The vast, vast majority of He-Man episodes are ridiculously bad: they're chock-full of awkward animation, surreal plots, goofy characters, and half-baked moralizing. Most episodes, however, do not suffer from blatant errors in continuity (as opposed to, say, Superfriends), nor can it be said that the show's stories ever lacked imagination--the writers were always throwing all sorts of weird creatures and situations at He-Man and his buddies. She-Demon of Phantos, the episode I'm writing about today (bored again!), unfortunately, is an exception to this: there's nothing very original about the plot, and there's more than a few thoughtless, inconsistent moments peppered throughout it.

On the other hand, Skeletor (whose presence is absolutely necessary for an episode to be truly hilarious) shows up almost immediately and manages to let loose with a handful of appropriately zany Skeletorish lines, so I guess it's not a total loss. Let's get started.





Our story begins on the "moon of Phantos", a habitable (but rather dismal-looking) world ruled by a woman named Queen Elmora (the civilizations depicted in this series are invariably ruled by monarchial autocrats; more egalitarian governments are virtually never seen). Man-At-Arms and Prince Adam are visiting the moon in order to secure a shipment of "photanium" ore from the good Queen -- photanium, see, is the strongest metal in the universe, and Man-At-Arms is keen to make some weapons out of the stuff. The Queen hands over the photanium readily enough, but rather rudely tells them to get lost shortly thereafter, leaving Prince Adam and Man-At-Arms a bit confused -- evidently the Queen is usually much more personable.

Literally two seconds after Man-At-Arms and the Prince wander out of the Queen's throne room, Skeletor appears from behind a green curtain and begins filling the audience in on his evil plan. It's quite amusing: judging from how quickly Man-At-Arms and the Prince were walking when they strode out of the sight of the camera, they should have been about four feet away from Skeletor when he began his loud ranting.

Anyway, Skeletor explains that Prince Adam and Man-At-Arms have just walked away with some worthless metal ore -- the photanium they wanted will be heading his way instead (he managed to blackmail the Queen by kidnapping and threatening to harm her ministers). The Queen tells him to free her ministers now that he's gotten the photanium he wanted, but Skeletor isn't much for being dictated to: he tells Mer-Man and Strongarm, the two henchdudes he brought along on this particular mission, to take the ministers to the dungeon and to "see that they are made...uncomfortable!" Outraged, the Queen shoots him with some magical energy beams (apparently she's a sorceress of some kind, as well as being a Queen), but Skeletor easily blocks them with one upraised hand. "You'll have to do better than that!" he snarkily implores. She tries again, but this time Skeletor kinda redirects her magic or something, causing it to envelop her body. "You will do my bidding!" he barks, as his evil magic turns her into a hideously ugly but now-compliant creature. "I will do your bidding, Skeletor," she finally tells him, defeated.

Back on Eternia, Teela and Man-At-Arms train with the "photanium" weapons that Man-At-Arms constructed after they arrived back from Phantos. They break easily, leaving them all to wonder if Queen Elmora cheated them (shouldn't Man-At-Arms have picked up on the fact that the ore he was working with wasn't really photanium at some point during their construction?) Man-At-Arms and Prince Adam spot the falcon while they are all pondering the matter (the falcon's appearance, in case you didn't know, is a surreptitious signal that indicates to Prince Adam that the Sorceress of Grayskull wants a chat with him) so the two of them ditch Teela and head out; at Grayskull, the Sorceress tells them that Skeletor is behind Queen Elmora's recent bad attitude, and that something must be done about it.

So: Adam transforms into He-Man, and together with Man-At-Arms they plan an expedition back to Phantos. Teela wants to tag along, but they tell her that she should stay put, so of course she tags along anyway without their knowing it.





Traveling to Phantos turns out to be a simple matter of walking through the correct "space portal", many of which are to be found in some underground cave somewhere. Ehh. Not very scientific, but at least it saves us from the absurdity that would surely ensue were He-Man, clad in little more than his silly fur underwear, to set foot upon a modern-looking spaceship. Helping out He-Man in today's adventure are Battle Cat (of course), Man-At-Arms, Stratos (Stratos rarely does anything helpful; why he appears in so many of these episodes is beyond me), and Lizard Man (a short, slightly-built humanoid lizard with a blue vest and a dumb voice who, to the best of my knowledge, never again appears in the series). Oh, and Teela shows up later, as previously indicated.

Queen Elmora, transformed into the titular "she-demon of Phantos" and now under Skeletor's control, confronts the group in apparently astral form. She zaps Battle Cat, causing him to disappear, and creates a big Venus flytrap-looking plant that snares the hapless Stratos and makes him disappear as well (why did they bring this guy along?). Fortunately, Teela arrives and is able to shoot the thing with her laser gun before it can blink anyone else out of existence. She's given a stern talking-to for disobeying the order to stay home, but they have a few more important things to worry about at this juncture, so her punishment is put on hold.

He-Man, always thinking, decides that the best way to reach Elmora's throne room is through the photanium mines. The group agrees, and so together they all enter the mines dressed in rags that will disguise them from the likes of Mer-Man and Strongarm, who are currently in control of the place. The disguises don't last long, however: He-Man, irked by the mistreatment of the mine's workers by cattle prod-wielding slave-drivers, busts out and goes on a rampage. So much for keeping a low profile.

The group tussles briefly with Mer-Man and his slave-drivers (Man-At-Arms tosses a pair of boomerang-handcuffs at Mer-Man's feet, which was a pretty comical thing to see) and easily overpower them; however, the tide of the battle turns when Strongarm -- with a mighty push -- stuffs He-Man into a "photanium body cell", from which escape is purportedly impossible.





Rather than follow up on this victory by doing away with Teela and Man-At-Arms and Lizard Man -- who are all, let's face it, pretty powerless without He-Man -- Strongarm and Mer-Man simply leave and report their success to Skeletor. Hearing that He-Man is stuck in a photanium body cell really brightens his day; he doesn't even berate his henchgoons for simply leaving Teela and the others unattended (perhaps because, in his words, "the others will be no trouble without He-Man!" As I myself just admitted, this is probably true, but it still seems like a little extra caution might be in order. You never know: left alone, they might be able to get him out of that thing).

And why the heck is the Queen stockpiling "photanium body cells" anyway? Obviously, they were designed exclusively to keep people locked within them; just what kind of a regime is the Queen running here? I mean, I know she's under Skeletor's control at this point, but that's only a fairly recent development, and the mines are shown to be full of these body cells...could all of them have been built so rapidly? I suppose you could argue that maybe they're not designed to keep people locked in -- it could be that they're used as caskets or something, although that leaves unanswered the question of why anyone would want to be buried in a casket built of impenetrable metal when much cheaper ones are undoubtedly available.

Anyway. Just as Teela and Man-At-Arms are about to haul the photanium cell holding He-Man back to Eternia, he simply uses his great strength to break out of it, because "nothing is stronger than He-Man!" Sheesh! Talk about dumb plotting. At any rate, the group continues to make their way to Queen Elmora's throne room via the mines. Skeletor, using his magical ram's head scepter to view them, makes note of their progress, but is curiously untroubled by He-Man's escape from the body cell (more on this in a moment). He turns to the hideous Elmora, calling her "my beauty" in a most hilarious fashion, and then trenchantly observes that his power over her is weakening (she only openly stated that she was sick of being controlled by him). "But no matter!" he declares. "I'm already in control of Phantos!" Yeah, I guess that's true, Skeletor, but isn't there a danger that you might lose that control if you insist on ignoring obvious threats to your power?

Queen Elmora sulks away, and desperately tries to break Skeletor's hold over her through meditation. She flashes back to the time He-Man visited her on Phantos, and all the fun they had breaking and bending big pieces of photanium. I'm not kidding. She remembers using a spell to make photanium chains appear around He-Man, and then laughing and clapping delightedly after he broke free of them. Hours of fun, I'm sure! Now armed with these potent memories, she confronts Skeletor and his goons. Skeletor responds by warning her that He-Man will never show up to save her, because he's still locked in that photanium body cell. Wha? Has he already forgotten that He-Man escaped? I mean, he clearly saw a freed He-Man in the mines a moment ago using his magical ram's head scepter. Duh.





Skeletor, however, though forgetful, is not one for sitting on his hands. He casts another spell on Elmora (this chick's mind is really getting put through the wringer), fixing it so that she'll see Skeletor whenever she looks upon He-Man -- which will thus cause her to attack He-Man. He patiently explains all of this to her, which you'd think would render the spell irrelevant (wouldn't her brain be aware that Skeletor was tricking her, and that she therefore shouldn't trust her eyes?) but it doesn't; I suppose she's having a pretty hard time concentrating at this point.

So, the Queen duly attacks He-Man as soon as he enters the throne room with Teela (Man-At-Arms and Lizard Man show up a second later; they were busy freeing Stratos and Battle Cat, who were both zapped into the Queen's dungeon). Tired of sitting on the sidelines, Skeletor and his crew bust in and goad Elmora into attacking He-Man. Unable to decide who is Skeletor and who is He-Man, she casts that photanium chain-magic we saw in the flashback, which causes both of them to be suddenly wrapped in chains. He-Man being He-Man, he is able to break free, but Skeletor is not. Problem solved.

He-Man then tells Skeletor to remove his spell on Elmora, or else he'll never get out of her magical chains. Skeletor meekly complies without a word, making her all young and attractive again. In response, He-Man frees him from the chains, thereby allowing him to escape. Ack! What was He-Man thinking? This is a guy responsible for numerous crimes on at least two planets, including kidnapping, racketeering, assault with a deadly weapon (he physically went after He-Man with that ram staff of his), sexual harassment (he kept calling Elmora "my beauty"; who knows what he did to her while she was under his control?), grand theft photanium, and irresponsible use of magic -- and that's all in this one episode. For heaven's sake, this guy needs to be locked up in a photanium body cell, He-Man!

That's pretty much it. Back on Eternia, Teela is forced to peel potatoes for disobeying Man-At-Arms's order to stay, they all have a good laugh, and He-Man wraps things up by delivering an irrelevant, saccharine little sermon about safety ("We should practice thinking of safety all the time. So don't take a chance. And that's true whether you're crossing a street, or driving a car. Think safety!") It's a pretty dull affair, but still peculiarly entertaining in the manner of all He-Man episodes: hilarious head-scratchers and oddball developments abound. I can do naught but recommend this episode, and indeed all Masters of the Universe episodes. This is incredible stuff.

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