He-Man Eternity War # 3

 By Mark Rodriguez

He-Man, She-Ra and the Sorceress had declared war on the Horde and stop them (or anyone else) from claiming the Eyes of Chrono and Chaos. What they don't know is that Skeletor already has the Eye of Chaos. He-Man led the Snake Men to take back Mount Zoar, thanks to Man-At-Arms and Roboto blowing up the Horde's Orbital Disrupter out in space (Man-At-Arms was wearing Roboto like Iron Man armor). Unfortunately, Roboto was caught in the blast and now they're both hurtling towards Eternia, burning up as they go against the planet's atmosphere.

Just like last issue dealt with He-Man's mission, this one deals with She-Ra's mission to retrieve the Eye of Chrono. She-Ra asks the Sorceress how she can do that when the Horde has tried for months but have failed to find it. The Sorceress explains that the gems were made of the same primordial lava that the jewel in her Power Sword does, so since they're linked, the gem will lead her to it. She-Ra asks Teela if she left anything else out that she should know, and Teela apologizes, saying that she is still new as the Sorceress and must now face her trial by fire.

She-Ra and Swift Wind head off to find the jewel and run into Vultak, a flying member of the Horde that swoops right at them with an arial army behind him. Stratos and his own army of soldiers on Wind Raiders join She-Ra in the fight. Catra and Scorpia see She-Ra and Stratos and argue over who's getting the glory of personally killing She-Ra.

She-Ra slices through one of the wings the Fighter Squadron that Catra and Scorpia are in, and they call for the gunship to aim all its turret guns at her. She-ra decides to fly right at the gunship to take it down. Stratos warns her to be careful and gets punches in the face by Vultak. She-Ra hacks the gunship in half. As it goes down in flames, Vultak commands a retreat to his men. Stratos now has his chance to return the sucker punch to the winged villain. He looks for She-Ra to see what happened to her.

She-Ra and Swift Wind land near where the gunship crash landed and detect that the Eye of Crono must be nearby. She-Ra stabs her sword into the ground and the jewel within it glows brightly. The sands start rising around her as an underground temple begins to rise. She-Ra determines that the Eye of Chrono must be inside, but before she can go there, Catra and Scorpia show up for some payback. The Horde Women are surprised that She-Ra calls them out by name, and she admits that they used to work together back when she was known as Despera.

The women lunge at her, now eager to kill her even more than before. She-Ra smacks Catra's face with the handle of her blade, and then dodges Scorpia's scorpion tail. She-Ra swings back, giving Scorpia a deadly slice, as well as hacking her tail off. Catra says she won't be as easy to deal with, and places her mask on, which turns her into a panther. In her new form she lunges out at She-Ra giving the Princess of Power some trouble. She-Ra uses her sword to blast Catra with lightning, knowing her back into her human form and taking her out of the fight.

Oh God! She-Ra cut Scorpia's tail off!!!

With Catra and Scorpia down, She-Ra says the Horde always underestimate her. Just then, Hordak arrives, or rather, the more powered-up version after using his own version of the Power Sword to gain the powers of Greyskull!!!

My opinions-

This issue was very exciting and it was a good trip down memory lane for fans of She-Ra. Especially for those that have always wanted to see She-Ra kick some actual ass instead of her just turning her sword into rope and tying everyone up or other silliness. When you see She-Ra hack Scorpia's tail off.... that's when you know she isn't your mother's She-Ra.

It's cool to see Vultak thrown into the mix. When it comes down to it, toywise, the Horde was never large in numbers. The He-Man line had Hordak, Mantenna, Leech, Grizzlor, Horde Troopers, Modulok and Multi-Bot. The She-Ra line only has Catra and Entrapta. Entrapta only had one figure while Catra got several variants. The She-Ra show would round out the cast but throwing in a few others like Scorpia, Octavia, Shadow Weaver, Tung Lashor, and Rattlor to round it out. Vultak is one of the cartoon original characters and this comic brought him back.

I do like that while most of the characters got a redesign here and there... Catra and Scorpia look pretty much the same how they've always looked without the need to modify their outfits or whatever. I liked that they kept the little rivalry between Catra and Scorpia over who gets to tell Hordak that they took out She-Ra. It was a nice touch and it reminded me of their spats from the old show.

Overall the comic was a good read, and while I'm curious about the fate of Man-At-Arms and Roboto, I'm now more anxious to see just how powerful Hordak has become... and what exactly She-Ra can do against him.

I also had to go back and find out that weird robot guy Mantenna was bossing around in the previous issue was an actual character from the show called Dylamug. Here's a shot with him and other Horde members.

DC really dug deep into the well of characters. I wonder if we'll ever see Blast-Attack as a member of the Snake Men.