Ladybird Books, £0.85, ISBN 0-7214-0983-0
Fantasy, 1986

Is it just me or the cover looks like a variation of one of those “surprise butt-sex” memes? Oh right, kiddies may be reading this review. Sorry, let’s pretend that I never said the previous two sentences, okay?

It looks like this series is bent on introducing Hordak as the main antagonist to both He-Man and Skeletor, as he’s back for more punishment despite his previous humiliation. Also, just how much fuel is this guy wasting anyway? Once again, he’s flying over to Eternia all the way from Etheria, and it’s a two-way journey each time. These people really must be swimming in fuel that that they need to find ways to get rid of the excess, I guess. Also, why is Hordak so free? Doesn’t he have She-Ra and her friends to contend with?

Fortunately, this is the last full-length title in this series, so nobody has to lose sleep pondering over these questions anymore.

In He-Man and the Lost Dinosaur, Hordak’s minion Grizzlor suggests that they find a distraction for He-Man and Skeletor to fight over, leaving their backs exposed for Hordak and his men to swoop in and go all mua-ha-ha on everyone. So, they fly over to Eternia, to the Lost Valley, and use a “vibrobomb” to collapse a section of the mountains ringing the valley. The bombing causes a shockwave to sends destructive vibrations all across Eternia, destroying peasants’ homes and the palace alike.

This galvanizes King Randor to send Prince Adam out to help lead the effort to help the peasants. Of course, Adam changes to He-Man to do all the heavy-lifting, and somehow no one asks how come Adam went but He-Man came instead.

Also, despite in the past everyone in Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain can apparently spy on even the tiniest conversations in the smallest cubicle in the smallest restroom of Eternia, in this one no one can spot Hordak coming in with a big-ass spaceship to drop a bigger-ass bomb. Consistency—who needs some in a kid’s story anyway? Kids are dumb, they only know how to do that happy clap like seals once you show them some colorful images.

Then the locals report that a dragon is on the loose. These people have been besieged by a giant robot, huge wyverns, Lovecraftian sea beasts, and even a giant behemoth monster, but dragons? The King and his men are all LOLOLOLOLOL. Fortunately, Adam asks the peasants some questions and realizes that this beast merely munched on crops and trees, never actually harming anyone. So, he and his friends meet up, and Teela points out that the beast must be a stegosaurus, extinct everywhere except at the Mystic Mountains. Wait, wasn’t that place called the Lost Valley just a few pages back? I… you know what, let’s just move on. She also points out that the beast is very, very, very stupid so they may have a problem trying to get to it. Well, since such a beast exists, I think that makes Randor even more stupid than the beast.

At any rate, Man-at-Arms naturally has the right device, no doubt made by his midget slaves in his workshop, that when affixed to the stegosaurus will allow it to detect people’s thoughts and communicate its own thoughts better. This allows them to lead the thing back to its home. Well, not so fast. Skeletor finally switches on that camera thingy of his that can see and hear everything on Eternia and decides that He-Man must have found a monster to finally defeat him! Well, not if he seized the beast first! Meanwhile, Hordak is unhappy when he doesn’t get a stampede of giant beasts out of the Lost Valley or Mystic Toilet or whatever that place is called, so he too brings his ship down.

This sounds fun, right, especially when Skeletor and Hordak’s forces all surge forth once the good guys are trying to lead the stegosaurus across a narrow stone bridge? Sadly, the party is over when the stegosaurus swipes its tail and basically gets a one-hit victory on everyone. So it goes home, and Hordak rages that he’d be back. He-Man says, well, he’d be ready next time. Yeah, and these morons didn’t even realize when Hordak’s men came in with a big-ass bomb, so I can definitely believe that.

The moral of this story is, I guess: kids, there are very stupid creatures or people out there, but you must give them a helping hand nonetheless in order to feel superior about yourself. With that, that’s the last of the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe full-length titles by Ladybird Books. There’s one more collection of shorter stories, and then I’d be done with this for good. Oh yes, there’s also a line for She-Ra: Princess of Power by this publisher, but I will need a break from the tomfoolery in these books first. Ask me about those books when I’ve recovered from the stupidity of this and the last few books in this line.