Masters of the Universe- Rise of the Snake Men # 1

 By Mark Rodriguez

While the Snake Men came out too late in the toyline to make a proper appearance in the original He-Man and She-Ra shows in the 80's, the 2002 remake made sure to give the Snake Men a bigger introduction. The second season of the series would get renamed Master of the Universe VS The Snake Men and He-Man would even get new Snake Armor designed to help him fight this new threat. There was a three-issue mini series based on the first 2 episodes, so let's check them out. 

Rise of the Snake Men part 1 opens with the tale of The Void, a secret prison deep within Snake Mountain that contained The Snake Men, a race of warriors that ruled Eternia years ago. Kobra Kahn learned of his ancestors and tried to set them free. The combined forces of He-Man and Zodac prevented that from happening and sealed the void, hoping to have prevented the Snake Men from escaping. 

The Sorceress wakes up, having a nightmare of the Snake Men returning and destroying Castle Grayskull. She sets out to notify Prince Adam. Later on Man-At-Arms alerts the King and Queen about the looming threat of the Snake Men, despite the fact that they were sure He-Man and Zodac sealed the void before. They plan to see Skeletor, who would hate to deal with the Snake Men even less than they would and see if they can temporarily join forces. The King warns them to still be careful around Skeletor. Teela and Mekanek are ready to help and Stratos will offer air support.

Adam says he has some errands to run and Teela is angry that he always runs off when there's a threat. Man-At-Arms says Adam has his duties at the palace and they prepare to head off. Later on, Man-At-Arms has his troops ready, but he also has soldiers to prepare to protect the palace in case they don't return. From a safe distance away, Prince Adam pulls out his Power Sword and transforms into He-Man. 

He-Man is about to transform Cringer into Battle Cat when he notices that this time he's wearing new armor. The Sorceress appears as a vision telling him not to worry, this is new armor to protect him against the new upcoming threat. He-Man figures a little change is good and transforms Cringer into Battle Cat with his sword. They head off to join the others. 

Man-At-Arms and Teela lead the charge in their Jet Sleds and discuss how the Snake Men could return and how they must stop them permanently. Skeletor discovers that the heroes are headed towards them and tells his minions to capture Man-At-Arms and Teela and get rid of the rest. He then notices that Evil Lyn is missing.

Evil Lyn is in an aircraft flying with Kobra Khan and Rattlor as they head towards Zodac's domain to release the Snake Men. Evil Lyn wants her reward up front since she risks Skeletor finding out she betrayed him. Kobra Khan tells her King Hsss always rewards his allies and once he is free, Skeletor will no longer be a concern. There is a snow storm in the area they are flying in. Evil Lyn says that the storm along with their stealth engines will help them out. She will also raise a magic barrier so they can arrive undetected. 

The villains arrive and Rattlor says Zodac and his staff aren't there, so they were led to the wrong place. Evil Lyn says she detects a presence and suddenly Zodac appears and attacks them. He uses his staff to knock Kobra Khan and Rattlor back. Evil Lyn tells Zodac that it's 'three against one' and fires off a blast of electricity from her staff. Zodac manages to dodge it and throws his staff to knock Evil Lyn's staff out of her hands.

As the staff returns to Zodac, Kobra Khan gets behind him and fires off his sleeping gas. Zodac backflips away from it and smacks the Snake Man back with his staff. Rattlor wraps his tail around Zodac and slams him to the ground face-first, knocking him out. Evil Lyn says it's a shame he's not much of a talker, as she would like to have heard him scream before he dies. Rattlor says King Hsss will decide what to do with him. They already have his staff, which is the key they need. Evil Lyn asks what they should do with Zodac and Rattlor says King Hsss will make him pay for his past.

After the villains leave, Zodac gets up and make his hover chair materialize. He sits on it and flies off to the sky. 

Man-At-Arms and Teela are getting closer to Snake Mountain and determine that they must have been spotted already, so they should get ready to attack. Just then Mer Man and Whiplash fly out on their own aircrafts and start shooting at the heroes. Teela's Jet Sled is hit. Stratos is also hit and starts falling out of the sky. Man-At-Arms swoops in to catch him.

Whiplash leaps off his aircraft onto one of the jet sleds and takes out some of the soldiers. He then leaps onto Mer Man's aircraft as they both fly towards the soldiers. Whiplash has his tail out and he uses it to smash into two other soldiers with a clothesline attack. 

Mekanek leaps out of his Jet Sled before it explodes. He sees that Teela also crash-landed nearby and goes to make sure that she's alright. Man-At-Arms says they won't last much longer and must let Skeletor know that they come in peace. Skeletor arrives and tells them that it's too late. There can be no peace for those that trespass on Snake Mountain. Man-At-arms, Teela, Mekanek and Stratos find themselves surrounded by Skeletor's forces.

Kobra Kahn leads Rattlor towards The Void. They comment that it was easy to get past the guards and that Skeletor's forces are on alert about something. Rattlor warns Kobra Khan that Zodac's staff better work. Kobra Khan assures him he has researched everything he could about his ancestors and he knows the weaknesses of the elders that tried to seal them away. They find The Void intact and figured that Skeletor was too busy trying to rule Eternia he hadn't bothered to research the power within his own domain. Kobra Khan says Zodac's staff has the powers of the elders necessary to break the seal of The Void. Rattlor takes the staff and does it himself.

The Void is opened and King Hsss steps forth, followed by his Snake Men. The King declares that the Snake Men are free once more!

My thoughts- 

Like previously stated, the Snake Men arrived too late in the MOTU toyline lifespan to appear in the cartoons back in the day. The best they could do was have Rattlor and Tung Lashor appear on the She-Ra show as members of The Horde. When I heard they were going to bring them back for this show I was beyond excited. While some fans were disappointed they got to appear before The Horde, my mindset was that the Horde already had their chance and now it was the Snake Men's turn. Sure enough, the 2002 He-Man show would be the first time we'd see King Hiss (though this series spelled it King Hsss), Sssqueeze, and Snake Face in animated form. 

Kobra Khan was an interesting case as he was a snake-themed bad guy already working for Skeletor before the Snake Men became a concept. In the mini comics, they had him still stay loyal to Skeletor but pretend to work for King Hiss as a spy. 

In the 2002 show, Kobra Khan never officially worked for Skeletor beforehand but tries to convince him to take him in as a fellow henchman. As seen in the episode 'Snake Pit', this was just a ruse so that Kobra Khan would try to release the Snake Men from The Void right from under Skeletor's missing nose. As explained in this comic's flashback, He-Man and Zodac worked together to seal The Void, but Kobra Khan managed to at least free Rattlor and both of them got away. In this version of the series, Zodac lost his brother in his fight against King Hsss before, so he has a much more personal stake in this fight.

I also liked to mention that in the action figures, Kobra Khan was more a 'spitting cobra'. His action figure was pretty much a water gun. You could fill him with water and press down on his head to spray venom. In both the 80's Filmation He-Man and the 2002 reboot this translated into him spraying sleeping gas.

As for this comic, it has a pretty good start. There's a cool air battle between the Masters and Skeletor's men. Zodac gets to show off his skills and crazy speed before he eventually gets overpowered. Then we end it with King Hsss making his comeback. It's a pretty cool issue and the art is awesome. Let's not also forget that He-Man gets brand new armor, equipped to handle the Snake Men.

And speaking of He-Man's Snake Armor.... it's obviously going more for style (and selling toys) than actually being useful, seeing that half of his chest and his entire right arm is exposed. 

The comic really takes me back to 2002 back when the series was still new and on the air. Back to a time when I was checking out my local Walmart in Mexico looking for new figures. What will happen next? We'll find out next time.