The Monster Within, Roboto’s Gambit, and Trust

This is Man at Arms and you are listening to

the Masters of Grayskull. Thank you Mr. Gary

Chalk as Man at Arms from the 2002 He -Man and

the Masters Universe cartoon series for giving

us that promo. I'm of course TFG and Mike joining

me is Optimus Solo. Hello sir. Hello. We just

want to put this at the beginning of every episode

for... Masters of grayskull we dedicate every

single episode of this to the memory of Dean

Stefan Dean who is the writer storyboard art

and not storyboard story editor all that kind

of stuff on the 2002 he -man series passed away

May 15th of 2018 and Not only are we doing this

because we're finishing our powers of grayskull

series podcast We're also I feel at this point

doing this in the memory of him because the stories

that he helped Create and build for the series

it Revitalized the mo to franchise in my personal

opinion. Yeah, absolutely It's unfortunate that

we didn't have a chance to ever talk to him before

the show, but we can at least remember him as

we move forward Absolutely, and now on with the

show. I am Adam Prince of Eternia Defender of

the secrets of Castle Grayskull. This is Cringer

my fearless friend fabulous Hello, this is optimus

solo and welcome to the 113th chapter in our

powers of grayskull series With me for this journey

into the masters of the universe franchise as

he is every other chapter is to you and Mike

hello Every other chapter, so I'm only on the

odd ones now. You are an odd one So that would

be fitting but you know, I am brain damaged.

That's true and it's finally proven Are you ready

to return to eternity? Yes All right, well in

this episode of Masters of Grayskull, we'll be

giving you our thoughts on the next three episodes

of the series, which is episode 16, The Monster

Within, episode 17, Roboto's Gambit, and episode

18, Trust, something I don't do with you. So

we hope you're ready, because it's time to go

back to Eternia. At least you remembered the

episodes this time. Shut up. Hey, not my fault

you forgot. Don't make me. Don't make me reveal

The Monster Within. No, please. What? You're

really Pizza the Hut? Okay, then. I sure as hell

am not your metal sidekick. Keep telling yourself

that. No, you're Barf. Hey, Barf was pretty famous.

I can live with that. I'll be a Mog. We're all

Mogs. No, this is Pogs. It's Mog! I should have

tried this a long time ago. First up today is

episode 16, The Monster Within, airdate of December

27th, 2002. That means it's the last episode

of 2002, written by Larry Dottilio. During a

battle with the evil warriors, Maniface's monster

guys is taken control of by Beastman, resulting

in feelings of self -doubt for the hero. Now

this brings up a good point, Mike, that I want

to get your thoughts on. Beastman can control

animals and beasts and stuff like that Manny

faces one of his is a monster like beast why

have we not thought of this before and Beastman

finally decides to take control when he's that

character. I don't know Yeah, I mean it makes

perfect sense. It does make perfect sense, but

I don't know I mean generally Beastman doesn't

have a Decent brain cell in his body. I mean

he's got squirrels running around wheels up there

So this is like you know his you know This is

like well beast man had a good idea. Well. He's

do Just like whiplash the other day exactly so

i mean i like this a many face centric episode

we get to the we not only get character development

with many faces and get to learn all about his

different personalities and kind of the strengths

and weaknesses of each one but we also get an

origin here because we're gonna get introduced

into a new characters character characters uh...

that we see towards the end of the episode which

will get into a second but first off I just gotta

say, Manny Faces is one of my favorite characters.

He never got the time or the attention in the

filmation that I thought he deserved, and here

he gets an episode all to himself, and I just

put down, Manny Faces is such a badass. I love,

so he's got... the three different personalities,

right? We have the robotic person that can do

all the scanning and logical thinking, et cetera.

We got the monster, which is just brute strength

and bad -assery. And then we got the actual human

-like persona, which is more about him being

an actor. A thespian so to speak and that he

you know, he's had this history of acting Which

helps because he can put on these different faces

and do different parts and whatnot But you get

that more when he's the human portion of of his

faces And I love that they add an acting subplot

here as to him pulling the wool over their eyes

because he's acting the whole time like he is

being controlled when he isn't um towards the

end so i i just like how they pull out the various

personalities and what skill sets go with those

personalities yeah absolutely incompetent morons

the emerald of orcas island would have allowed

me to unleash an unstoppable assault upon castle

greyskull if he man hadn't shown up He -Man always

shows up, you fool. And it's obvious none of

you are capable of eliminating him. Time to find

someone who can. What I need are specialists.

Creatures who are ruthless, cunning, and expert

at destruction. Bounty hunters. I know two who'd

be perfect. Either one of them could take on

He -Man. So on top of that we get introduced

to Tuvar and Badra Two bounty hunters that I

believe was a whiplash that brought them in.

Yeah So whiplash decides to bring in Tuvar and

Badger because Skeletor is complaining about

his evil warriors not being able to get the job

done So these are two different bounty hunters

that are gonna come in and Skeletor wants them

both to go after He -Man and capture him, but

they have a problem with that because as most

bounty hunters, they don't work in pairs. They

work alone So they eventually are stepping all

over each other's toes and then making it so

that they can't succeed because they're Each

wanted to do it their own way and just to have

the capture etc. So that caused some problems

Which is going to result in them? Basically coming

before Skeletor at the end and getting punished.

Oh Yeah, they get punished. All right And what

happens to that Mike? They get magified where

they are basically conjoined twins. So Tuvar

and Badra become two bad. Like we mentioned,

two bad was supposed to be in the first episode,

but they decided to hold off on it so they could

do that here. So we get to see how they were

formed together. And another thing, we get to

see a little bit more of their personality as

to how they were when they were apart. So that

adds to the depth of that character once it becomes

like a two -headed monster. Tuvar had like a

badass bounty hunter look, by the way. If you

want to see it, it's at BehindTheVoiceActors

.com. I captured an image of just Tuvar and just

Badra separately, as well as when they're together.

And he has like a little bounty hunter mask type

thing on. It looks like he's right out of Star

Wars. Yeah, it does. So what's there not to like?

You get too bad, you get manly faces. this is

a kick -ass episode yes very much is it's one

of those episodes where i'm glad that too bad

was not in the opening three parter because look

i still have questions about trap jaw okay like

like he was you know this one person beforehand

i think i believe his name was chronos i could

be wrong yeah yeah um like he looks normal in

the beginning but something happens between then

and when we see him next so I'm still wondering

you know after all those years passed from that

first battle when Skeletor's you know face got

melted off what the hell happened to Trapjaw

so I pretty sure we don't get an episode explaining

that but if we that would have been cool yeah

Agree like I'm glad that they didn't do that

same thing with too bad just have them thrown

in there and then not explain it So I like how

they did it here. I like everything about this

episode So yeah, this episode is really cool

anything specific else that you wanted to point

out that was good or bad Manny faces gets a power

sword for me. I think he's a badass I was gonna

give two iron badger one, but I guess in the

end they fail and they get joined together So

I'm not gonna reward them for that But I'm at

a four and a half on this one. What about you?

I'll give one to Manny Faces, one to He -Man

and Skeletor, as always. Five. I absolutely loved

it. I thought it was great. It was so much in

-depth storytelling. You know how we always complain,

or we have complained in the past, at least ever

since 2007 in Spider -Man 3? Don't put too many

villains or don't put too many characters in

a film or whatever. And sometimes when that happens,

one side gets more attention than the other.

This had equal amounts all around. You had building

for Manny Faces. You had this whole thing with

him on the opposite side of it because it tied

together with his story. You have the too bad

part and it worked so well. So yeah, five out

of five. All right, yeah a great way to start

and basically if you take this episode you take

last week's last episode which was the cyclone

episode and then you take what we're about to

talk to with the Roboto's Gambit like I don't

know if you can get a better back -to -back -to

-back episode stretch we'll see that's three

great episodes in a row so we're gonna take a

break and we'll talk about the third of those

that I was just mentioning Roboto's Gambit. to

Emperor D3. It is your move. Cleric to Paladin

B8. Excellent move, Roboto. Thank you. And thank

you for building Roboto for me, Man -At -Arms.

I thought you needed a worthy opponent. He means

unlike the rest of us. Alright, next up is episode

17, Roboto's Gambit. Airdate of March 1st, 2003,

written by Michael Reeves. When Triclops attempts

to conquer Eternia with a multiplying force of

minions, only a chest plane robot can devise

a plan to stop it. What do you think about this

one, Mike? I like this one. I think it's interesting.

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but sadly

I'm very much like Tila. Oh God, what the hell

is happening to me? Because once I have my mindset

on something, it's like move forward, don't stop.

It's bad sometimes. Roboto is introduced, yay,

plus triclops. A full on triclops thing where

it's just him doing his thing. In filmation,

triclops was not around very much. Where is here?

He's you know, one of the main evil warriors

that's always around Well, we don't always get

to see too much of what he does and here we see

that like he has this idea that Skeletor doesn't

think is gonna work and It does work for a while.

He honestly I probably gets more time that up

to this point at least he's gotten more time

than Beastman It's literally Skeletor Evil in

and then triclops probably for the most time

So yeah, I do like that and Roboto. It's very

cool again. We don't just get to see him in full

form it see how he comes about the origin is

cool uh... you know how eventually is just a

game plan robot for the likes of many faces when

he's in his robot mode to play against her stuff

like that uh... but that he is able to kind of

overcome that and almost become a sentient being

i guess uh... and and help think out how they're

going to do this because basically what we have

here is these bone monsters uh... once you defeat

one of them they multiply so every time you feed

on the become more and more and more and more

skeletor didn't want to use in track that's what

i was on to use them uh... so it's uh... it's

very interesting to see how that kind of goes

back and forth i like the build of these characters

uh... and i like that the last few episodes i

i'm gonna go all the way back to your life are

these episodes almost feel like they're Somehow

packing way more than you expect into a half

-hour episode. Oh, yeah, they feel like a multi

-parter. They feel like almost a mini movie There's

a lot that they're doing with these episodes

lately where it doesn't just feel like filler

It feels like man that was like I just watched

an hour -long You know episode or something like

that and it's only 20 some minutes. So I like

what they've been doing with that isn't I guess

my one gripe here Isn't Tila supposed to be the

military like -minded person through all of this

franchise? It definitely was in filmation You

know her along with man -at -arms are in charge

of the troops. They're in charge of the army.

They're training people they're doing all this

stuff and they like flip the script on this episode

which was kind of odd because Tila is the one

that's opposing and Instead of Adam like usually

it's Adam that's like I'm not gonna listen or

I'm absent minded or I'm playing a part whatever

he's doing whether it's intentional or unintentional

and Tila is the one that obeys orders, you know

respects command chains and all that type of

stuff and she's being a little kind of a Little

you know what like take cyclones advice here

So that was kind of weird, but that's really

my only nitpick so I love this episode. I I like

getting to see Roboto as well He is not as I

don't love him as much as I like like Manny faces

and cyclone which we've seen in the previous

two episodes But I still think it's a cool episode

with him. So I'm still at a four and a half Yeah,

I'm at a three and a half and I gave power source

track Clops Roboto and he man Strength is not

always the key remember The reed bends before

the wind, while the brittle branch snaps in two.

Uh, right, Cyclone. All I'm saying is, one must

be less rigid in approaching a problem, more

flexible of mind. Whatever. That's Tila, inflexible.

I'll show you inflexible. The Tila stuff like

this is briefly reminds me of old Filmation Tila

Which is not a good thing like you said it should

be the other way around where like Adam is kind

of a flaky one, but They have to do something

to mix it up. I guess Yeah, I think and I might

even be persuaded to go down to a four at some

point But I think the only thing that bugs me

is I think they mischaracterized Tila a little

bit but I think what this one is missing that

the other ones had a little bit better is The

fact that the villains and the other ones we

had too bad and then we had no villain necessarily

It was just more of a three -way standoff with

skeleton human and cyclone in the previous episode

and then in this episode Yes, you get trapped

on or triclapse. Excuse me, and I do enjoy that

But the main thing that they're fighting is just

these like detailless bone monsters which keep

multiplying, which it's nothing to get excited

about. I mean, it's an interesting, formidable

foe that you got to figure out how are they going

to manage this? How are they going to combat

this? But because there's so many of them, they

lose a little bit of their like character. Yeah,

so that's like my only nitpick, but I don't know

how what they would have done to combat that

so So that's still a good episode. We've been

in our run of good episodes. Let's see if that

can continue with our last episode We're gonna

take a break and we're gonna see if we can trust

episode 18 Very well, but your weapon stays with

me All right, last up today guys is episode 18

trust air date March 18 8th 8th 2003 Written

by William Forrest clavarius We've had him once

before in an effort to strengthen the master

defenses Stratos journeys to the ice mountains

to retrieve a rare metal called a turnium and

while he's there he gets trapped with trap jobs

this is a trap job and straddles centric episode

what do you think i like it i thought it was

interesting uh... it's just one of those things

that that again pairing certain masters up with

certain evil warriors and seeing how they're

going to interact with each other obviously you

know good is good evil is evil there's there's

no you know going back and forth for that but

I thought it was interesting again seeing the

ice mountains someplace we haven't seen before

As soon as I saw He -Man's new outfit, I was

like, hey, it's Arctic He -Man. Years ago, there

was an Arctic Batman action figure where it was

basically the same thing. You put him in ice

blue type of clothing, color, armor, stuff. And

I'm like, when's Batman going to show up? we

we've got like as alluded to before the next

last week uh... you know we've got a voice from

the past not too distant past uh... here in this

which will talk about him a while but uh... i

like it but it was interesting uh... especially

with you know the lesson of you know You know

trust is earned by the deeds that you do not

the words that you say. Yep That's definitely

a good lesson. I think my favorite part about

this episode is that they actually show Breaking

prisoners out of the of the Royal Palace of the

jail I love that because too many times in series

we have bad guys that are captured at the end

of an episode or villains that are captured at

one point in the series and then all of a sudden

they're just right back with the bad guys and

it doesn't show how that happened. So I like

that they're actually showing that they are breaking

whatever it was merman and whoever out of jail.

So I think that's a nice touch. coal attacks

was a cool species that they come into contact

with uh... in this ice area uh... and it's interesting

isolating trap john strados and then kinda doing

the thing where they're both trying to play up

to the coal attacks who's good and who's not

good almost like they're when there's like a

clone of somebody but in this case just two different

people but they're both trying to act like they're

the good guys the storm in the ice mountains

has gotten worse descending a rescue team would

only be putting more lives in danger Well, we

have to do something. Hey, I think I just saw

He -Man pass by. Keep trying to reach Stratos.

Right. I think the main problem with this episode,

for me, is that it came after the Battle of Anagar,

The Monster Within, and Roboto's Gambit. Oh,

really? Those were three great episodes, and

if you put this episode in the middle of the

new adventures of He -Man, it'd be like the best

episode of the series. So, I mean, if you put

this episode in, even probably in the filmation

series, it's probably one of the better episodes.

But here, coming off the heels of those three

episodes, for me, it was a little bit of a letdown

and a little boring. I didn't get the same movie

-esque feeling that I did from the last three

episodes. So, I still think it's good. It's just

not as crazy good as the last three episodes

were for me. I don't know what you think about

that. I mean, I like that they're kind of going

after this Atterneum. Kind of reminds me of,

you know, Fundrilium and Fundranium from another

certain series that we love. But I think that's

cool. I think, you know, they have to find something

new to obviously fight Skeletor's Evil kind of

a thing, because what they're using now is working,

but it's not working that well. At the same time,

you have not as much character development. Right.

And while we do get introduced to these new things,

and while it's awesome that the former Skeletor,

Campbell Lane, got to be the voice of the lead

guy, that's all well and good. But are these

characters... We've been introduced to so much

already to this point of the series. We're 18

episodes in out of the 39, 38, 39 that there

are. Are we going to see any of the like the

Adrenids and the Avians? Yes, we'll see because

Buzz off and Stratos are part of the Masters

now But like chief carnivous any of the other

characters that we come along the way like the

one where you know They had to you know had to

have the peace talks and all that and everything

like are we gonna see any of these people again

like that's my kind of worry about it because

they're just introducing stuff right at the same

time i still trust in them because they've proven

to me every cartoon i've watched that there isn't

many things that i can nitpick out of it true

Yeah, but you are right that they are introducing

a lot of different species in a lot of different

areas so having some connection would be good,

so it doesn't just feel like a visit of the week

to a random spot in Eternia that we don't know

exists. Cold weather clothing He -Man wears in

the Mystic Mountains is based on the Ice Armor

He -Man action figure released in 2003 by Mattel,

so we got that. There's another reason Eternium

should sound familiar to you because it was a

plot device in the Double -Edged Sword Filmation

episode back in 1983, so we did see that once

before. in this franchise. And then, of course,

like you mentioned, the best voice from the New

Adventures of He -Man, Campbell Lane, as Skeletor,

turns to be the elder Kul 'atak. So that was

a cool scene. And like I said, the Kul 'atak

species was cool. They actually combine polar

bears and werewolves to try to make up that species.

So that's kind of where their look comes from.

Not a bad episode. For me, just a little step

down from what we've been seeing, but I'm still

not complaining. As long as Campbell Lane doesn't

bring the rest of the new adventures in here,

we're gonna be alright. I don't think he will.

What about staffs, power swords, or radians for

this one? I didn't hand anything out this time.

Yeah, I didn't have anything out either, and

for rating, in the middle of the road, I got

a three on this one. I'm gonna three and a half.

All right. So pretty good series of episodes.

I think the first one a week ago and then this

last one was about the only two that were not

at least getting a four from somebody. So that

means that there was four pretty solid episodes

in a row. So we're doing well here. We're at

what episode 18. So of the series, it's almost

almost halfway. Yep. One more episode and we're

halfway point, I guess. So good start so far.

I do remember a lot of other cool things happening.

So I'm waiting for those episodes. Absolutely.

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oh. Uh oh. For now, I am TF2 and Mike with...

Optimus Solo. By the power and for the honor

of Grayskull, we have the power. You've got the

power! Adam, aren't you... I guess not.