He-Man The Eternity War #7-8

Welcome to The Pull Bag. Join us as we dig out

our latest comics and discuss them with a rotating

panel of the GCRN crew. So sit back and enjoy

this week's Pull Bag. The Powers of Grayskull

series will cover every episode of all four Masters

of the Universe cartoons. Join Optimus Solo and

myself, TF2 and Mike, as we tell tales of Eternia,

discover the myths of Etheria, become Masters

in space, and finally Masters of Grayskull. We'll

have a commentary on the Secret of the Sword

film and a few other special episodes. You can

find this 125 episode long podcast in iTunes

and on the web at GeekCastRadio .com. By the

power and honor of Grayskull, we all have the

power. I hope I didn't miss anything exciting.

Hello and welcome to The Pull Bag. This is Back

Issue Classics Issues or Episode... Wow, I can't

even talk tonight, folks. It's Episode 61 for

Back Issue Classics. I'm, of course, TF2 and

Mike. Joining me, as always, is my Skeletor.

Ah, good evening, Michael. What chance do you

have anything to eat? I'm nothing but skin and

bones. Yeah, no meat for you and apparently you're

your own head is on your staff. Yeah So Bag issue

classics episode 61 episode 59 we had myself

and Joe do Team and TV Bob and Rock City number

two episode 60 for baggage you classics you guys

would have heard Steve Megatron and I talking

about DC reboot I'm sorry rebirth number one

the one -shot setting up the rebirth universe

And now we are back to He -Man the Eternity War.

We're going to talk about issues seven and eight

tonight. Yeah, wow. Look at that cover for number

seven. Holy crap. They are tearing her apart.

She's being eviscerated by the souls of Aetherians

past. Yes. And Skeletor is just looking on like,

yeah, sorry. That's what you get for, you know,

screwing me over and, you know. Meh, I'm Skeletor.

This is what I do. Yep. Pretty much. Looks very

2000X. Yes, it does. Very much so, which is really

cool, too. Um... All's I can think of is... The,

uh... All's I can think of is, I'm sorry. This

is how the divorce was supposed to go. Alimony

for none. that's right so we start off issue

seven and the line between the light and the

dark hemispheres of Eternia which is interesting

and there's this giant forge looking volcano

place that has a bunch of rivets and it's gonna

Giant staircase in the center surrounded by lava

with a giant looks to be the barrel of a gun

It does circular barrel of certain guns. Don't

tell me it's a planet gun me Sad thing is I am

mogul So they are running up the stairs to this

this portal here And we see Skeletor in his full

glory. He actually has a face again. I mean,

we saw him have a face before in issue 6, I believe,

but we see him here and we get better looks at

Trapjaw and Beastman. The first thing right off

the bat I noticed was the artwork was different.

Yeah, issue 7. uh part seven uh master of death

the uh the penciler is edgar salazar the uh anchors

are jason garner with dennis friteres and rom

lean uh mark robert still on colors thank god

um But yeah, I don't know what it was with this

issue I don't know if it was they had this planned

or if pop needed a break or what the deal was

He was overridden with work. He was about to

pop Yes, you could say that So we have Skeletor

telling the story of the darkness and they're

basically trying to get to despondos And he tells

the story of how he used to he used the well

once before the well of darkness and we get Castle

Brightmoon I was not expecting to see Castle

Brightmoon nor was I expecting to see Skeletor

leading the Horde droopers Yeah, this is where

things get um Bloody convoluted Yeah, yeah, so

in this page you see him on top of a bunch of

Bright moon soldiers, but the weapons that he

seems to have in his hands are the demoman weapons

Mm -hmm Yeah, and then he's got Maybe that's

just an homage to demoman Having his weapons

in Skeletor's hands. I guess maybe that's the

only way they could get him into the series And

You know, the one thing is, I know you haven't,

but I have read to the end of this series and

I don't remember. I could be forgetting something

in issue 14 or 15, but this is the only time

we ever see Angela and we never see Glimmer or

Bo or any of the other Rebellion members to my

memory. I could be wrong though. So we have this

part of the story where Skeletor is basically

going to kill Queen Angela. And we go back to

the fright zone where He is reporting to Shadow

Weaver and basically essentially pledging his

love to her What do you think of the whole setup

here of Shadow Weaver and Skeletor being husband

and wife well, I mean They basically tiptoe around

the actual words I'm saying so How long has this

been going on for? This has never been mentioned

in the past issues, so... Oh, okay, because many

of us are led to believe that Evelyn is his gal

of choice. Yeah. But she defected to Hordak.

But this was seven years ago, so... Yeah, that's

true. Um... So he pledges himself to her and

then she touches his face it lights on fire not

really He goes to He supposedly goes to Hordak

but apparently Shadow Weaver is double -crossing

Skeletor because Hordak was listening the whole

time apparently Skeletor's betrayal is coming

back to bite him and we're back to Cuz like you

said, this is seven years ago. So this is back

before Hordak got freed from the blood of greyskull.

So he's back to his Morticia type look I guess

I don't know Tentacle dude, I I understand that

this series is tweaking with Chronology as we

know it but it you know seven years ago, but

Oh, right. Well, I assumed that once Skeletor

captures Adora and he kind of backstabs Hordak

in some way there, so it's been seven years plus

18 years, and then they mention at one point,

and this gets very confusing in the next couple

of pages. Yep. Do love the I do love the art

of seeing and it's an interesting twist to the

secret of the sword story I but I do love seeing

the art of of the Burger King with his burger

queen their burger twins I'm sorry anytime anyone

draws randor like the Burger King mascot. That's

what he is like damn it use filmation use 2000x

use anything well except for that new adventures

crap Elena, I love you. If you ought to marry

me, you shall be my burger queen, and we shall

swain upon all of eternity. Whoppers! Whoppers

for all! Whopper burritos for everybody, folks.

Apparently she's got a double whopper hanging

out inside her breadbasket. So, because Hordak

is showing Skeletor the future of the past or

whatever else, and then he gives him the staff,

a weapon, a powerful weapon. Now, this is what

I love about this issue and this series, specifically

to Skeletor's story, is how they explain the

powers of the Havoc staff. I thought that was

amazing. Poor Skeletor. He just can't get ahead

in life. In this case, his own. Mm. Pretty much.

So, yeah, he's given the Havoc staff and then

he touches it and he sees his past and his future

at the same time and... Yep. I think this is

really cool though, because, you know, it's essentially,

you know, kind of like how Tila, or I should

say... the goddess or the sorcerer or whatever

the hell she's called. The green chick showed

He -Man a future, you know. So I think this is

cool showing Skeletor's past and showing his

potential future because when I first saw the

panel... when he grabs the staff so it's the

it's panel where where hordex is agree but it

it has happened it must happen it will happen

again where where skeletor is just kind of cupping

the staff in his hands and then he grabs it and

it lights up and it's it's red and whatever else

and we get to the panels of of his past and then

we get to the bottom of that where he's touching

the staff again with some book of spells. And

the page, at least on Comixology, just opens

up is this giant splash page of past and I love

this. I'm so happy they did. This would make

an excellent screensaver seeing the Havoc staff

in motion and in power like this. I thought that

was awesome. And apparently Skeletor needs a

facelift. Is that the new adventure Skeletor

at the top right of the page? When he's on the

horse next to Shadow Weaver? No, I think that's

something completely different. Oh, okay. Come

here, Roman. So Skeletor gets his face basically

melted off and skulled out and... He basically

sees Hordak murder him essentially and sees that

Shadow Weaver has betrayed him And what's cool

about this is Skeletor is like, nope, I deny

this this is not happening. Goodbye Yeah, and

then Shadow Weaver shows up in Springs Despair

on which this is this is where I get a little

lost So he's shown the future, and in one of

the blurbs, in his future he's to capture Adora.

Now here's Adora, fully grown, but he's not...

Was his mind just warped to the future? What?

Yeah, I don't know. I think... Well, no. Okay,

looking at this again, he... He says what what

did I just see my future? Because in his future

it's basically his his death and in the panel

where it's him and Shadow Weaver on horseback

There is no Desparo with them. So What I can

only conclude is that the past and the future

he just saw was him stealing her giving her to

hordak and then hordak betraying him and then

we go back to the seven years ago timeline okay

so because this is seven years from the current

events seven years previous to the current events

this is shadow weaver in real time seven years

ago from the point of when the story is taking

place now so this is before she got freed of

hordak and shadow weaver Does it make any sense?

Uh, no. So did at some point they just erase

the memory of Adora from him to somehow make

him pledge his loyalties with more strength behind

it or? Yeah, it must have been. I don't remember.

It's time travel, folks. Yeah, I think they really

should have streamlined this. Yeah. Yup. So,

Hordak tries to kill him, and Skeletor does not

allow that to happen. They have this really,

really weird and tangled fight, and this is one

of the reasons why I hate this Hordak design,

is because it looks like a giant friggin' octopus

during the battle. It just and then he brings

in all the souls and everything else and looks

like cyber Wishmaster or something like that.

Yeah Yeah, pretty much So Skeletor attempts to

Change his destiny and he runs through a portal

And this is where Hordak says, she must not know

him as a father. So basically where the memory

erase happens isn't to Skeletor, it happens to

Despara. So there's that. We go back to the Temple

of Darkness or the Valley of Dark, whatever the

hell it's called. And there's this giant portal

opening up and they end up going to despondos

and She acts Shira in the present actually calls

him father, which is kind of weird and creepy

and I guess she regained memory of things once

she broke the dispara spell So he says get ready

and he says Despondos awaits. Hordak should have

never given me the key. And of course the key

is his own Havok staff, and we end on a 2B continued.

I really like this issue simply because it's

giving so much... As convoluted as it is, it's

giving so much more character depth to Skeletor

than what we've already had at this point. It's

adding so much... To his character and that's

what I really loved about issue seven. What did

you like or not like about issue seven? I mean,

yes, it's very convoluted. So I just tried to

pick the certain Bullet points that I could out

of this so I could move forward with some of

the information to continue to the next episode

Yeah, it's issue seven is and this is again my

complaint For this seat for he man the attorney

war specifically We talked about this and what

issues three and four Yeah in the episode where

we talked about issues three and four how disjointed

they seemed because you had two issues focusing

on two different parts of the rebellion or whatever

you want to call them. You have the He -Man part

in issue three and then you have the She -Ra

part in issue four. And again, you know, issues

five and six, they melded together very well.

It was one almost fluid, long story. And then

you have this issue, issue seven. And then going

into issue 8, it goes back to He -Man and the

war on Eternia. We run into Fisto, we run into

all the Snakemen, and all this and all that.

And it's just so... I wish, you know, and this

is one thing that, you know, I kind of mark against

the whole series at this point, is the stories

either need to be so connected as if they're

almost one between chapters... Or they need to

be one -shot adventures. Pick one. Don't sit

here and mess with us. Yeah, it does keep flip

-flopping, but this is the one issue that cements

that. Because so far, everything you had said,

I could still deal with that, but then you throw

this into the game and it's... Yeah. I'm on your

boat. It's time travel. Yeah. So we open up issue

eight. And we get the war on Eternia. We see

Fisto, we see a whole bunch of snake men. We

see Octavia, of all people. She's got a toy now,

so I guess that's one thing. She got a toy, throw

her in a comet. Why not? So we get this giant

thing here. And the good thing about this issue

is that Pop is back as the artist with Mark on

Colors. I didn't dislike the art in issue seven.

It wasn't a jarring change from Pop's art. I

just think Pop's art is more polished than...

Yeah, with Pop's art, I feel the design for each

individual character, you can, despite like colors

and whatnot, they're distinguishable in body

size and stature. In that issue, everyone kind

of had the same feel to them, so they didn't

stand out as much. Yep, so we have cuz you remember

last time Adam basically Through the sword in

the the abyss or whatever the problem with power.

Yeah, so he's King Adam now. He's not he man

anymore And we have all of the attorney in guards

all the palace guard you know, it's like hey,

it's an army builder Which one Scott Knight like?

Yeah, really? That's right um and adam has this

weird trap jaw looking gatlin gun yeah at first

before i read the the bubbles and whatnot i was

thinking is that was the same darious or something

from new adventures because he has a similar

color scheme but no no it's it's king adam in

some weird looking thing but he looks much older

than he does in later panels in that shot Yeah,

well this cuz we find out that this is a dream

Cuz he says Sire your orders Who's that man man,

sir? He's right there soldier and then we see

a a Snowman make the king a Burger King Yeah,

it's a it's a zombified snake version Barbie.

This is what happened when he's a Big Mac I almost

said Barbie King, wow. Jesus Christ. Burger King,

yes. And we run to the fact that it was a dream.

The only thing I think that is a misstep on this

is that Battle Cat is not in his garb. When he's

not in his garb, he needs to be called Cringer,

you asshats. I mean, Adam's called Adam when

he's not He -Man. But I do like seeing Cringer

here. I think that's absolutely awesome, seeing

him as Cringer and not seeing him as Battle Cat.

Thank God he got the gold flakes off him. So

the dream that he has, was that a dream or was

that more of a vision? I think it was a dream,

but I think it could also... I don't know, the

end of it, the zombified, red -eyed Burger King

randor, I think is basically them trying to plant

a seed of what's going to happen to Adam in the

future. Because it seems like they're battling

for Eternos, and then there's the bubble when

he wakes up that says Eternos the day after the

Liberation. Well, wasn't that dream just the

liberation or something like that? Yeah, I don't

know, it's... Yeah, and then the dream, the snake

then seemed to be following Fisto loyally. And

then outside of the dream, they seem to be disobeying

him pretty easily. Yeah. The coolest thing for

me out of this issue is seeing good old little

imp. Out of all the small characters in She -Ra,

Imp is probably my favorite, not counting Madame

Raz and Broom. He looks so pitiful. Yes, he does,

doesn't he? So they're going to execute him.

And Fisto comes up, and this is where you're

basically saying that Fisto is basically, they're

not gonna follow him until he mentions that,

damn you, you know who I speak for, him? Pearson

gays, Pearson gays. Yep. We get Adam and Tila

talking back and forth, and... This is where

I think that they're basically trying to lay

the seeds of hey guess what? That's not really

Adam It is but it isn't He starts coughing and

choking and Becomes ill or supposedly and whatever

else and you know that zombified randor kind

of reminds me of of King Hiss and King Hiss did

take over randor's body in the in previous in

the previous series so I hate to say it but I

think they're gonna you know rinse lather repeat

yeah I didn't think that at first I just thought

it was maybe the Well, I didn't think that at

first either, until he starts, until Adam, you

know, he's coughing, he's grabbing the thing

off the wall, and he's covering up, and like,

and then she hands him the sword. Like, oh, okay,

the sword, great. Look, I tried to break, get

rid of this, and here you are handing it to me

again. God, yeah. So we go back to Castle Hordak,

I mean Castle Grayskull. Shouldn't it technically

be called castle pink skull since that's pink

coloring now And we have 2011 thundercats mom,

I'm sorry hordak Going in and he's going to the

forge and they are Evelyn has the eyes They are

prepared uh... known for access is everything

prepared in the inch and they say the eyes of

grace call our prime lord the next panelist let

he says let them let the hammer fall also i can

think of is where the hell is robert of all because

for that just turned into talkers from days of

thunder i'm dropping the hammer no you are not

you know that he is a hidden boombox ready to

play empty hammer minister So We have that we

then go to the despondos the vault of souls war

eternal and We have skeletor flux capacity in

their way in and He is basically going to steal

a bunch of souls to fight hordak And in this,

he betrays his niece, and... Seeks adoptive daughter?

Who knows anymore! Yep. And apparently he found

her locket and basically throws it towards the

souls, which then grab her and he says... Didn't

I warn you to stay back? I didn't take all the

souls. I left the ones that Desphara delivered

to Hordak personally. More than enough revenge

to go around. Goodbye. Goodbye. Uh, Skeletor,

you creepy creepy bastard. So I'm sure, uh, Adora

will have to fight her way out of hell or something

like that in a future issue. Uh huh. Well part

of the thing is hordak is trying to find I think

they mention it in this issue I think it could

be wrong He's trying to find the crystal castle.

Okay So There's that I do love the panel where

or it opens back up to grayscale and where he

starts his his little speech citizens of Eternia

Here in the voice of Hordak, I love the full

-on panel shot of Castle Hordak. That looks so

cool, especially with all the planets behind

it. Yeah, it's pretty commanding. Yes, very awesome.

So he has his speech and basically says, you

call yourselves masters of the universe, now

you will learn the true meaning of the words.

yeah the backgrounds pops backgrounds the colors

i mean the palace of attorney has never looked

so good in comics yeah it's it's pretty stunning

i'm digging it and he basically shows them a

future of how they eventually went to the world

of primus and i'm like wait yeah this is this

is kinda cool yeah why are they bringing transformers

into this anyway uh... So they show the world

of Primus and they show how everyone's you know

Future children grandchildren. I mean you look

at the one panel where he says the memory of

Hordak has faded from their minds in that panel

you have Someone that kind of resembles Tila.

Well, it's master Sabrian flip shot hydron Mara

Drissy and her brother and two of the robot Characters

are all new adventure characters. Yeah so I like

that they worked in the new adventure characters

and as soon as I saw the Is it it's not real

blast in the blue in the back, right? That's

flip shot. Oh, it's flip. Okay flip shot. Yeah

As soon as I saw that I'm like, hey, it's it's

Mechaneck, but I didn't realize no, it's not

Mechaneck. Oh He might be a snake man people

So we go back to the castle it's starting to

activate and By the power of gray skull. He basically

Made Primus go Krypton boom. He pulls an episode

7 People Grand Leader, whatever his name is,

Snoke Snake, it's not Grand Moff Tarkin. Get

over it, people. I never heard anyone say it

was Tarkin. Oh god, there's so many rumors saying

that. I hear everyone saying it's, um... Plagueous.

Oh. Eh. So... Hordak destroyed a world and we

have a giant horde face in the sky. There is

no escape from Hordak. The past, the present,

the future. I can reach you anywhere. I have

Castle Grayskull. I have the eyes of Grayskull.

Surrender, King Adam. I am master of the universe.

Yeah, it's like he has control over everything

at this point, almost as if he has an Infinity

Gauntlet. So he, oh, I'm gonna present your future.

I'm gonna trans place or whatever word I'm thinking

of your future above you and then blow it up

So your future never happens Yep It's crazy is

what it is folks it really really is crazy So

yeah issues seven and eight like I said before

we're back to disjointed stories now I'm wondering

where issues five six and seven meant to be a

a trilogy part of the story like should we have

reviewed these should we have reviewed issue

seven with issues five and six because it seems

like between seven and eight it seems like seven

is ending part of the story while eight is beginning

of Hordak's new age of destruction Well what

I'm noticing I'm reading these issues Before

we record individually, you know in the right

individually Unless you're reading like the whole

batch at one time like a paperback of this You

have to go back and keep trying to see through

things. Yeah Yeah, I mean I read them You know

the day of the you know, usually when we record

I reread them the day that we record Just a ref,

you know as a refresher, but rereading them again.

It's like I You know, like I said before I like

issue 7 for the the character development of

Skeletor and what it adds to that and then Then

we get the disjointedness of hey, let's let's

go back to the war So we had all this stuff with

Skeletor and all his stuff and that's kind of

done now So let's go back to he man and everybody

else and the war and let's you know leave You

know tried so hard to get past a certain stepping

stone in the story and then you go back to it

Yep Pretty much Issue seven, I'll give a four

out of five. I really dug it as an individual

issue, as an individual story, you know, with

Skeletor's stuff and all that. Issue eight, I'm

probably gonna give a two because it just...

I love the art. The pops art, marks colors, absolutely

love that. If I was rating the writing separate

from the art, the art would probably get a five

because the art's amazing, but The writing is

just so disjointed. It's getting a little frustrating.

I've certainly enjoyed eight more than seven.

I think if I've gone back and just read everything

through up to eight, it'd make a little more

sense. But I think right now seven I'd give maybe

a two and a half and this a three and a half.

Okay. All right. Yeah, that's I don't know I

just I remember when they are initially said

all the 2013 series is gonna wrap up and we're

gonna start a new series and It's going to be

a love letter to the entire mode to fandom and

the franchise and it really has been I mean if

you really look at several parts of each issue

they've paid homage to almost every aspect of

the Masters universe whether it's the the classic

comics, whether it's filmation, whether it's

whatever, you know, new adventures, all that.

So they have paid homage to all this stuff, but

at the same time with Skeletor and She -Ra on

one end of the story and He -Man and Tila and

everybody else on the other end... I hate to

keep saying it, but... It's just so disjointed

and I can't wait until it gets to the point where

they're all back together fighting on, you know,

each side is fighting each other wholly, not

so separate quest -like things. Last thing we

need is Haji to show up. That's He -Man, The

Eternity War, numbers 7 and 8. How we're going

to do this through the rest of the series. There's

only 15 issues to this series, folks, so we're

going to... I don't know when the next episode

of this will be, but how we're going to do this

is issues 9 and 10 will be a podcast, issues

11 to 13 will be a podcast, and then issues 14

and 15, which will be the finale, will be the

final podcast, and then... Sadly, there's no

more He -Man after that. What do you mean? There's

no more He -Mans? There's always gotta be a He

-Man. It's gone. It's dead. You know what would

be awesome is if DC Comics would, you know, give

the license to IDW because that would just be

great. But I sadly think that will happen. You

never know. Wishful thinking. Dark Horse is still

putting out the uh... The mid collection and

then I guess what's up early next year. It's

the Newspaper strip book. Yeah, you know And

then they've also got the complete film nation

animated guide and coming in August. Yeah Where

was that four years ago when I started powers

of grayskull with my buddy optimus solo talk

reviewing every episode of he man? God So, what

do you got coming up? You got any Skeletor Joker

convention appearances coming up? Not in the

immediate future. However, it hasn't been officially

announced in November I will be taking part in

a smaller convention in Delaware And I don't

want to give away too much, but I am going to

be doing a 25 minute doom live performance Cool

once that gets more more behind it, I'll start

leaking exactly what I'm doing. I'm very excited

for it. Awesome, awesome. Last time we talked,

you were heading to one of your convention things.

I think it was this joke or what happened at

that one? Unfortunately, I was not able to make

it due to a personal emergency. Oh, jeez. Yeah,

everything's fine. That's good. However, what

I heard... It wasn't as good as I had hoped.

The first year they had a lot of voice actor

guests and I was really hyped about that, but

this year their guest list was miniscule and

people told me it wasn't that great of a time.

Dang dang dang. That sucks. Alright folks, so

we've had... Turtles DC and he man we got more

turtles coming up with bebop and rocks to destroy

everything number three. Oh Boy those time -traveling

means geez So where can the people find you online

if they would like to Primarily Facebook Instagram.

I don't do too much Twitter. I'm all My friend

Brandon the Dabadon Christopher and I have started

our own podcast the pop culture podcast pop culture

clash podcast Which we have finally gotten set

up on iTunes so you can find it by searching

pop culture clash podcast Awesome. Awesome. All

right, make your greatest game in the comics

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