J. Michael Straczynski

Ed Friedman

A storm over Snake Mountain opens an ancient passage, giving Skeletor access to the magical Mirror of Moravad, which creates an opposite doppelganger of anyone who looks upon it! Skeletor produces an evil duplicate of a Heroic Warrior to make all his wildest dreams come true - but he gets more than he bargained for!

Kol Darr (Evil Kol Darr), Shadow Master, Teela, Prince Adam (He-Man), Man-at-Arms, Orko, Sorceress, Queen Marlena

Beast Man, Evil-Lyn, Skeletor (Good Skeletor)

royal messengers, sand crawlers, Guardian of the Secrets of Castle Grayskull

Wind Raiders

At Snake Mountain, Skeletor is happily berating his poor minion Beast Man for cowering from the thunderstorm currently passing overhead; but when Evil-Lyn reminds her boss that a serious enough storm could well bring the whole fortress crumbling onto their heads, Skeletor decides to flee - er, calmly relocate - to a cavern opening to watch the storm pass by. His lackeys gratefully follow. As the clouds finally clear, the trio notice that tremors from the storm have re-opened an ancient passageway in their home. On exploring the tunnel, they find a very tall cloth-draped object whose inscriptions identify it as the magic Mirror of Moravad. Anyone who stands before the uncovered mirror will generate a duplicate of themselves - with reverse moral proclivities! A mirror opposite, in fact. Skeletor's mind reels at the possibilities now open to him: if he can find a trusted friend of He-Man to place before the mirror, he can use their evil double to gain access to Castle Grayskull! The only question now is, who is a good ally to clone?

It so happens that an old ally of He-Man's (new to us, the viewing audience) is just about to arrive for a friendly visit to Eternos: his name is Kol Darr, and he rides the mechanical horse Shadow Master. Teela finds a lazing Prince Adam and informs him of Kol Darr's impending arrival, but the yawning prince implies he's too tired to meet the hero. A disappointed Teela, walking away in disgust, doesn't know what we know - that Adam can't meet Kol Darr, because He-Man needs to be there. The prince does his transformation and He-Man is present to greet his old friend as Kol Darr alights on a terrace of the palace. Skeletor witnesses the meeting via his spy dome, and solidifies his plans.

Man-at-Arms is at the reception as well, and Orko, who is very excited to show the gathered heroes a new magic trick he's invented; but their friendly meeting is disturbed by news of a sand crawler attack in progress at the town of Cafene. Kol Darr decides to join the other heroes to assist in removing those pesky crawlers, so they all depart forthwith (leaving a disappointed Orko, coming back with his magical props, to discover his audience has vanished). At Cafene, the heroes use their various tools and abilities to either zap, dizzy, or tie up and drag away all the sand crawlers. What they don't know is that the giant pests (who look like red worms with wavy forked-tongue arms) were all a ploy from Skeletor, aided by the animal-controlling talents of Beast Man. As Kol Darr returns from disposing of the last two crawlers, he hears a female voice crying for help, and follows the sound to a lonely cave to investigate. Unfortunately for him, the alleged damsel in distress is none other than Evil-Lyn, who ambushes the hero and captures him.

Back at Snake Mountain, the villains' captive is placed before the mirror, and an evil Kol Darr emerges from the magic glass. The doppelganger is ready and willing to go steal the secrets of Grayskull, and to help further these wicked aims, Skeletor equips him with a little timer device that will paralyze everyone at Eternos! Old Bonehead wins the loyalty of Shadow Master with some magic rocks, and Evil Kol Darr is able to mount the robotic beast and return to Cafene to greet his "friends," who had just begun to worry about his long absence. When the heroes have all returned to the palace, Evil Kol Darr then asks He-Man for a favor, and the blonde oaf unwisely promises his (ostensible) friend anything he might desire. The villainous duplicate requests a tour of the interior of Castle Grayskull; an unusual and unexpected wish which He-Man is nevertheless honor-bound to grant. As he thanks the hoodwinked hero, Evil Kol Darr surreptitiously plants the paralysis device.

They head off at once to satisfy the request; but as soon as the pair walk in past the Jawbridge, Evil Kol Darr throws a smoke bomb and vanishes into the depths of the castle, laughing in a disturbingly wicked manner. The Sorceress shows up to ask He-Man just what the heck he thought he was doing, allowing a stranger into her mystical boudoir. The hero points out that he thought Kol Darr was a friend. The Sorceress explains that, because of this, she won't be able to assist at all in rooting out the pesky intruder, since the by-laws of Grayskull forbid her from acting against any ally of He-Man. Our hero must therefore hunt through the many halls of the castle unassisted - possibly for eternity! - in order to undo his mistake.

While Evil Kol Darr is busy making himself an irritant in Castle Grayskull, Good Kol Darr is doing some plotting of his own. When Skeletor visits his prisoner to gloat and update Kol Darr on his duplicate's progress, the hero fires a surprise blast from his wrist laser (which he apparently has). An agile Skeletor leaps away from the beam; but, unbeknownst to him, his dodge has placed him just in front of the Mirror of Moravad! After the wary villain departs, the newly spawned Good Skeletor steps from the mirror. The reversed double is ready to try to help Kol Darr out of his energy cage; but Kol Darr says there is no time, and sends the bony hero off to warn the residents of the palace of the treachery in their midst.

Man-at-Arms and Teela, busy tinkering with some machine or other, are shocked when a bemused royal page shows in a visitor: Skeletor. The seeming villain pleads his good intentions, and is able to convince the suspicious heroes of his honesty when he tracks down the freeze field device Evil Kol Darr planted and tries to disable it. The device is booby-trapped and freezes Good Skeletor, so Duncan zaps the thing to bits. After helping their surprising new ally to recover, Duncan and Teela listen as Good Skeletor describes the mirror, the kidnapped Kol Darr, and the danger to Grayskull.

Yes, how are things in Grayskull? Well, taking somewhat less time than eternity, He-Man locates Evil Kol Darr rifling through the weapons in the castle's "Hall of He-Man." The villain distracts our hero by firing off one of the weapons, producing a pair of gross-looking veiny pink spheres which He-Man calls "positroids." He dispatches the things with a freeze ray, then heads off in pursuit of Kol Darr. But the doppelganger has already made it to a big stone head set in a wall, which identifies itself as "the Guardian of the Secrets of Castle Grayskull." The Guardian presents Evil Kol Darr with a choice: on either side of its horned head is a door, and behind one of the doors is the power of Grayskull. Before Kol Darr can proceed, the Guardian quizzes him, asking why the villain wants the power. After giving a predictably selfish and evil answer, Kol Darr is directed by the Guardian to the left door. He-Man arrives just in time to watch as the light from the opened door blasts the duplicate, turning him into the mirror glass from whence he was created; the glass shatters into a pile of dust, neatly solving the whole intruder problem (and seemingly breaking a by-law, though maybe Evil Kol Darr's answer exposed him as a non-friend of He-Man).

Having hopefully learned his lesson about promising people anything they want, and presumably feeling that he's done heroing for the day, He-Man returns to the palace - only to be confronted with the amazing sight of Skeletor hanging out with Man-at-Arms and Teela. Before he manages to throw any power punches, the heroes explain what's going on, and that they need to get to Snake Mountain to rescue the real Kol Darr. They head off, leaving a once-again disappointed Orko, who thought it was finally time to show everyone his cool new magic trick.

Good Skeletor infiltrates Snake Mountain first, as the person obviously best qualified to wander around the fortress without raising suspicions; but he quickly runs up against an obstacle since the real Skeletor is also at home. Authentic Bonehead commands Beast Man to put Kol Darr in a freeze chamber; but at the doorway of Kol Darr's prison room, Beast Man again meets Skeletor, who tells him to belay that order. An increasingly confused Fur Face is ping-ponged from one Skeletor to another, each giving conflicting orders, until both Skeletors show up in the same hallway together. Clearly one of them is an imposter; but which one? A flummoxed Beast Man stands between the pair as they accuse each other. Luckily for our hairy minion, he is saved by the bell; or rather, the familiar rumbling sound of He-Man punching his way into the fortress. Beast Man makes himself scarce, and the invading heroes are presented with a pair of Skeletors.

Unlike Fur Face, He-Man has a scheme in mind for exposing the real Skeletor: he simply asks both of the bony fellows to recite the line, "He-Man, I am your friend." Good Skeletor has no qualms about repeating the sentiment, but the real Skeletor can't bring himself to do it, and instead chooses to teleport himself away. The heroes are then able to track down and free their imprisoned friend. Good Skeletor, deciding that his job here is done, walks through the mirror and pokes his arm back out to smash the thing to bits - no one will be using this plot device again! The satisfied heroes, even though they are deep in their enemies' fortress and have the villains at their mercy, decide it is time to clock off for the day, and head back to the palace.

End with a Joke: With everyone finally done dealing with disasters and all in one place again, Orko is at last free to go and get the implements he needs to show them his new magic trick. As he is about to leave, Duncan makes the offhand and upsetting wish that they could have two Orkos. Orko brazenly claims (against evidence in past episodes of the show) that no one has magic powerful enough to make more than one of him; then turns around and finds a duplicate Orko staring back at him. He's incredibly alarmed; but it turns out that it's just his reflection in a mirror. As Queen Marlena, who is standing just behind the mirror, explains, they are in the middle of redecorating. Everyone laughs, and the queen, though unsure what's so funny, joins in.

• Skeletor (reading inscription): Beware the Mirror of Moravad - where bad is good, and good is bad. Where one may come, two depart; but only one may have the heart.
• He-Man: His name is Kol Darr, Sorceress; he is - or he was - a friend. / Sorceress: Then I cannot help you, He-Man. The magic of Grayskull itself prevents me from taking action. For it is written that Castle Grayskull must forever be a safe haven for the friends of He-Man.
• Guardian of Grayskull (to Evil Kol Darr): You have come for - the power? / Evil Kol Darr: Yes, of course. / Guardian: Then hear me - the secrets of Grayskull are behind one of these doors. Open the wrong door, and you fill find not the power, but only what you deserve.
• Good Skeletor: Well, my job's done. Glad I could help, He-Man. Now, I must return to the mirror. (Walks through mirror, then reaches back out with a fist and shatters it behind him)

• He-Man from above, runs to mid-screen and pauses, battle-ready: As he searches through Grayskull
• He-Man rolls along the ground: Dodging positroid beams
• He-Man punches the viewer: Smashing his way into Snake Mountain

One partial (missing Cringer/Battle Cat sequence)

Brought to you by Orko and Man-at-Arms
Man-at-Arms, denying the plot of today's story and contradicting the depiction of many of the series' main characters, tells us that there are very few people who are "all good" or "all bad," and that if we look hard enough we can usually find the good in people. Orko tugs the PSA message back towards more familiar PSA territory by reminding us not to judge people by how they look (the tired old "don't judge a book by its cover" lesson). "It's something to... reflect on!" jokes Orko - then flies off, leaving behind his independently moving reflection. Yikes!

N/A: There are a couple of potential categories for this episode, but none that I feel it actually falls into. You might argue this is a "Skeletor summons a monster" episode, but I don't think Evil Kol Darr really fits the definition of "monster." You might also argue, if only indirectly, that this is an episode in which "Skeletor manages to get into Grayskull," since his agent does succeed in doing that; but I decided to limit this category to episodes in which the main villain himself physically enters the castle, and he doesn't do that here.

• This episode and one other ("Not So Blind") used to have no episode code associated with them in the Wikipedia article I used to get my episode codes (the field for the code said "TBA" instead). This has since been updated in Wikipedia with the codes I was using, so I guess I was right all along.
• Skeletor should definitely plan to use up a rainy day by thoroughly exploring his basement. We already know from MU011's "Masks of Power" that, unbeknownst to the villain, the incredibly powerful Sword of the Ancients was buried down there; and in MU062's "Golden Disks of Knowledge" we found that not only was Skeletor hiding the eponymous disks in a sub-basement, he also had a giant snake to guard them! And here we are again, discovering other treasures in the caverns - this time a magic mirror. Keep digging, Bonehead - maybe there's an unopened Eternia playset in there!
• Teela comes to nag Adam in a room that I at first thought was the prince's bedroom; but it seems he was just lounging on a settee or chaise lounge somewhere in the palace.
• We see Skeletor using his old desktop dome to spy on the heroes during Kol Darr's arrival at the palace - just moments after the much more revealing arrival of He-Man. Missed that secret transformation again!
• The new character of Kol Darr, an "old" friend of He-Man's, is a viking-like fellow (though I feel honor-bound to mention, having heard this recently, that real historical vikings didn't actually wear helmets with horns on them, as Kol Darr does - a very disappointing bit of trivia for you!) with a sweet mechanical winged horse that has the power to disappear into shadows (among many other abilities). Apparently He-Man helped him out during a fight with "the Trelians." Because Kol Darr is He-Man's ally, I've chosen to grant him the distinct honor of appearing in the list of Heroic Warriors, rather than the less-prestigious "Other characters" category.
• An action figure of "Kol-Darr" (with a hyphen) was released as part of Mattel's MOTU Origins line, as recently as 2022. He was not part of the original, vintage toys of the 80s. The toy didn't quite manage to get his armor coloring or his horns right, and unfortunately he did not come with a Shadow Master to ride on. (I looked around and found a YouTube video of a guy reviewing a Shadow Master toy, but I can't find any evidence that the thing actually exists for sale; I believe the Shadow Master he was showing was a custom repaint of the evil Stridor clone, Night Stalker.)
• A royal page - in livery we've never seen before, though we'll see another messenger like this before the episode ends - shows up to send He-Man off to "Cafene" to fight "sand crawlers." However, when the heroes show up, we find that the alleged "sand crawlers" are nothing like the "crawler" we saw in MU022 (which was just a giant centipede, and identical to the "sandipede" of MU097), or the "sand digger" of MU040 (which was really a giant turtle), or the "sand devil" of MU059 (which was a big worm), but instead serpentine dragons which look like they have forked tongues for arms. The shot of a sand crawler looming over some buildings to terrorize the populace is identical to one used of the Gryphon attacking Chandor in MU049's "Return of the Gryphon."
• On the subject of royal pages, recall that Chad of MU049 was one, though his outfit was different than the ones seen here. We saw a sort of royal herald at the beginning of MU034, and there will be a sort of town crier at the beginning of MU121.
• Though we don't actually see him do it, Skeletor's comment to Beast Man about creating a diversion implies that old Fur Face is responsible for the attack of the sand crawlers. I just wanted to give Beast Man his due here for doing something with no screw-ups!
• Evil-Lyn has effectively - and magically - disguised herself as the pretty Nadira (in MU012) and as an old lady (in MU021); but she gets lazy in this episode and, to trick Kol Darr, just throws on a cloak. She's clearly uninspired by the facile task of having to kidnap some guy, and is phoning it in today.
• After giving us his last script for MU094's "Journey to Stone City," more than 16 episodes ago (!), we finally get another story from the great J. Michael Straczynski. It's another imaginative and very entertaining romp! And he gives us another new heroic character in Kol Darr, to go with Vokan in MU094.
• The Sorceress tells us that she's unable to take action against even the evil version of Kol Darr, since Grayskull won't allow her to harm the "friends of He-Man." Makes sense, I guess (he said grumpily). (See further grumblings about this in the commentary section.)
• I love any episode that gives us a chance to explore Castle Grayskull, as it often turns up new rooms and lore. Here, He-Man eventually discovers Evil Kol Darr rifling through the weapons in the "Hall of He-Man," the contents of which (as our hero explains) "go back to the early history of Eternia." In addition to the "positroid" launcher that Kol Darr messes with, the foreground painting also features something that looks a whole lot like a light saber, and a shield with a crest design that looks like an Earth baseball.
• Evil Kol Darr meets "the Guardian of the Secrets of Castle Grayskull," an absolutely awesome-looking horned stone head set into a wall, which can speak and gives the evil duplicate the choice between two doors (continuing this episode's theme of duality). This is all very cool; but it certainly seems to contradict previous episodes, which placed the real good stuff in Grayskull behind a single, "inner chamber" door (see MU027 for its first appearance, though it was also seen in MU075, MU104, and MU108). I suppose if we wanted to explain this inconsistency away, we could conclude that the Sorceress, like Queen Marlena at the end of the episode, has been "redecorating." After all, a magic castle like Grayskull likely has enough spare power to move its rooms around and change how it appears to people.
• The Guardian's "choice" is a cleverly loaded game, and interestingly enough, it reminds me again of the Mirror of Erised from Harry Potter (see Commentary). In the end of Rowling's first book, the mirror (which shows a person their heart's greatest desire) is used to guard the story's MacGuffin stone; but the only way to actually attain the stone would be if you wanted only to find the stone, not attain the eternal life that it could grant. Therefore, any bad guys approaching the mirror would never get what they desired. In the same way, any people trying to get the secrets of Grayskull only to selfishly gain power will always be directed to the wrong door - which is why the smarter among them should know to choose the opposite door to the one the Guardian tells them!
• Based on Orko's appearance in the room after everyone else leaves, He-Man meets his friends and Good Skeletor in Man-at-Arms's lab (since that's where Orko asked He-Man to meet him); however based on the background paintings behind the characters, this isn't Duncan's lab at all, but the game room where Lord Todd and King Randor were playing chess in the beginning of MU069's "The Gamesman."
• This episode features an actual running gag that gets played on Orko, where he's constantly trying to show the heroes his latest magic trick, and constantly managing to just miss them. It's the perfect use of Orko: he's funny without being annoying, and he doesn't contribute anything to the actual plot.
• However, there is a problem with Orko's comment at the end of the episode, that "nobody's magic is powerful enough to make another me." As we saw in the disturbing opening sequence of MU009, there definitely is someone with magic powerful enough to make another Orko: Orko himself. In MU009 he made several extra Orkos, who then worked together to do a magic trick.
• Queen Marlena makes a rare appearance without her husband, if only at the very last second. Her voice is the rarer, deeper one sometimes provided as a substitute, courtesy of Jay Scheimer. For the record, since I did a lot of searching to determine this, I'll share with you the odd piece of trivia that this is one of only two episodes in the entire series in which Marlena appears, but Randor does not; the other one is MU006.
• Another episode missing Cringer. Oh tiger, where art thou?
• Yet another episode with the variant ending credits showing the flat-painted Jawbridge in the background.

• With a name like "Kol Darr," and knowing of the unsubtle naming techniques of Mattel and MOTU, you'd think that our hero would have cold-based powers; but no such luck! Kol Darr seems to be just a regular, musclebound guy wearing furry underpants and a cool helmet.
• Shadow Master can fire laser beams out of its eyes - something we discover when it shoots at one of the sand crawlers and instead breaks open a huge seam in the ground in the middle of Cafene's town square. Um, thanks a lot Shadow Master... taxes just went up on account of you.
• "One down, three to go!" claims Teela after zapping the first sand crawler - indicating there are four total creatures. But after He-Man makes one so dizzy it passes out, and Kol Darr ties up another, Man-at-Arms says there are still two left. Hmm, that makes five. Do Eternians have difficulty counting?
• Continuity error: at least, that's how I choose to look at it. Kol Darr (with sensible caution) asks his mount to hide in the shadows while he checks on the voice crying for help in the cavern. This is the last we see of the horse until it appears in the dungeons of Snake Mountain. So somehow the villains managed to bring it along with their humanoid prisoner - but you really have to wonder how they achieved this feat! Honestly, between the laser eyes, belly lasso, and vanishing talent, Shadow Master seems like a more impressive warrior than its owner. Skeletor wins it over with a clump of "magic stones" - but only after it's arrived in Snake Mountain.
• By the way, the interesting implication of Skeletor having to use magic stones on the horse is that the Mirror of Moravad won't work on nonliving creatures. Fascinating!
• You'd think that a magic mirror would have a tricky name that would spell something meaningful when you wrote it backwards (like Harry Potter's Mirror of Erised); but I don't think there's any special reference hidden in "Davarom." It seems instead that "Moravad" was used to fit nicely into the rhyming inscription about how "good is bad."
• Coming just after his potentially horrific "accident" in MU110, He-Man's effing up here and letting "a stranger into the secret passages of Castle Grayskull," as the Sorceress puts it, is really starting to make him look bad. To be fair, He-Man was bound to honor a promise he made to a person he thought was a friend; but he should know from a long line of fables and fairy tales that you should never promise anyone to give them "anything" they want.
• I can't begin to describe how unsurprised I was to hear the Sorceress say, "I cannot help you, He-Man." Yeah - just like every other day, bird lady. Feh! This is her excuse for not acting against the Evil Kol Darr, or doing anything impressive (and against series continuity) like she did when she scared Skeletor & co out of the castle back in MU104. Instead, she leaves the breaking of series continuity to our hitherto unknown friend, the Guardian of the castle (see my later comment about that mishegoss).
• A few interesting revelations can be found in the scene where Kol Darr tricks Skeletor into standing in front of the mirror. One: Kol Darr has wrist blasters - cool! Two: Skeletor didn't search Kol Darr for weapons, and even after Kol Darr reveals that he has said weapons, the villain fails to disarm his prisoner - sloppy! (Bonehead made a similar mistake in MU085.) Three: Skeletor is amazingly spry for a skull-faced sorcerer, leaping and somersaulting out of the way of Kol Darr's blast like a parkour expert. Four: Way to go, Kol Darr! His ploy here is super clever and adds an amusing extra dimension to this "reflective" tale.
• The obvious question to ask when looking at Skeletor's evil plot is: if you want an evil duplicate of someone to get you into Grayskull, why not use He-Man? He's the only guy who can easily get into the castle, he's incredibly strong so his evil version will be super awesome, and you won't need to complicate your plan by having to freeze everyone with a gadget, or ask for any weird favors of anyone. The obvious answer to this question is: Skeletor was scared. He-Man is the strongest man in the universe, and the villain hasn't exactly had the easiest time capturing him in the past; why put out all the effort to get He-Man in front of the mirror, when you can just kidnap someone who isn't capable of changing the orbit of the moon? It would have been really cool to see an evil duplicate He-Man - but it may just be possible that those in charge of approving scripts remembered that they'd already done a story about an evil duplicate He-Man, way back when Skeletor created Faker in MU002. (He-Man also fought a shadow double of himself in MU026's "Ordeal in the Darklands.")
• As a hero who is constantly professing his desire to use violence only as a last resort (see for example MU097), it seems a bit ironic - perhaps even hypocritical! - that the hall in the castle named after He-Man should be filled with weapons. I suppose the point is that the weapons are all locked up, where no one can use them?
• Evil Kol Darr is tricked by the riddle of the castle Guardian, and chooses the wrong door (though honestly, if he had any sense in him and had really listened to what the Guardian said, he would have gone to the right after the Guardian told him "left"). This again leads us to the same kind of question that I was forced to ask after watching the Sorceress easily expel Skeletor and his lackeys from the castle at the end of MU104: If this is what would happen to anyone evil who finally got deep into Grayskull, then why have we been going to all the trouble to defend the castle all this time? What is the use of He-Man? Why not just let Skeletor make his way to the Guardian, allow him to make the wrong choice, then get zapped by the door and turned to dust? (Though I suppose, Skeletor not being a mirror-made duplicate, something else - possibly even more unpleasant - might happen to him.) Really - I love Straczynski, and this is a very entertaining script, but I hate it when we get these types of stories that seem to negate the entire concept behind the series.
• Though I can't help feeling sorry for poor, put-upon Beast Man, I have to admit that the entire episode is easily worth the hilarious scene where the furry minion is being bounced back and forth between two nagging versions of Skeletor. It would have been great to carry it on a little longer, and have the two versions of Skeletor try to come up with things that only the "real" Skeletor would say to Beast Man; but we do get something close to that in the following scene with He-Man, and I also enjoyed the scene's actual conclusion, with Beast Man hearing the sound of He-Man punching through the wall and saying, "That sounds familiar - gotta go!"
• What's that? Our hero punched through the wall of Snake Mountain? Looks like yet another case of home invasion! By the way, I don't really count incursions into Grayskull as "home invasion," though perhaps I should - for me, the heroes's real home is Eternos. It used to be there was almost a trade-off from episode to episode, with villains breaking into the royal palace followed by heroes sneaking into Snake Mountain. But it's actually been quite a long time since the Evil Warriors invaded the palace - the last time I can find it happening is when a team of Skeletor's thugs successfully kidnapped Queen Marlena in MU084's "Fraidy Cat." In contrast, the last time the heroes were in Snake Mountain? MU108.
• The ending of the episode features another very amusing and very meme-able sequence, where the Skeletor duplicate calmly tells He-Man that it's time to go, walks back into the mirror, and without a word of explanation smashes it with his own protruding fist. Um, I guess it was... too dangerous to leave that lying around? So is there some mirror world where Good Skeletor is going to live happily ever after, or did he just destroy himself? It's unclear. Also odd is the revealed fact that the mirror has no backing whatsoever, since once the glass shatters we see clear through the empty frame to the cave wall behind it.