nepthu

giant scorpion, sand demons

Attak Trak

A pathetic, skeletal man is crawling through the desert in the Sands of Time. He is dressed in rags, starving, dying of thirst, but still he drags himself on. Finally, he comes in sight of his goal: the Temple of the Sun! Climbing to the flat summit of the pyramidal temple, he presses a button which triggers a sliding panel in the floor, dropping him inside. He frantically searches through the relics piled within, flinging away pots and statues until he comes up with an ankh-shaped device, set with a scarab beetle decoration, which he identifies as the Sun Scarab. The man begins to laugh maniacally, and we start to wonder whether we should have been as concerned for his welfare as we were a few minutes ago. Bringing the Scarab into the sunlight, he requests strength and is immediately restored to muscular good health and given a sweet pharaoh-like get-up to boot. Okay - time to take over Eternia. No! The universe!

At the royal palace, Man-at-Arms and Prince Adam (along with Cringer) are testing Duncan's new communicator device. They have sent Orko off to Castle Grayskull with the twin of their communicator and are trying to call him; but the easily distractable Orko is checking out a floating globe in the castle and seems to have completely forgotten why he's there. Eventually he finds his communicator and confirms it is operational (hopefully he's unable to hear Cringer derisively giggling at him in the background). Adam expresses the desire to speak with the Sorceress, but she hasn't arrived yet; Orko says that about this time she must be in her falcon form, flying over the desert in the Sands of Time. Unless something happened to her; but what could happen? Well...

Our megalomaniac villain, whose name is Nepthu, is busy trying out his new magical powers. First he makes a wind storm to patrol the sands just outside his temple. Then he zaps a nearby scorpion, causing it to grow into a giant monster. Finally, he tests his control over the creatures of the sky, aiming the Scarab's ray at a falcon that happens to be flying overhead. It's Zoar! The falcon plummets to the ground by Nepthu's side, and - all unaware that he has just captured the Sorceress of Grayskull - he decides to make his new pet falcon the symbol of his kingdom.

Duncan, Adam, and Cringer have by this time completely forgotten about communicating with the Sorceress, because when we rejoin them Adam is deep into a gymnastics training session with Captain Teela, who forces him to try a jump for the tenth time before finally giving it up for the day when he takes a bad tumble (more derisive giggling from Cringer). Vowing that they will try it again tomorrow, the disciplinarian Teela departs, just in time for Adam to receive a telepathic SOS from the Sorceress. In a faint, exhausted voice, she just manages to explain that she is trapped in a temple in the Sands of Time before losing contact. Adam informs Duncan of the problem and transforms into He-Man; but a very unenthusiastic Cringer, who hates the idea of having to go into the desert but apparently hates being Battle Cat even more, agrees to come only if he stays himself - in the hopes of bringing some common sense to the mission.

He-Man agreeing to the terms, it's Cringer riding in the back seat of the Attak Trak as He-Man and Duncan drive into the desert. Trak has only a rough idea of where to go, but does find a structure that turns out to be the temple, warning the heroes of a nearby "strange wind condition." The heroes approach on foot to investigate. It turns out to be the dust devil that Nepthu created earlier, and Cringer gets sucked into the middle of it before He-Man can make his own anti-whirlwind to fling the storm away. A gritty Cringer admits this really is a job best left to Battle Cat, and He-Man obligingly completes the transformation sequence. The trio are then attacked by Nepthu's giant scorpion! While Duncan and Battle Cat hold it off, He-Man rubs some sand to heat it up and fabricates a set of glass walls, which he throws in place to imprison the creature. Science! The trio of heroes, having disposed of the outer guardians, finally reach the temple. There is no obvious entrance, so He-Man and his cat decide to look around the sides for doors while Duncan climbs to the roof.

Within, Nepthu has been keeping busy by making an army of sand demons, who apparently are getting stronger and harder with each iteration (though they look no different from each other). An unhappy Zoar finally manages to chew through her leash and makes a break for freedom using the skylight entrance, but Nepthu zaps her with his Scarab before she can escape, changing her to diamond - an event that Duncan, having just reached the roof of the temple, is in time to witness. Now tired from all this magic-using, Nepthu is just about to take a nap, when one of his walls is smashed in. He-Man, tired of looking for a door, has made his own entrance. Nepthu boasts that he is just as powerful as He-Man, if not more so, and sends his army of sand demons at the big lug. With a psychic, motivational assurance from the Sorceress that the demons are not living things, He-Man has a grand time smashing them all to little bits - even the stronger, rockier ones that were supposed to be invulnerable.

Dismayed that his army has been defeated, but still delusionally arrogant, Nepthu prepares to zap He-Man directly with his Scarab; but He-Man dodges the first attempt, and Duncan then nabs the Scarab with a well-aimed throw of his electro-rope. He tosses the magical item to He-Man, who, explaining to Nepthu that this is for his own good, smashes the thing with one hefty swing of his power sword. At once, all of Nepthu's spells are undone: he becomes a tattered, hairy beggar again, and Zoar becomes a flesh-and-blood falcon, free to soar home.

Back at Grayskull, the Sorceress shows Adam, Cringer, and Duncan that she has restored the Scarab and placed it atop a fountain in a pretty garden in the Evergreen Forest, where a seemingly lobotomized Nepthu is busy planting flowers with an empty grin on his face.

End with a Joke: "Now that makes me happy," says Adam. "Yeah," says Cringer goofily, "me, too!" (I know, it's not much of a joke, but it's at least a happy way to end the episode, so I'll take it.)

• Nepthu: A falcon! Surely a good omen. (to Zoar) Come, my pet. You will be the symbol of my kingdom: the kingdom of Nepthu, the mighty wizard! Ha ha ha ha ha ha...
• Adam (talking about the Sorceress): We've got to rescue her. / Cringer: We? Count me out. I hate sand: it gets in my eyes, in my claws, and sometimes you get it in your mouth. Ooh, I hate that. ... I'll make a deal with you. I'll go with you, but as Cringer. Maybe I can bring some common sense to this quest.
• He-Man (to Nepthu): Sorry about the wall, but you seem to be short a few doors. ... I don't know who you are, but don't - / Nepthu: I. Am. Nepthu! The most powerful wizard in the universe!
• He-Man: You had something of unlimited power. It could have been used for good, but you misused it for your own selfish reasons. But no more.

• A look through widespread legs: Teela lands from her gymnastics routine in front of Cringer; and again later, to show Man-at-Arms landing in the temple
• He-Man from above, runs to mid-screen and pauses, battle-ready: Facing the whirlwind
• He-Man swings sword overhand: Breaking the glass he's made, and later when he smashes the scarab
• He-Man picks up and throws a rock: Used to show him throwing the sheets of glass, and again when he throws a balled-up sand demon
• He-Man punches the viewer: A couple of times, while working on a particularly hard sand demon general
• He-Man smiles close-up, looking at the viewer: Imparting the big lesson in the PSA

One full, but divided
Variation - In a unique variation, though Cringer is present during He-Man's transformation, he refuses to change into Battle Cat at that time; when he later agrees to the change, He-Man must again recite "By the power of Grayskull!" to instigate the rest of the sequence.

Brought to you by He-Man
He-Man takes us on a bit of an ethical journey, starting with an explanation of how Nepthu was a bad leader, then saying that you also have to be responsible when following a leader. "Don't do something wrong or dangerous because someone tells you to." Just because you get summoned out of the Sands of Time and declared a general, doesn't mean you should lead the armies of an evil, power-hungry dictator. Think twice, kids.

Skeletor-less episodes in Season 1: I don't think this quite qualifies in the historians, archaeologists, and digging up old cities category, given that there are no historians or archaeologists in this episode, and the titular temple does not need to be dug up. I also don't think it quite qualifies as a "Everybody deserves a second chance" episode, since Nepthu's turnaround at the end of the episode seems enforced rather than consensual. I think we'll just leave this one as a Skeletor-less S1 episode.

• We take another visit to the ever-popular Sands of Time, also seen in MU040, MU041, MU042, and MU047.
• Nepthu is one of those characters who was not released as a toy in the original Mattel line, but was released as part of the MOTU Classics line, in 2013.
• Nepthu is clearly well-informed about what to expect at the temple: he knows what button to push to get inside, and he knows exactly what he's looking for among all the other little statuettes and pots and treasures that he flings about in his search. Although Nepthu's action figure card provides more background on this, we don't get any information from the episode itself as to where his knowledge comes from.
• Among the statues Nepthu throws away is a seductively posing woman on a tiny pedestal. There's a story there!
• Things that come out of Orko: lunch (in the form of some kind of tropical fruit), a book of magic ("I'll have to finish reading that some time"), a crystal ball, a single boot, a spiked pith helmet, a golden goblet, and a communicator. We saw Orko use a book of magic to summon Daimar the Demon in MU017 (though it wasn't his book), and we'll see him carrying one at the beginning of the Christmas Special.
• When Zoar and Adam have their psychic conversation, we get the usual floating Sorceress head on Adam's side. But Adam also appears as a floating head next to Zoar: a very unusual occurrence that I'm not sure we've been shown before.
• Most unusually, Cringer shows himself so unwilling to become Battle Cat that he's able to convince He-Man to hold off on changing him for a while. Being stuck in a whirling sandstorm finally changes his mind. It does make you feel most sympathetic for the cat, who is constantly being forced to do things he doesn't want to do! Shouldn't Adam consider finding a more willing partner for fights and transportation? He can still keep Cringer as a pet...
• The sand demons that Nepthu conjures use a very familiar creature design that we will see again, albeit used for rock monsters (MU056). It has also been used already at least once before, back in MU012, when Evil-Lyn called a stone demon out of a pit of lava.
• He-Man provides us with a couple of very dubious science lessons while he is facing the obstacles Nepthu has left outside the temple. First, he grabs hold of the whirlwind or dust devil by making his own whirlwind, spinning in the opposite direction. We've seen him control weather before, most ridiculously when he stuck an entire storm in a hole in the ground during MU047. He also has done this whirlwind or tornado trick before, in MU025 and MU030.
• "Here's a quick science lesson," He-Man begins, during the fight with the giant scorpion: "What is sand composed of?" That's right, it's time for Science Hunks, with your lecturer Professor He-Man! To shorten the lesson for you: He-Man rubs the sand until it super-heats, melts, and turns into a huge sheet of glass (much larger than the surface he was rubbing). Then, with a single swing of his sword, he somehow divides the glass into perfect quarters. OK, Bill Nye...
• During the battle with the scorpion we also get introduced to Duncan's "electro-rope," which doesn't seem particularly electric, but is certainly a rope. It's really just a lasso that he pulls out from under his chest armor. Even without the electro part, it still proves very useful!
• "He-Man!" yells Nepthu, instantly recognizing the blonde behemoth who has just smashed into his temple. This contrasts his character a bit with other strangers He-Man has met, who aren't always as familiar with Eternia's protector (see for instance the Targans of MU031, or the Ice Lord from MU044).
• Sorceress uses her all-purpose window to show the heroes the fate of Nepthu, tending his tiny garden in the Evergreen Forest.
• Our He-Man writers will reuse this episode's Temple of the Sun location for MU072's "The Great Books Mystery." The site will also feature prominently in the plot of MU093's "Trouble's Middle Name."

• I enjoy the shift in perception we get in this episode, first lured into compassion for the tattered, bony man dragging his way through the desert, parched and starved; then realizing he's a power-hungry madman!
• The Sun Scarab takes a very wide amount of license in granting Nepthu's requests. For instance, when Nepthu commands it to "make me strong," he doesn't say anything about wanting to be dressed in the garb of an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh.
• In MU049, the preceding episode, Duncan claimed to have just invented a freeze ray - a device we'd already seen used in several earlier episodes. In this episode, he's trying out a "communicator" - a device which has been used even more extensively, in various forms, throughout the series. Characters are constantly speaking to each other over long distances through various devices, most similarly through the wrist "comlink" seen last in MU048. What makes Duncan's "communicator" innovative or original? I guess it's like this year's version of the iPhone...?
• There seems to be a very odd continuity error in the beginning of the episode: we are right in the middle of testing Duncan's communicator, and Adam wants to speak with the Sorceress (about what, we never learn), so they are waiting for her to show up at Grayskull. She never does, but the heroes don't seem to mind, because the next time we see them is when Teela is trying to get Adam to do a gymnastics routine. What happened in between?
• Pre-dating the opinions of a certain Anakin Skywalker, Cringer takes some time out to tell us how much he also hates sand.
• Though the Attak Trak has a solid windshield in front and its outer hull is not slid back, as He-Man drives, his blonde locks wave back and forth as though blown by the wind. When the occupants get out of the vehicle, we hear a noise indicating the Trak is opening but see no evidence of its hull sliding back. He-Man, Duncan, and Cringer emerge from the far side of the vehicle, as though having gotten out of a door, but I'm pretty sure there isn't one!
• "Watch out for the tail!" says Duncan when he spots the giant scorpion creature: "It's poisonous!" (Assuming didactic nerd voice): Um, actually, Man-at-Arms, a scorpion's tail is venomous, not poisonous.
• "He'll dig his way out by tonight," He-Man says of the imprisoned scorpion, making it clear to his viewers that he hasn't just cruelly trapped it forever. He-Man believes in peace and love and kindness to animals. Similarly, the Sorceress psychically assures He-Man that the sand demons he later faces "aren't alive; they're just moving sand," making it OK for him to punch their heads and limbs inside of their torsos.
• "I think I need a new, stronger general," says Nepthu. "You will be my general now!" he gestures to another of the three or four completely identical sand demons, some of whom are supposed to be more invulnerable than others. Perhaps he should be developing some kind of interview process to figure out which one of his completely non-verbal monsters would be a wiser, more strategic leader...
• "He seems very happy," says Adam of the gardening Nepthu. The Sorceress explains that any evil he had was destroyed when He-Man smashed the Scarab. "But you said you restored it," Man-at-Arms points out. "And so I did," the Sorceress blithely replies - failing to answer Duncan's very obvious implied follow-up question. If the destruction of the Scarab got rid of Nepthu's evil, wouldn't its restoration... bring it back? At the least, it seems needlessly tantalizing to set Nepthu to work right next to the restored magical artifact that got him into trouble in the first place.