Steve Bussard

Steve Clark

Prince Adam's simple mission to fetch new-fangled energy crystals from the kingdom of Morainia is complicated when Skeletor and crew get involved. Better call in He-Man; maybe he can buck up the overlooked and disregarded Princess Janice in the process!

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

Skeletor, Beast Man, Trap Jaw, Clawful

King Boreas, giant spider, Morainian guards, Prince Esker, Princess Janice, Morainian lords (including the Chancellor)

Attak Trak (Snow Trak?), Basher, Evil sky sled, Morainian snowmobile

Man-at-Arms is showing off a new invention to the king and queen, which should seriously boost their blind man's bluff game to a whole new level. Asking them to blindfold him, Duncan then waves around a little handheld device, which beeps when he points it at them. He can find them wherever they are in the throne room, without being able to see! Then Randor, feeling impish, decides to mess with his man-at-arms by quietly tugging Cringer, Adam, Teela, and Orko into the room. Duncan becomes very confused by the multiple readings on his invention, hemming and hawing and finally admitting to his king that the device claims there are seven people in the room. Finally taking off the blindfold, Man-at-Arms realizes he's been teased and takes it in good fun.

But forget all that nonsense! There's a call coming in! An inset televiewer lowers from the ceiling, and the assembled company see a crown-topped talking head appear on the screen. Turns out it's Boreas, ruler of an icy northern kingdom, and he has kindly offered to share with Eternos his new discovery: a more efficient and powerful energy crystal. A pleased Randor now has to choose who to send on the journey, tapping his son when the prince volunteers for the job. Adam pulls a reluctant Cringer with him, along with a much more amenable Orko.

On the road to Morainia, King Boreas's realm, the Attak Trak gets driven into a deep gorge when a snowblind Adam misses the road (and we incidentally learn that Skeletor is remotely spying on the heroes). The vehicle-less trio are threatened by a giant spider, so He-Man and Battle Cat are evoked. He-Man punches out an ice tunnel and blocks the spider off with a big sheet of ice. Seeing a pair of snowmobile tracks, the heroes are able to follow them to the city with no further incident. There, they meet not only King Boreas but his lazy, rude son, Prince Esker. Also present is Boreas's daughter, Princess Janice, who is much friendlier and reveals that the snowmobile tracks were her own - the adventurous child often zips past the territorial spider, managing to avoid the danger.

Boreas shows the visiting heroes his crystals, which are fine, but the main thing we're meant to glean from the scene is that no one in the Morainian family pays much attention to Janice, even though she seems plenty nice and wants to be involved in things, like Adam's proposed skiing outing. Esker talks down to his sister and tells her to stay home and out of danger.

Meanwhile, we know something none of our friends knows: that Skeletor wants those energy crystals, and has personally flown to Morainia in his Basher to steal them, with the help of brilliant lackeys Beast Man, Trap Jaw, and Clawful. Beast Man and Trap Jaw make their move on King Boreas, standing in a hallway dressed (badly) in the clothes of pages or guards as the king and his son walk by. They turn to follow, and when Boreas questions the suspicious pair, rip off their paltry disguises and threaten the king. Boreas sends off his son to get help, but is able to hypnotize the villains and convince them they want to go have lunch. This doesn't work on Skeletor, however, who appears next and deflects the hypnotic beams back on the king. His prisoner safely cowed, Skeletor teleports the royal personage into a high glass cell hanging from a girder in the middle of a howling, icy chamber, then cackles at how swimmingly his plan is going.

Our villain quickly enacts the next stage of his scheme, visiting the bemused Prince Esker and his assembled lords and Chancellor to show them their bound king via crystal ball and lay out his ransom demands: he wants the crystals and the method for growing them. Morainia's chancellor realizes those crystals will give old Bonehead power over all Eternia; but the braintrust don't know how to stop the villain, and fall to useless bickering. Princess Janice, who was also in the room and caught a glimpse of her father's prison cell, realizes something and tries to impart her knowledge to Esker; but as usual, no one will listen to her. Frustrated, the princess rushes off to deal with the situation herself, in her snowmobile. Unfortunately her path leads her past Clawful, who quickly hops into his sky sled in pursuit.

The chase zooms past Cringer, Orko, and Adam, who, blissfully unaware of any royal kidnappings, have been playing in the snow. Adam decides He-Man is needed and treats us to the episode's second full transformation sequence. When He-Man catches up to the pair, Clawful has gotten a hold of Janice; but he's happy to drop her so he can tangle with the beefy hero. Though Clawful seems to think he has a chance in a one-on-one battle against his foe, He-Man's muscles make quick work of the villain, and the blonde hunk is then able to have a good talk with Janice about what's been going on. Janice, we learn, recognized where her father was being held: it's an old abandoned mine, and she knows where all its entrances are.

Taking the opposite tack from her family, He-Man invites Janice to draw up a battle plan for the heroic team. The heroes split up and sneak into the mine using its three different entrances. Janice's plan doesn't work as well as one might have hoped, however, because Skeletor loves to spy on people and he's brought his spying gear with him: spotting He-Man (atop Battle Cat) and Janice creeping in through the two larger entrances, he quickly springs trap doors on both parties. They fall into an underground chamber which the bony bad guy begins to flood with water. This isn't a huge obstacle for He-Man, who punches a way out of the trap. Climbing their way out, the heroes find themselves in an open area where Boreas is hanging - and meet up with Orko, who never got trapped and was just wandering about some dark mine shafts for a while.

Janice then quickly devises a plan for rescuing her suspended father, involving Orko's floating ability, He-Man's climbing, Battle Cat's ice-gripping claws, and a rope. The plan successfully executed with no interference from any spying sorcerers, Boreas is freed and the heroes rush back to Morainia's throne room. There they discover why Skeletor hadn't tried to stop them: he was busy threatening the remaining government and smashing his way into the crystal chamber, with help from Beast Man and Trap Jaw. He is just lifting his crystal booty in triumph when He-Man shows up, spoiling the whole thing. Skeletor flees through a portal along with his flunkies. A grateful Boreas thanks He-Man for all his help, and He-Man delivers a glowing encomium for Princess Janice, convincing both her father and brother that they should pay more attention to her ideas in the future.

End with a Joke: N/A; no time!

• Cringer: You know my winter fur hasn't grown in yet; maybe I'd better just stay here.
• Beast Man (to Skeletor, as they both ride in the open cockpit of the Basher through icy territory): Boss, can you turn up the heat? / Skeletor: Quiet! I'm trying to think. / Beast Man: Uh, can't you think when you're warm? / Skeletor: QUIET!!
• Boreas (expressing some rather half-hearted gratitude): Thanks for your help, He-Man; you saved the kingdom and - probably - all of Eternia.

• He-Man from above, runs to mid-screen and pauses, battle-ready: Searching for a way to stop a giant spider
• Skeletor laughs, head back: Celebrating his imprisonment of King Boreas
• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: Preparing to chase after Clawful, and again later as the plan to rescue Boreas begins
• He-Man rolls along the ground: Recovering from a fall down a trap door

Two full

Brought to you by Teela
Continuing her occasional practice of giving us the lessons for stories she didn't really participate in, Teela appears somehow in Morainia to tell us that we should listen to people's ideas, the way Esker learned to listen to his sister.

Beast Man in disguise: This is an incredible stretch, since it's not remotely central to the story's plot; but by the strict words of the category, this episode does in fact feature Beast Man in disguise - for a few brief moments. And it's a terrible disguise.
Wayward child learns a valuable lesson: Again seemingly not central to the plot, though slightly more central than Beast Man's disguise, is Esker learning not to just rudely brush off his sister. He could also stand to learn quite a heck of a lot more about how to govern his country, if his confused and helpless sessions with his Chancellor are any indication - but no luck there.

• Either we've just never seen it before, or King Randor has just had a cool fold-out viewscreen installed in the ceiling of his throne room - presumably he can catch the game during those long and boring royal meetings (though in the case of this episode he uses it to take a call).
• Though Randor pointedly just refers to him as "Boreas," I have given him a royal title since he "rules" an ice kingdom. Incidentally it's interesting that the Ice Lord from MU044's "The Region of Ice" doesn't get mentioned here, as he and Boreas surely must have adjoining, or at least nearby, territories.
• Also interesting is the implication hidden in Boreas's comment that he would like Randor's "kingdom" to be the first to use his crystals. In MU081's "The Arena," it seems we are to believe that Randor rules over the entire planet of Eternia. Here, it sounds like he just rules over a part of it, with Boreas a sort of peer or fellow king.
• We are introduced to a new and more efficient form of energy crystal, which leaves room in the show's continuity for the previous form of energy crystal that we learned about in MU042: eternium.
• Randor, showing a confidence in his son that is growing more common as the series progresses, gives the prince the job of picking up Boreas's crystals. He had Adam go check out the Fisto situation in MU070, and he sends the prince out to investigate rumors of a monster in MU120.
• It hardly seems to be worth noting in any episode that features Skeletor, because it happens with such clockwork regularity; but since I've gone along this way up till now, I feel obliged to mention again that he spends some time spying on our heroes through his desktop dome. Later in the episode we see that he's taken his spy gear with him to Morainia, as he is able to look in on our heroes trying to sneak into the mine.
• We see Cringer shivering under a blanket on the side bench of the Attak Trak, a seating arrangement it was revealed to have in MU052.
• Orko's magic: as he's done in other episodes, Orko shows his ability to roll up like a carpet.
• He-Man has faced quite a few giant spiders over his career so far; the one the heroes come upon in the icy gorge near Morainia doesn't quite match any of the others. It hurls webbing out of its mouth, a typical practice of MOTU spiders (though Lord Tyrin's spider pet from MU035 shot webs out of its nose - ew).
• Janice refers to Adam's abandoned Attak Trak as a "Snow Trak," which I suppose is accurate enough given the terrain it was going on; but I'm not sure if it's a name she made up or one the Eternians actually use for a winterized Attak Trak. The vehicle doesn't look any different than the usual one.
• King Boreas is shown to have the power of hypnosis! I hope that's not how he took the throne...
• When he faces off against He-Man, Clawful claims that he's "wanted to cut you down to size for years," suggesting that he didn't just show up on the Evil Warrior roster for the first time in MU053, as the series indicates. Then he very unadvisedly seems to think he can catch He-Man by throwing a net over him - which frankly any veteran lackey would know was doomed to fail. Clawful greatly enjoyed another - but ultimately just as doomed - one-on-one with the blonde oaf in MU059.
• Things that come out of Orko: a head lamp - one of his more useful finds!
• Skeletor makes his escape (and charitably allows his lackeys - the ones who are present, anyway - to escape) by way of a conjured portal - the same way he recently ran away from He-Man at the end of MU084. However poor Clawful, who He-Man clobbered separately, is out in the snow somewhere, netted.
• This is the second episode in the series to feature the simpler painting of Grayskull's lowered Jawbridge during the ending credits, rather than the more detailed background-painting version. The first time this happened was in MU073.

• Normally an invention like the one Duncan is showing off for the episode's opener would have an inevitable tie-in to some plot point later in the story; like, I don't know, Orko is trapped in a dark place and needs a device to help him find other people that he can't see. Oh wait! He has Duncan's new invention! (Orko actually was stuck in a dark mine in this episode, and could have used the gadget to find his friends.) But for some reason we don't get any call back to the opening scene; it seems to function merely as a light moment to ease us into the actual storyline.
• Boreas's name is probably a reference on the writer's part to the ancient Greek god of the North Wind. Morainia is in the north and we see a lot of wind there!
• Skeletor shows himself to be spying on Adam as the prince drives the Attak Trak; if Bony had just kept his spy screen on a little bit longer, he would have seen what Adam did to save himself from that giant spider attack... shucks! Missed out on another chance to learn that secret identity!
• Adam and co. are awfully lucky they weren't more seriously hurt after their incredibly long and violent fall down that ice gorge! Adam, having been bumped in the rear by Cringer as they are climbing out of the disabled Trak, makes a very unenthused, emotionless "Uh" sound in response.
• The prince seems particularly done with Cringer in the beginning of this episode: he doesn't want to hear the cat's invented reasons for not wanting to travel north, poo-poos the tiger's completely reasonable reluctance to exit the vehicle after their dangerous crash, and sounds entirely uninterested in hearing his pet's observations of snowmobile tracks.
• Animation error: Newly emerged from the crashed Attak Trak and a pile of snow, Cringer is shown with no eyebrows. After Adam crosses in front of him, the eyebrows reappear.
• Beast Man's complaints in the Basher about turning the heat up do raise some questions; like, if you're going to create a flying vehicle, why not have one that can actually be enclosed, giving you some kind of defense against the elements? At the least I imagine a windshield would prevent your swallowing a lot of bugs in flight. The obvious reason for the lack of covering in all MOTU vehicles, of course, is that it's much easier to put your action figures into an open cockpit; but it's fun to rationalize this in more realistic terms. For instance, as a walking, talking skeleton, you can imagine that Skeletor wouldn't be affected much by the cold, and therefore wouldn't bother designing his vehicles with any temperature-controlling amenities, under the usual villain practice of only suiting one's self. (By the way, our villains will finally enclose the cockpit of the Basher, for safe travel in space, in MU105.)
• Do they have a congenital vision problem in Morainia? One that's passed down from father to son? That's the only explanation for Boreas and Esker not immediately noticing that their two hallway "guards" are actually Beast Man and Trap Jaw, in what I suppose we can very charitably call "disguises" (they've draped some livery tabards over themselves). Boreas does eventually question the pair, but only after he's passed them and they've begun following him.
• Skeletor places Boreas for safekeeping in a glass prison cell suspended from a nasty looking, high girder by some forlorn ice cliffs. It's unlikely that the villain constructed the cell himself, which means Boreas (or his forebears) already had this cruel means of imprisonment. Hmmm, more signs of dark days in Eternia's recent past! Remember the Creeping Horak of MU007! (Though it's also possible the cell had a more prosaic original use as some kind of crane, given that it's in an old abandoned mine.)
• There are a couple of other blind alleys in this episode, along similar lines to the opening scene with a blindfolded Duncan. First, Boreas has a contextless conversation with Esker in the hallway, in which the prince is asking his father to put in a good word for him with... someone. Second, in the scene where Janice flies by Clawful on her snowmobile, we see a few guard-looking guys stacking boxes in the background. Who are these guys? Are they Morainians, or are they supposed to be associated with the villains somehow (given they're in such close proximity to Clawful)? If they're not with Clawful, then why aren't they more curious about the claw-handed miscreant hanging around their boxes?
• It's cool that He-Man gives young Princess Janice a hearing, but: should he really be leaving his military strategy to a tweenager?
• It's awfully lucky that the one ice wall He-Man chooses to punch down when trying to escape the flooding chamber has a convenient stairway right behind it...Was he able to see that through the ice before he punched?
• In addition to being on the wrong side of his body (a common Trap Jaw animation error), Trap Jaw's laser gun arm which he uses to zap the crystal force field looks overly simplistic and does not match the usual gun design from his action figure.
• Possible continuity error: When Skeletor breaks into the side chamber to steal the crystals, we see only one crystalline chunk on a pedestal behind a force field. However in the earlier scene where Boreas was showing off the crystals, he seemed to have a large and entirely undefended room where a bunch of crystals were just set into little holes. Did the Morainians somehow hide those in a better place after the ransom demand?
• Skeletor seems to realize the episode's runtime has been just about used up, since he caves immediately on the appearance of He-Man, even though he's holding the energy crystal that he wanted. Why not just teleport away with the treasure still in his possession?
• Similarly, Boreas and the snotty Esker learn their lesson about not listening to Janice in a very rushed and facile manner, after just a few words of praise from He-Man. Criminy, Filmation creators: maybe if you hadn't eaten up so much screen time with those two full He-Man transformations, and the pointless and disconnected opening scene, you'd have been able to set up a more balanced and reasonable resolution!
• So not a fantastically well-plotted episode, though some of its evil minion scenes are fun, and we at least have the originality of a new location and characters (though we've already had two icy MOTU episodes, MU044 and MU076, so it still has a slightly recycled feel to it). This is the only He-Man script given to us by writer Steve Bussard, so he won't have a chance to redeem himself.