Rowby Goren

Steve Clark

A stubborn argument between Ram Man and Man-E-Faces provides the perfect Plot B to accompany the tale of a shattered alliance between the people of Eternia's Bright and Dark Moons. Can Prince Adam (and/or He-Man) broker peace between the divided peoples - and convince Ram Man and Man-E to resume their friendship? And do we detect the shadow of some sinister, skeletal force behind the mysterious disasters on the Dark Moon? Hmmm....

Teela, Man-E-Faces, Prince Adam (He-Man), Ram Man, Orko, Cringer, Man-at-Arms, King Randor

Beast Man, Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Trap Jaw, Mer-Man, Whiplash

Eternian guards, Professor Orion, King Barbo, pterodactyl-thing

Doom Buster, Attak Trak, Doom Buster shuttle

What's this? Teela is making love to Man-E-Faces?! No, dummy, they're just rehearsing a play on the full-size dramatic stage that apparently exists inside the palace. A watching Prince Adam thinks the acting is great, but then Ram Man wanders in looking for Orko and somehow manages to mistake his friend's monster face for that of a real monster. Ram Man tries to protect Teela from the supposed monster by doing what he does best: ramming. Man-E-Faces dodges Rammy's metal-capped head, which instead plows through the stage scenery. The misunderstanding escalates into an argument and suddenly Man-E and Ram Man are no longer speaking to one another.

Later, Adam, Cringer, and Orko are walking on the palace grounds, trying to figure out how to get their friends to make up, when they are distracted by a crashing ship! We know that Beast Man is inside all by himself, and even though Skeletor specifically told him not to touch the Doom Buster's controls, he did it anyway, and the predictable result is in progress. Adam transforms into He-Man and forestalls disaster, safely landing the ship by making himself a human whirlwind; then turns back into Adam and fetches Man-at-Arms and Teela to explore the interior of the mysterious vessel. Teela runs into the only occupant - Beast Man - and fortunately reacts quickly, trapping the luckless villain in a force field. While the heroes are still inside the ship, wondering what the heck it's doing there, Skeletor's voice comes over the radio. At Adam's suggestion, Man-E-Faces imitates Beast Man's voice and talks to the bony villain, who is expecting his lackey at some location as quickly as possible. The call ended with no villainous suspicions raised, Man-at-Arms decides to repair the craft's auto-pilot so they can ride along and see where the vehicle ends up. Beast Man is secured in an electrically controlled tower cell in Eternos, and Adam, Teela, Ram Man, Man-E, Duncan, and Cringer ride in the Doom Buster.

To do their best job of determining Skeletor's scheme, the heroes decide that Man-E's acting skills will be employed again, so that he can go undercover as Beast Man when the ship lands...wherever it's landing. His disguise is so convincing that an unsuspecting Cringer is scared out of appearing in the rest of the episode. Man-E and Rammy are still not getting along, but they're distracted from bickering by Duncan's discovery that the ship has headed out of Eternia's atmosphere, and seems to be landing on the Moon of Darkness. On their view screen, the heroes see that the moon's giant photon cannon is aiming at them. It's going to fire! Adam believes their only hope is for him to transform into He-Man, but he has nowhere to hide while saying the magic words - he'll be forced to reveal his secret identity to Teela! It seems there's nothing for it, and a resigned Adam gets as far as saying "By the" before Ram Man notices that the cannon is turning away, and the need for He-Man has thankfully passed. Instead of shooting them, the cannon fires at Eternia's other satellite, the Bright Moon.

The heroes decide to divide their forces: Man-E will stay in the Doom Buster and emerge in his beastly disguise. Everyone else (Teela, Adam, Duncan, Ram Man) will get into the Buster's shuttle and fly over to the Bright Moon to see how things are. The Bright Moon is a terraformed colony, successful and technologically advanced - unlike the Dark Moon, which hangs around near Skeletor's part of Eternia and is apparently populated by a less advanced and miserable race of people. When they land, the heroes meet with Professor Orion, who explains that a treaty of friendship between the two moons has been put into jeopardy by a series of disasters on the Dark Moon, which the people there have inexplicably blamed on the Bright Moonites. Orion professes complete ignorance and innocence: his people want only to help the Dark Moonites, by using a high-tech solar mirror to reflect life-giving sunlight onto the Dark Moon and help cultivate crops. The discussion is interrupted by a call from King Barbo, the leader of the Dark Moon, who accuses Orion and the Bright Moonites of betrayal and sabotage, and tears up the treaty of peace.

Our heroes are sure that somehow or other Skeletor is behind this unhappiness, so Duncan urges Adam to return to the Dark Moon and assist their spy, Man-E. Adam gets back into the shuttle, taking Ram Man with him and radioing a desperate plea to King Barbo, who (out of respect for the Eternian royal family) gives the prince a day's grace to investigate.

On the Dark Moon, Beast Man-E lands and opens the door of the Doom Buster to find Evil-Lyn there to greet him. Not only Evil-Lyn; there is a whole gang of Skeletor minions, including Trap Jaw, Mer-Man, and Whiplash. Skeletor's floating head appears to inform his minions that Adam is arriving to broker peace, so they must accelerate their evil deeds: Skeletor wants war! Pumping the villains for information, our spy learns that they have all been busy causing various disasters on the Dark Moon, while a disguised Evil-Lyn has been acting as an innocent witness to claim that the Bright Moon is responsible for the crimes.

Having learned all this, Man-E is anxious to send word to his friends; but before he can find a quiet spot to use his communicator, his cover is blown! It turns out the real Beast Man was feeling remarkably resourceful today, and managed to use his beast-calling powers to break himself out of the Eternian jail and get back to Skeletor. Old Bonehead has arrived in person with his beastly lackey to unmask the spy. Luckily, it's at this moment that Adam and Ram Man show up and see their friend endangered. Having taken to heart the lesson of Plot A, Ram Man has realized it's wrong to hold a grudge and is thoroughly motivated to rescue his friend. In his usual heedless fashion, he leaps into the fray. This gives Adam the perfect private moment to transform again into He-Man and add his own muscles to the battle.

Seeing the heroes intervene, Skeletor decides it's time to head to that photon cannon with Trap Jaw (we're not sure what he needs Trap Jaw for - to watch him push the button?). His plan is to fire it at the space mirror on the Bright Moon, the symbol of cooperation between the two planets, and hopefully set off a full-blown war. He-Man, Ram Man, and Man-E-Faces manage to take care of the other villains quickly enough that they have no trouble getting to Skeletor before he shoots off the cannon. He-Man flings the evil pair into a nearby pond, curves the cannon's barrel all the way around so it's pointing back at the controls, then sets it off - somehow avoiding being caught in the resulting explosion. No more cannon, and no more threat to peace! The heroes can now all gather with King Randor at an important-looking room on the Bright Moon to watch King Barbo and Professor Orion sign the treaty - which I guess got taped back together.

End with a Joke: Peace having been achieved, Ram Man and Man-E-Faces declare that they have also made up and will never argue again - then immediately fall to arguing over who is the better person of the two. The assembled heroes laugh at them.

• Ram Man: Duhhh, wood? I had my head set for stone!
• Teela: Adam, you were saying what? "By the?" / Adam: Yes! Uh, by the way, Teela, remind me to show you my great new jacket when we get back home.
• Skeletor: You must use all your powers to bring misery and despair to the people of the Dark Moon. I - want - WAR!

• Teela, hands on hips, laughs with her head thrown back: Just the hands on hips pose is used, for some close-up dialogue
• Evil-Lyn, hands on hips, laughs with her head thrown back: A couple of times, enjoying the evil the villains have done

Two partial (missing Cringer/Battle Cat sequence, even though in the first instance Cringer is right there)
One aborted (Adam says "By the-" and then stops)

Brought to you by Ram Man and Man-E-Faces
The pair of newly made-up friends advise us to be careful we don't say something hurtful when we get angry, and mess up a friendship the way they did in this episode.

N/A: There are a couple of categories that could, at a stretch, be applied to this episode. For instance, you could consider this in the vein of the "Beast Man in disguise" trope, even though it's someone else disguising themselves AS Beast Man. You might say this is a very brief contender for "Dealing with Adam's secret," since he almost has to reveal himself to Teela on the ship. You could, perhaps most convincingly of all, make an argument for "Everybody deserves a second chance," since King Barbo seems like an enemy but the heroes are able to convince him that his aggression is misplaced. But my original intention for that category was to only apply it to "bad guys" who become "good guys," and I don't think that applies in this case. In the end I don't think any of my categories quite fit.

• Man-E-Faces makes only his second (and last!) appearance in the series since his origin story in MU043 - though this time his voice is different! It seems much deeper.
• Teela is helping Man-E go over his lines for the play, which seems to indicate that she won't be the person that kisses him in the actual show.
• Though we saw Man-E's monster face plenty in MU043, it seems Ram Man did not, as he is entirely fooled when happening upon the actor using that face. Ram Man did appear in Man-E's introductory episode, but only in the ending crowd scene, so we'll have to assume that Man-E didn't use the monster face during his performance that night. (Of course, it's also possible that Ram Man is just forgetful - and dumb.)
• Ram Man's comment after crashing through the stage scenery, that he had his "head set for stone," suggests that he can adjust his ramming abilities for different materials. Though... it may also just be a joke (IMO, it's one of the funniest things Ram Man has ever said).
• At long last, we finally get to see the "Doom Buster," a villainous vehicle that was mentioned back in MU003 but hasn't been seen on screen until now. I suspect that its first reference in the show was just an incorrect name for the Basher, the much more commonly used evil ship which we've seen in many episodes. It's a little unclear that what we're looking at is really the Doom Buster, since its name is never used in this episode - but it definitely is the Doom Buster, which we can absolutely confirm after watching MU085. Given that kids by now had the Wind Raider and Talon Fighter flying toys to put Heroic Warriors into, it's odd that Mattel didn't bother to provide a corresponding ship like the Basher or Buster for their Evil Warrior figures, even with Filmation showing the way.
• Seeing the crashing Doom Buster, He-Man declares, "There's only one way to stop it: I'll turn myself into a human whirlwind!" He then spins around in place so fast that he becomes the center of a full-blown tornado. We've seen He-Man make whirlwinds with his sword before, but we've never seen him be one!
• Teela uses her wrist blaster in this episode; it is showing itself to have a variety of flavors. Usually it's a freeze ray, but it is sometimes used for more destructive purposes (see MU075), and this time it just puts a force field around Beast Man.
• In previous episodes we've seen Skeletor's goons locked up in underground dungeon cells in the palace (see for instance MU019), but in this episode Beast Man gets a cushy tower cell, with a lovely view of the city.
• Though we don't see much of the journey, this episode features what I believe is our characters' first on-screen flight through space, as the automatic pilot of the Doom Buster takes them to the "Moon of Darkness." The heroes also have call to fly the Buster's shuttles through space.
• Some fun with the old secret identity: In an exciting scene, when the photon blaster is locked onto the Doom Buster, it seems that Adam has no choice but to transform into He-Man right in front of Teela, revealing his secret. He even gets so far as to say "By the-" before he's saved by Ram Man, who notices the cannon swinging away. He then does an amazingly awful job of covering up his magic words, by telling Teela he was about to say, "By the way, Teela, remind me to show you my great new jacket when we get back home." You can't fool us, Adam: since when has anyone in the show worn anything new?
• It seems Eternia has two moons... one that's just called "Eternia's moon," or "the Bright Moon," the other called "the Moon of Darkness" or "the Dark Moon." We also learn that there is a terraformed colony on the "good" moon (which has been there for about 20 years), but that there are people living on the Dark Moon as well - possibly indigenous inhabitants. The Dark Moon orbits Eternia in such a way that it's always positioned above Skeletor's domain.
• Not only does this episode have a surprisingly high character count, there is also a very surprising amount of dialogue for all the characters. Usually when you get a big ensemble of villains, a lot of them just stand there and get beat up by He-Man; but in this episode the minions are very deliberately given several lines each. I've read previously that voice actors had a limit to how many different characters they were allowed to voice in each episode, but that seems to have been thrown out the window here! (One of the consequences of juggling so many characters, however, is that several seem to disappear or get forgotten in the crush; see my Commentary, particularly the last few points.)
• The pterodactyl-thing that Beast Man calls with his animal-controlling telepathy is identical to one he used in MU013's "Like Father, Like Daughter" - except that the one in that episode was hot pink, and this one is more of a bluish-green.
• Evil-Lyn shows that she can turn people to stone using beams from her eyes (unfortunately for Mer-Man, who catches the attack when the witch gets distracted).
• According to He-Man, Ram Man is capable of knocking a rock out of the moon's atmosphere and all the way back to Eternia. Impressive!
• King Randor makes a very late-stage appearance for only a few seconds during the treaty-signing scene. He has no dialogue.

• In a seeming disconnect from Man-E's first appearance, he shows himself able to speak when using his monster identity. In MU043 he only seemed to be able to roar when using that face, and was enough of a mindless beast in that form that Beast Man was able to control him. Perhaps this monster face is a fake one.
• We've seen Adam display some vague evidence of jealousy when Teela gets attention from other men (see for instance MU069's "The Gamesman"), but it doesn't bother him at all when she kisses Man-E-Faces. In fact, he applauds! I guess he doesn't mind stage kissing.
• Animation error: As the camera view from Beast Man's cell gets static-y and fades out, Beast Man simply disappears from the screen, leaving only the background.
• I love Beast Man and all, but it seems rather short-sighted of Skeletor to send him in the Doom Buster by himself. Beast Man should always be accompanied by at least one other minion, to keep him on the straight and narrow.
• Adam believes that the only way he can save the crew of the auto-piloted Doom Buster when the photon cannon is trained onto the ship is to turn into He-Man. But it's hard to imagine what even He-Man would do once he showed up: go out into space and take the bullet?
• The story uses various methods, both heavy-handed and subtle, to differentiate the Bright Moon citizens from the Dark Moon ones. Let's start with the titles of their respective leaders: "Professor" Orion and "King" Barbo. The leader of the Bright Moonites is wearing a futuristic spacesuit and helmet, hangs out in a laboratory, and has a fancy academic title. The leader of the Dark Moonites is wearing no shirt, a fur cape, spiked crown, and has the medieval title of "King" (though of course, let's never forget that the planet Eternia is also backwardly ruled in the fantasy fashion, by a royal family). Even the king's name - Barbo - implies barbarian. They're clearly meant to be a "third-world" (almost literally a third world, given the configuration of Eternia and its moons) people, thanklessly receiving the help of the Bright Moonites, and too stupid to realize that Skeletor is tricking them. It all feels rather seedy, frankly.
• On the other hand, I love all the science fiction backgrounds and settings our heroes get to visit in this episode, fondly recalling classic sci-fi stories like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, or the goofier DC Comics space stories of the 50s and 60s. I've noted before the unabashed way that this show smashes together high-tech sci-fi themes with classic fantasy sword-and-sorcery. Another prime example was in MU015's "Reign of the Monster," which had barbarian-like Torgs flying spaceships. Here we see similar barbarian types like Barbo talking on the tele-viewer with professors on moon colonies.
• As sometimes happens in the series, we learn Skeletor's plan but we never quite learn why he's doing it. Clearly what he wants, since he yells it very emphatically to his lackeys, is war: war between the Bright and Dark Moons. But why? It's clearly not going to directly affect Eternia, since the heroes are entirely ignorant of the tensions between the two worlds until they accidentally land there. Is Skeletor venturing beyond Eternia with his ambitions? Or - more likely - is he just sowing chaos wherever he can? After all, some people just want to watch the world(s) burn.
• What a great Beast Man episode! The furry fella gets to use every one of his brain cells in his attempt to escape from the Eternian tower prison. Sniff - I'm so proud of you, big guy! (Though let's not forget that it's entirely Beast Man's fault that the heroes figure out the evil plot, because the dope manages to crash the ship right by the palace in the beginning. Also note that Beast Man is callously disappeared from the ending of the story! Keep reading my commentary to see what I mean.)
• By the way, given that Beast Man hops onto a pterodactyl to fly away and then shows up at the Dark Moon, are we to conclude that he rode the creature through space? Maybe he just took it to Eternia's nearest spaceport and stole a ship - though, given his disastrous steering of the Buster, that seems unlikely to have ended well!
• Animation error: As sometimes happens with Trap Jaw, his customizable arm appears on the wrong side of his body in several scenes.
• Whiplash broke his consecutive streak of episode appearances by not showing up in MU079; but he's back in this one, and inadvertently pointing out to us how paltry his abilities are compared to some of the other minions. When Man-E, in disguise as Beast Man, urges the various villains to describe what evil acts they've committed on the Dark Moon, Mer-Man tells of flooding crops, Trap Jaw of collapsing a bridge, and Evil-Lyn of tying the whole thing together by acting as a false witness to convince the king the crimes were done by Bright Moonites; but all Whiplash did was knock over a couple buildings with his whippy tail.
• He-Man gets one rock knocked on top of him and Evil-Lyn is already wiping her hands and saying "That's the last we'll see of He-Man!" Lady. Have you not watched this show?
• What with all the villains in this episode, it's anticlimactic and downright disappointing how easily they are defeated when the final confrontation actually occurs. The heroes are outnumbered but still manage to win with very little effort. There are a few occurrences that aid the heroes, one being that Skeletor himself evens the odds by taking Trap Jaw with him when he leaves, for no particularly good reason. Another helpful event: a distracted Evil-Lyn misses her aim and turns Mer-Man to stone. The final boost for the heroes? Beast Man vanishes! (Continuity error here!) He is standing next to Skeletor when Man-E is unmasked, but we never see him again after that. It just goes to show you: even in an episode where he's proved himself rather clever, what with his solo prison break, Beast Man gets no respect from anyone, even the show's writers.
• It also seems strange that there were so few heroes in the final battle. So what happened to Duncan, Teela, Orko, and Cringer? Well that's an interesting question, as these Heroic Warriors seem to peel off one by one as the story proceeds. Orko appears at the beginning of the episode and even accompanies the other heroes onto the crashed Doom Buster to investigate; but once the auto-pilot is repaired and everyone is riding the ship to its unknown destination, Orko is nowhere to be seen - apparently having had better things to do back on Eternia. (Continuity error alert!) Cringer is definitely on the flying ship with everyone else, since he provides a comedic interlude by mistaking a disguised Man-E for the real Beast Man, and by causing Ram Man to trip; but after that joke and pratfall pay off, he literally disappears. He is not on the shuttle that all the heroes but Man-E take to the Bright Moon, and is not among the assembled friends who talk to Professor Orion. Where did he go? Then you have Duncan and Teela. On the Bright Moon, Duncan advises Adam that he should take the shuttle back to the Dark Moon to help Man-E. Without being told to, Adam forces Ram Man to come along; but inexplicably, Duncan and Teela remain on the Bright Moon and take no part in the final battle. I guess Man-at-Arms didn't realize just how many lackeys Skeletor had aiding him in his plot...
• He-Man must do some very quick moving to avoid getting caught in the blast from that photon cannon! He sets off the gun and then seems to teleport himself out of there. Speaking of the cannon - I suppose it belonged to Skeletor, given that it has a skull face on it and all; but its ownership is never specified. I hope He-Man didn't wreck the Dark Moon's only defensive weapon! Or he might soon be receiving another angry call from King Barbo...