Ladybird Books, £0.75, ISBN 0-7214-0810-9
Fantasy, 1983

“Oh!” you may be thinking, “this is a new low. Seriously?”

Come on, it’s a COVID-19 party where I am, and my anxiety levels are up again. I’m staying in the house for the better part of every day, and I need something novel yet fun to keep the brain going without taxing it too much. What’s better than to take a trip down happy valley with my favorite animated beefcake He-Man?

Okay, the Masters of the Universe series from Ladybird Books is somewhat different from the 1980s cartoon in the sense that it’s even more simplified, believe it or not. The plot is even more linear, for one, and even better, there is no wretched Orko. Orko sucks and deserves to be obliterated with extreme prejudice. On the bright side, this is a book, so one can read at a regular pace instead of having to hold one’s breath as the characters in the cartoon… speak… so… slowly… and the illustrations here capture perfectly the cheesy charm of the characters’ looks and designs.

Okay, A Trap for He-Man. It’s the first book in the series, and it’s written by the late John Grant, who had stamped his name on the inside front page of many, many things. Mr Grant played with stories of his own creation, as well as stories based on other people’s creations, and the latter is something he didn’t always do with grace much (ahem). This one, though, doesn’t have much of a plot, but then again, I can’t expect much from something aimed at very young readers.

Skeletor, one of the hottest villains ever from the neck down, as usual wants to take down He-Man for good, and he has a plan. He will lure Teela into a trap, which is part of his trap for He-Man. When He-Man comes to rescue Teela, he will be waiting with his shadow-men to… er, do something. Does it matter what that something is? It’s Skeletor. He’s just a blue version of Wil E Coyote on steroids.

Anyway, he first summons Teela, who is now living in Castle Greyskull for some reason, by pretending to be He-Man. Teela must be a very loyal bestie, because despite receiving no proper directions, she just sets out on her horse to find He-Man. The first half of this book is just Teela getting in and out of trouble. I’m not kidding. First a dragon-thing attacks her, and she escapes, only to realize that she has to travel much farther than she expected at first. She then sends her horse back and hitches a ride on that perpetually useless flying bird-dung Stratos. While riding on Stratos’s back, she is spotted by Mer-Man, who then sends a wave to wash Teela off Stratos’s back—see what I mean, useless—and trap Teela in an underwater bubble.

Teela is then rescued by a narwhal, and she then bumps into Beast-Man. In a charge that will make any scream queen proud, she runs through the woods to escape him, only to finally hit her head against a low branch and gets knocked out. Sigh. So now Teela is captured. Stratos has been flying overhead all this while, naturally not helping Teela at all because he is useless with a capital U, and he instead tells He-Man what has happened.

So He-Man and Battle-Cat go ahead and charge Skeletor’s place in the last few pages of this book. Oops, Battle-Cat can see in the dark, something that Skeletor apparently never realizes in his years of being rear-ended by He-Man and his friends, so our heroes have no problems navigating the darkened catacombs of Skeletor’s trap. Oh dear, the shadow-men can’t stand bright light, and you know what He-Man has that can produce lots of bright light? Hence, once more, without much effort, He-Man hoists his prodigious sword and forcefully thrusts into Skeletor’s flimsily guarded vulnerable spot, causing that villain to cry out in anguished pain as he is forced wide apart by the column of his impending defeat. He then valiantly and impotently swings his own unremarkable sword around in rage as He-Man and Teela ride on Battle-Cat into the sunset.

Seriously, this story is so embarrassing for Skeletor because his plan is so, so terribly awful. The poor dingbat actually thinks that He-Man can be defeated by shadows when that guy only has to extend his sword and let it spew his triumph all over poor Skeletor’s face.

Anyway, that’s it for Skeletor’s humiliation, and the first book in this series. I don’t know why so many pages are devoted to Teela just getting in and out of trouble. Either the artist Robin Davies really wanted to draw a hot chick in a sexy one-piece in all kinds of poses over so many pages, or Mr Grant needed something to pad the pages so that he could get paid with minimal effort. Still, that means that A Trap for He-Man may be an interesting page-turner for young kids as well as for budding teens that like to look at illustrations of hot chicks, I guess. As for He-Man, he’s alright, but I wish they had drawn him a bit more, how do they say it, thicc. Seriously, that ass is flat, and for someone like He-Man that clearly lifts weights often, that flat ass is very disappointing to behold. Those abs and pecs are still intact, though, although it’s perplexing how his nipples could be playing peekaboo behind his chest plate on some pages and be completely missing on others.

Now, let’s see what the next book is like…