Chronicles of Eternia: The Three Towers (Part 3)

Note: The following is an exercise in creative writing and FAN FICTION it is in no way condoned by Mattel or any other entities associated with the Masters of the Universe brand. It is simply one long-time fan's expression of his love for the universe. This is a little writing project I worked on for fun between writing my own books. I'll post a few more of these but the piece was in no way ever finished.

It is largely based on MOTU-lore as established from action figure bios in the now-defunct Masters of the Universe Classics brand which was a line that ran for about a decade starting in 2008. That lore was drawn from decades of material in the wonderfully pulpy mini-comics packaged with the 1980's action figures and also from comics and animated shows, in this case particularly from the wonderful 2002 series-known as 200X in the fandom-which did a wonderful job on consolidating that lore into a cohesive story. The story below is set in the Preternia era of the continuity, established in the 1980's toward the tail-end of MOTU popularity and designed to be the Next Big Thing in the toyline, introducing characters like He-Ro, Eldor, and Tytus. The 200X cartoon had added some very cool elements to this era and this story is meant to be congruous with that story.  It is set hundreds of years in the past of Eternia. That said, you won't find characters like He-Man, Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Orko, etc. But you will find some familiar characters who were around at that time as well as some cool deep-cut MOTU references and easter eggs.

He-Ro leapt to his feet, throwing off the blanket that had covered him. He called the Sword of Power to his hand, and it flew from its resting place on the floor into his palm. The Cosmic Warrior assumed a defensive position, staggering slightly on his legs. His head was throbbing.

An old man sat cross-legged before him. The man looked up from his book and smiled blandly in He-Ro’s direction. In the shadows, a colossal figure lurked nervously. A ball of light hung above him and reflected against the shiny black walls. The wind howled in the distance. He-Ro felt waves of calm flow into him from the sword, and he relaxed, collapsing into a seated position on the floor.

“Well, you shouldn’t do that again,” the old man said, closing his tome with a heavy thunk.

He-Ro regarded him, the power of the sword allowing him some understanding of the language.

“Where...am I?”

“We’ve brought you to the Obsidian City. Thanks to that sword of yours.”

He-Ro noted the interest with which the old man glanced at the Sword of He.

“And also, our large friend.”

At that moment, the enormous figure that had been hiding in the shadows stepped into the light. He was at least twice the size of a normal human and possessed of a powerful frame, but there was something gentle and disarming about him. He looked more worried than fearsome.

“Tytus found you near his home in the mountains west of here.”

“Well, then, Tytus,” He-Ro said, offering his hand, “I think I may owe you my life.”

Tytus tentatively wrapped his gigantic hand around He-Ro’s.

“I am He-Ro. What has become of my ship?”

“I left it where it crashed. It is about a day and a half’s walk.”

“On foot? Do you not have vehicles of any sort?”

“My friend,” the old man chuckled, “I’m afraid you will find us a simple people.”

“Simple,” He-Ro said, looking up at the free-floating ball of light and heat, “but not without resources. What is your name, wizard?”

“I am called Eldor.”

“And what do you call this planet?”

“Well, most of the people who live here would not even agree that it is a planet, but this land is called Eternia.”

“Eternia,” He-Ro repeated. “I must get back to my ship.”

“You must rest, He-Ro. You were injured besides being infected with the strangest disease I have ever encountered.”

Eldor held out a vial containing a sample of the metallic contagion.

He-Ro remembered the blinding pain and the awful quicksilver taste as the contagion slid down his throat and deep into his body. He had been trying to fight it off as it made its way into the cockpit, using all of his skill as a healer to render it harmless, but it had been too strong for him.

“How did you cure me,” He-Ro asked in wonder.

“As you said, we do have our resources. You’ll find that what Eternia lacks in technology we make up for in magic.”

He-Ro was instantly reminded of his own homeworld, Sul Dagara, destroyed by the Horde.

“Eldor, we have to get to my ship.”

“Tomorrow, you can at least rest for the night.”

“You don’t understand. I may not have come alone. It’s possible that there are others. Many others. And they may wish to conquer your world.”

“Ah,” Eldor smiled bitterly, “but if they wish to conquer Eternia, they’ll have their hands full. You see, there is no shortage of would-be conquerors here.”

******

The hateful southern heat did not agree with Vikor. While he and his company of tribesmen had stripped down to their fur loincloths, Vikor had refused to abandon his bear hide cape and fur-lined horned helmet. Both articles had cost him dearly, and he had the scars to prove it.

Also hard-earned were the braces on his wrists, the remnants of his time in a Snake Men slave camp. His kinsmen had offered to remove them, but Vikor chose to wear them until the day that the hated serpents were defeated. The jangle of the trio of links attached to his left arm was a constant reminder of a debt that needed to be repaid. The Snake Men’s general was not the only one with a deadly rattle.

Vikor was, above all things, a Northerner. While the scholars said that men had originated in the southern plains, they had been over many generations chased into the northern mountains by the advance of the Snake Men, whose infantry could not abide the eternal wintry cold and rough terrain. Because of this, human villages had survived in the mountains and developed a thriving and distinctly Northern culture, despite comprising refugees from all of Eternia's human settlements.

His party descended from their path into the foothills of the mountains of Perpetua. Beneath them spread the Plains of Darksmoke and, in the far distance, Eternia Tower, the fortress of the Quadians, and Eternia’s highest structure. Once they were closer to the great tower, they would camp beneath its watchful gaze, which offered what little protection there was to be had on these treacherous plains, long the domain of the Snakemen until the recent Treaty of the Three Towers had been negotiated.

“It’s beautiful,” said Zeelhar, one of a pair of orphaned brothers originally from a coastal village in the south who were Vikor’s wards.

While Vikor wouldn’t describe it as beautiful, it was certainly an impressive sight. The tower rose majestically from a thick base on which was built a fierce stone tiger head, in keeping with the Quadian’s feline appearance. Eternia Tower had been their sole enclave as far as anyone could remember.

“Aye,” responded his Weapon Master, Arndal. “And it is the most secure structure on Eternia. Even the entire Snake army couldn’t take it down. The viper tower is but a pale imitation.”

“And about my cousin’s tower the less said, the better,” jibed Vikor.

“Have you been inside? The Eternia tower that is,” asked Car’Tor, Zeelhar’s brother.

“Yes, yes. I was there for the treaty signing.”

“And what’s it like on the inside,” Zeelhar demanded.

“Tell us!”

It was a somewhat annoying game they liked to play with the notoriously grumpy Vikor, enthusiastically peppering him with questions and surrounding him like a pair of yapping puppies. In his heart, it pleased him greatly that they could enjoy carefree moments after having lost so much at such a young age. Building trust with them when they first came to him had not been easy.

“Lads,” he said with a fleeting grin quickly replaced with his usual stern expression, “stifle yourselves. The inside of that tower is not for men. It’s designed for the Quadians who have sharp, strong claws made for climbing. The inside is all wood, and the Quadians climb to the different levels where they live in little suspended canvas dens. Don’t get me started on the smell in there.”

While the South may have been man’s ancestral home, to Vikor it was nothing but a trap. He had told the council-and their hand-picked king, his cousin DaVann, as much before, and he would tell them again to their faces. If DaVann wanted to abandon the safety and security of their home village in the Valley of Gnarl for a fool’s mission, let him. This would be Vikor’s final trip south.

****

The odd trio of Tytus, Eldor, and He-Ro came upon Tytus’ camp only to find it ravaged by one of the vicious Theropods. As they came upon the scene, the dinosaur was eyes deep in his beloved Gyga, his snout digging deep into her ribcage. Infuriated, Tytus reached for his war hammer, but Eldor motioned for him to freeze. Still somewhat weak, He-Ro leaned on his staff and looked on with horror.

“My herd,” Tytus lamented. “I have nothing now.”

The Therosaur pulled his head up and instead of red blood, its mouth slathered in the same quicksilver fluid which had been oozing from He-Ro’s wounds. It worked its jaws, puzzled as the silver slime, instead of dripping, ran back, coating its head. As the substance integrated with its new host, they could see biomechanical attachments sprouting from the creature’s head. The Therosaur tried to shake the substance off its head. It finally noticed the three and roared in their direction only to have the strange mechanical growths on the sides of its head fire a pair of energy beams over their heads, cutting the tops off a pair of trees. The Therosaur tilted its head, confused, and ran off into the forest.

“What manner of sorcery is that,” asked Tytus.

“No sorcery,” He-Ro replied. “It’s a kind of illness created by the Horde.”

“It seems the illness is spreading,” Eldor said.

“Won’t it contaminate other creatures,” Tytus asked, looking down at the body of his precious Gyga, upon which the metallic illness seemed to work.

“We’ve no time to chase that thing down. I must get to my ship. If the Horde is on Eternia, you are all in terrible danger.”

“My friend,” Eldor looked up at Tytus. “Please show us the ship.”

They ventured to the neighboring valley where He-Ro’s ship had crashed. Ro hobbled to it and disappeared with Eldor in tow. Tytus saw them reappear in the control compartment from which he had pulled He-Ro mere days ago, but which to him had seemed like long months.

“Step back,” He-Ro yelled to them before the cockpit sealed around him. Tytus obliged and watched as the ship shuddered and freed itself from its crash site. The ship hovered, righted itself, strafed clear of the crash site, and lowered gently. He-Ro descended from the craft, the old man seemingly in a state of quiet amazement.

“It appears your planet Eternia is in completely uncharted space. Not that it matters. She’ll not get off-world again, not without extensive repairs. Have you really no technology on this world?”

“The Gar have technology. Quite advanced…by our standards. They might be of some assistance. They live on an island in the Sea of Rakash, off the west side of the continent.”

“We might make it there depending on how far it is,” He-Ro said.

“I would like both of you to come back with me,” Eldor ventured. “He-Ro, you must warn the council and our new king about the danger of this Hordak. And Tytus, you shouldn’t stay here alone in the ruins of your old life. Come south and start another amongst the Free People of Eternia.”

“Do you want to go for a ride,” He-Ro asked the giant.

“Me? In that thing?”

“It has an ample cargo hold.”

Titus regarded the crashed ship fearfully.

Patrick Garone

Featuring:

The Chronicles of Eternia: The Three Towers (Part 2)

Note: The following is an exercise in creative writing and FAN FICTION it is in no way condoned by Mattel or any other entities associated with the Masters of the Universe brand. It is simply one long-time fan's expression of his love for the universe. This is a little writing project I worked on for fun between writing my own books. I'll post a few more of these but the piece was in no way ever finished.

It is largely based on MOTU-lore as established from action figure bios in the now-defunct Masters of the Universe Classics brand which was a line that ran for about a decade starting in 2008. That lore was drawn from decades of material in the wonderfully pulpy mini-comics packaged with the 1980's action figures and also from comics and animated shows, in this case particularly from the wonderful 2002 series-known as 200X in the fandom-which did a wonderful job on consolidating that lore into a cohesive story. The story below is set in the Preternia era of the continuity, established in the 1980's toward the tail-end of MOTU popularity and designed to be the Next Big Thing in the toyline, introducing characters like He-Ro, Eldor, and Tytus. The 200X cartoon had added some very cool elements to this era and this story is meant to be congruous with that story.  It is set hundreds of years in the past of Eternia. That said, you won't find characters like He-Man, Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Orko, etc. But you will find some familiar characters who were around at that time as well as some cool deep-cut MOTU references and easter eggs.

 

Among the Snake Men, he was known as The General, but the human Eternian peasants had another name for him. In their idiotic naming fashion, they called him Rattlor. He didn’t mind. Let the fools call him anything they liked, so long as they feared him to the core. The dry sound of the shaker on the end of his tail would be the last thing they ever heard.

He paused at the doorway of his master’s chamber in Viper Tower as he waited to be acknowledged. He was one of the few Snake Men allowed to see King Hssss in this state, although it disturbed him greatly. His tail twitched nervously as he waited, generating a soft whooshing sound.

“Come, General,” his master’s voice was dull and muffled.

Rattlor stepped into the dark room. King Hssss was in the middle of his slow, painful transformation from his serpent aggregate form to his humanoid form. He had already grown human legs, but from the waist up, he was a mass of serpents bundled together, over which man-flesh grew in slimy sheets and sickly patches. Soon, he would be indistinguishable from a human being in appearance.

Hssss was the first of the Snake Men, and he was at once the most serpent and the most human. Their maker was given to wild experimentation that created creatures such as Hssss and their humanoid comrade, Snake Face. Successive generations of hybrids resulted in more stable forms like the General himself and their infantry, who were tailed bipedal reptoids but none as powerful or cunning as Hssss.

His master’s repulsive human legs twitched on the ground. There was even a fine mammalian hair on them. Rattlor regarded them with an uncomfortable mix of revulsion and hunger. There was a terrible price to be paid for Hssss’ power, that much was certain. His great serpent head shifted beneath the thin sheet of human skin that encased it.

“What of my army?”

“We were able to open the portal long enough to bring through legions of troops. They are ready to set forth from Snake Mountain at your command.”

“And Serpos?”

“She is ready to fly, my king,” he said with a venomous grin.

“Good...We will make an example of the Quadians first. And then later wipe out the human settlements in the west. We will give them time to marinate in fear. Scared meat is good meat.”

***

Blackness. Unlike the darkness of space, it was unbroken by starlight. It was a calm, dark nothingness and a relief from the blazing silvery haze he had recently experienced. He could feel himself coming back from the abyss, his memories and identity slowly accreting in his head.

Ro had been on a mission flying in tandem with Karmuz and Quimak when they had discovered the Horde attack force for which they had been searching. There had been a capital ship and a sizable assault squadron. He knew the giant ship from many previous skirmishes: the Mantisaur.

It was the flagship of Hordak, the younger brother of the leader of the interstellar Horde Empire and the architect of its brutal military expansion. While Horde Prime busied himself with the business of ruling his empire, he sent his brother to the frontiers to conquer new worlds with his endless army of automatons and his cadre of flesh-and-blood goons. Ro had little affinity for Horde imperial politics, but it was clear enough that the Prime wanted his ambitious little brother as far away as possible from the throne.

Ro and Hordak were not merely opponents in an interstellar war but enemies whose pasts and futures were inextricably intertwined. Hordak didn’t know it, but it was his campaign of terror through the galactic sector which resulted not only in the destruction of Ro’s homeworld but in his elevation to the semi-mythical role of a Cosmic Warrior by the Council of Trolla. Hordak had destroyed his life and unknowingly made a new one possible.

In his former existence on Sul Dagara, Ro had been little more than a minor wizard, one of many who had served the Dagaran people. His world had been pastoral, primitive even, and Ro had spent the better part of his young life training and serving in the cloistered world of the Mage Corps. Upon his graduation to Wizard, he had been given an ornate golden Staff of Protection powered by a mystical azure jewel, and his assignment was to serve in an agricultural village held by the House of the Smoking Skull, his ancestral clan. It was a backwater part of an obscure planet that the galaxy had largely ignored. Ro had used his abilities to heal and settle the occasional dispute between farmers.

The attack was sudden and shocking. If there had ever been any direct communication between his people and the invaders, Ro knew nothing of it. The Horde had attacked his world from orbit. Ro had never even seen the face of an enemy soldier. The conquest of Sul Dagara ended as quickly as it began. The Horde had apparently taken what they wanted and decided that it was to their advantage to depopulate the planet for later use.

Ro survived, having slept in the cavernous stone cellar of his mage’s tower. He walked the scorched face of his planet for weeks, searching for other survivors, but found no one. No one from his world, anyway.

He had made his way to the crumbling capital city and encountered a pair of strange beings. They were small and cloaked in violet robes and seemed to hover over the ground. They regarded him with curious yellow eyes which shone from the blackness deep within their cowls.

“You are the last Dagaran,” one of the creatures asked him in an unknown language, which he somehow understood. He could see blue skin on the aliens’ hands.

“Are you responsible for this, aliens,” Ro demanded, his staff crackling with energy. He had been practicing funneling his loneliness and rage into using his powers in new, more offensive ways.

“No,” the other replied. “We have no reason to harm this world. It is the Horde on which you seek revenge. They have cut a path of destruction through this sector. We are merely accounting.”

“We are of Trolla,” the other one said. “We seek to intervene to bring balance to this dimension and therefore to neutralize the Horde. You seek to neutralize them as well.”

“I want to make them pay for what they have done!”

“We believe that your retribution will serve our ends.”

Ro looked around at the blighted landscape.

“And justice?”

“Justice is not our concern. Do you wish to make use of our resources to achieve neutrality?”

“Just get me out of here. I can’t bear living in this tomb anymore.”

Ro had made a hasty decision, born of loneliness and the desire to escape the pain of wandering through the wreckage of Sul Dagara. The two Trollans had spirited him away to what they called a “sanctuary dimension,” where he was to train in their timeless realm. With other survivors of the Horde from various worlds, Ro studied under Zodac, one of their mysterious Cosmic Enforcers.

The Trollans were typically guarded with their plans, and he assumed that he and the others were training to join the ranks of their Cosmic Enforcers. After months of exhaustive training, Ro and his comrade, Jangus, were the two remaining members of his group. The Trollans had pulled the others from the program one-by-one. They dispatched the two final candidates to the front lines of Bolaurus, a world on the verge of falling to Hordak’s forces. Their Trollan handler, Marquo, sent them out with only the vaguest instructions. Like Ro, the Trollans had pulled Jangus from the ruins of a conquered world, and during their long months of training, the two had often fantasized about bringing the fight to the Horde.

While Jangus arrived in the beleaguered capital with excitement and enthusiasm and a willingness to charge into battle, Ro saw only a hopeless situation. They had arrived too late, and their allies could barely hold a defensive line against the Horde. All around them were desperate and injured people, and Ro’s appetite for vengeance and battle had instantly left him in the face of so much suffering. The training he had received during his time with the Trollans was of little use to him, and Ro went back to his days as a mage, using his powers to attend to the injured and assist in the city’s evacuation. Jangus, however, disappeared into the battle.

When he returned to base and Marquo met him, he peppered the old Trollan with questions.

“Have you any word from Jangus? I lost track of him in the chaos.”

“Our candidates are of great value to us. We recovered him.”

“What is our purpose? Are we to become Cosmic Enforcers?”

“I think not,” the Trollan replied. “To be an Enforcer requires a certain...ambivalence. They must be as prepared to do evil as to do good. Your duties are narrower in focus. You are to be the center of our efforts against the Horde. For Jangus, we have other plans.”

“I don’t think I can do it. You’ve attempted to fashion me into a weapon of vengeance, but I’ve no love for fighting.”

“This is what will make you a great warrior. The only people worthy to wield great power are those who do not want it.”

And with that, a group of Trollans and Cosmic Enforcers appeared and circled him. From the starry ceiling descended a thin box adorned with a stylized “H” symbol, which settled before Ro on a golden pedestal. The box collapsed upon itself, and Ro saw what it contained.

He would have called it a sword, but he wasn’t sure that was an accurate word for it. To his eyes it appeared more a sword-shaped window into the heart of the cosmos made of burning stars and blackest space. Ro stared into it, mesmerized by the tiny blazing galaxies and the gauzy nebulas which glowed with hazy light. It was a furnace of creation.

“What is it,” he stammered.

“It is our greatest weapon,” Marquo replied. “A blade made for one above all others: the Cosmic Warrior. It is the Sword of He, one that harnesses the power of the universe itself. You may wield it if it allows you to.”

Ro paused. The old Trollan regarded him curiously, and there had been a note of danger in his voice, as though some awful fate could befall him if the sword would not “allow” him to wield it. Ro wondered how many other candidates had stood there before him.

He reached out and grabbed the sword. It swayed and danced in his hand as though being pulled by an outside force. Ro felt as though he were grappling with the sword, as though he was in its grip as much as the other way around. The sword was a living thing, and it was wrestling him and evaluating him.

A hot power seemed to flow from the sword’s handle, flowing into Ro’s body. On some level he was alarmed, but he knew he could not let go even if he had wanted to. Ro tightened his grip and found he was better able to control the sword. Blazing, Ro held it above his head. He was overpowering it, yet the sword continued to fight him.

Ro heard a screeching voice in his head. Not worthy. You are nothing.

“Noooo,” he cried through his clenched teeth, and fully opened himself to the sword’s power, letting it flow through him, making him powerful. He was more than just the man he had been. He had been fused with the power of the Sword of He, with the power of the universe itself.

“I AM HE-RO,” he thundered, and his titanic struggle with the sword ended in a blinding discharge of light and energy. When his vision returned, he found himself changed. His Enforcer harness had been replaced a fine golden armor and cape, and the Sword of He had become opaque and metallic. In one of the gleaming panels, He-Ro caught his reflection and saw the sigil for the House of the Smoking Skull on the back of his cape.

Marquo looked at him with what could only be pride.

“My pupil,” he said, “you have the power. Go forth and fight evil.”

Aboard the Mantisaur, Hordak regarded the inky void that filled the transparent bubble of the ship’s observation deck. His crew had only recently regained control of the ship and prevented their fiery demise in a stellar atmosphere. Hordak had sealed himself off from the bridge and the disturbing information from his navigators and stellar cartographers. They had somehow found themselves on the opposite side of the galaxy from their last location, where He-Ro and a small strike force of Cosmic Enforcers had ambushed them.

The human He-Ro had become a nuisance to him. While he was only one man, he had dramatically foiled enough of Hordak’s plans to become a very visible symbol of rebellion against the Horde. His very appearance was seemingly designed to inspire hope in Hordak’s enemies. Hordak had first seen him via a holographic recording in the wake of a battle in which the resistance had badly defeated his Horde Troopers. He-Ro had stood atop a small hill, his gleaming golden armor emblazoned with the symbol of the legendary Sword of He and his crimson cape fluttering in the wind. He was as noble and handsome a figure as Hordak was frightening and ugly. Even by the standards of the Ghoil, Hordak was an unattractive specimen, his sallow, chitinous face was prone to warts, and a permanent scowl was stamped on his face.    

With the entrance of the Cosmic Warrior into the campaign, Hordak knew they had crossed some dangerous new threshold and that the Trollans had moved aggressively against him. While their Cosmic Enforcers had intervened in small ways before, it had mostly been to save lives. With Hordak’s latest series of conquests, the Horde seemed to have offended the Trollans’ famous sense of “balance,” or so his brother, the new Horde Prime, had told him.

“You go too far, my brother,” he had said as he accompanied Hordak through the palace on one of the rare occasions that the younger sibling was called back to the throne world. Horde Prime was taller than his brother and fashionably emaciated. He carried a long staff, which only highlighted his great height and gauntness. Prime’s face was a deep crimson from constant exposure to the red giant star which their planet orbited. Among the Ghoil, it was considered a desirable skin tone.

“I do only what you have asked of me. I would much rather be back home helping you rule.”

Horde Prime regarded him, eyes narrowing to red slits. “Indeed, little brother, that much is clear, but I think you would have little patience for life here in the capital. You lack the temperament to govern. Your lack of subtlety better suits the battlefield.”

Hordak said nothing. Although he was the younger sibling, in truth, either of them could have been chosen to rule, but the Council of Wraith had passed him up in favor of his brother. The Council was a group of powerful magic-wielders that played an important role in the empire. Hordak’s brother possessed an affinity for the Unseen, which Hordak sorely lacked.

“Continue winning us new worlds in the border systems, but do not make a mess of it,” his brother said, all but dismissing him from the palace that had once been his home. “Once provoked, the Trollans would be powerful adversaries.”

And so Hordak returned to his assignment, which he felt to be a kind of banishment, months away from the center of power. Ignoring his brother’s words, Hordak funneled his anger and frustration into his work, visiting an unprecedented campaign of violence and brutality on the worlds of the galactic borderlands. During those months, Hordak shaped himself into a new role. He was no longer a spoiled and callow prince; he was now Hordak, Brutal Warlord of the Horde Empire.

He turned his attention inward, his mind frequently drifting back to his brother in the capital. His brother had known nothing of war or conquest. He had simply contented himself with politics and-even worse-governance. The Horde Empire deserved a more inspiring figure than a petty bureaucrat, the so-called Lord of the Seen and Unseen. Hordak entertained the idea of turning his hardened fighting force inward, like a dagger aimed at the heart of the empire, at his brother.

And, in a decidedly Trollan turn of events, He-Ro had risen to counterbalance him, winning a series of victories against his forces and distracting him from his grand plans. He had decided that the human was a test. If he could defeat him, his brother would be next.

He-Ro had become a symbol, and a symbol could not be killed. However, a symbol could be perverted. Hope was a fragile thing. They would make He-Ro a monster. Hordak’s scientists had developed a techno-organic virus which, in most test subjects, allowed the scientists control of thought and higher brain functions. On others, it created violent dementia. Either way, they would neutralize He-Ro, and Hordak could move his attention to his brother, Horde Prime.

Hordak had allowed the Mantisaur to be tracked and ambushed by He-Ro and his attack squad. He had prepared a special volley of missiles topped with warheads armed with payloads of the virus. They had hit He-Ro’s ship. It had almost been too easy. The craft veered out of control, and a metallic fluid that carried the virus blanketed the cockpit. Hordak knew it was only a matter of time before it worked its way inside. He reclined in his command chair, satisfied.

He should have suspected the worst when his brother contacted him via hologram, his giant translucent head suddenly looming over him.

“Hordak,” he thundered. “Your campaign is at an end.”

His brother’s sudden appearance had genuinely surprised Hordak. “Brother? I have defeated He-Ro. We’ve destroyed the resistance.”

“I’ve made an arrangement with the Trollans,” Horde Prime continued, ignoring his brother. “They’ve agreed to sacrifice He-Ro and to put an end to the rebellion, and in exchange...”

Hordak’s blood ran cold.

“In a gesture of balance, I will sacrifice you, my brother. I warned you. I warned you.”

And no sooner had the transmission cut off to static and enormous vortex opened outside the Mantisaur. Alarms sounded throughout the ship, and Hordak could feel the giant craft suddenly straining to fight the force of the gravity well. He could see through the viewscreen as He-Ro’s craft and some of the smaller Horde fighters disappeared into the swirling maw. Hordak felt a spike of anger at seeing his enemy slip away.

Had the Mantisaur been farther away, they certainly would have been able to pull from the singularity, but Hordak knew that if they continued to fight it, they would pull the ship apart. He gave the order to ease off the engines and allowed his ship to pass through the vortex.

And here they were in a remote corner on the opposite side of the galaxy, where it would take centuries to even reach the remotest outpost of the Horde Empire with a functional ship. The trip through the vortex had badly damaged his flagship, and it would only be a matter of time before gravity pulled them into the small planet in which they were in orbit. In fact, the entire sector seemed to be devoid of any kind of radio or photonic transmission.

He heard the soft hum of a door opening behind him. Only one being on board would dare disturb him. There was a soft rustle of fabric as Shadow Weaver floated next to him.

Crimson robes covered her from head to toe—except for her bony gray arms and her luminous yellow eyes. Shadow Weaver was the head of the small contingent of Wraiths that served aboard his ship. The Wraiths were a powerful faction of sorcerers that held great power in the empire, but Hordak did not trust them and disliked having them stationed on his ship. Shadow Weaver, however, had proven herself loyal and useful on many occasions.

“Your engineers are working to get the ship into a stable orbit,” she whispered.

“Where is He-Ro,” Hordak demanded. The one thing that might offer him consolation would be finally besting his nemesis.

“Unknown.”

“What do you mean, unknown? We both went through the same vortex. He should have come out ahead of us.”

“We know nothing about the portal. For all we know, he might appear somewhere else entirely or even at a later time.”

“Find him.”

Patrick Garone

Featuring:

The Chronicles of Eternia: The Three Towers (Part 1)

Note: The following is an exercise in creative writing and FAN FICTION it is in no way condoned by Mattel or any other entities associated with the Masters of the Universe brand. It is simply one long-time fan's expression of his love for the universe. This is a little writing project I worked on for fun between writing my own books. I'll post a few more of these but the piece was in no way ever finished.

It is largely based on MOTU-lore as established from action figure bios in the now-defunct Masters of the Universe Classics brand which was a line that ran for about a decade starting in 2008. That lore was drawn from decades of material in the wonderfully pulpy mini-comics packaged with the 1980's action figures and also from comics and animated shows, in this case particularly from the wonderful 2002 series-known as 200X in the fandom-which did a wonderful job on consolidating that lore into a cohesive story. The story below is set in the Preternia era of the continuity, established in the 1980's toward the tail-end of MOTU popularity and designed to be the Next Big Thing in the toyline, introducing characters like He-Ro, Eldor, and Tytus. The 200X cartoon had added some very cool elements to this era and this story is meant to be congruous with that story.  It is set hundreds of years in the past of Eternia. That said, you won't find characters like He-Man, Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Orko, etc. But you will find some familiar characters who were around at that time as well as some cool deep-cut MOTU references and easter eggs.

Thunder boomed above the mountains and echoed against the valley walls. Perched high above his herd in a shaded recess, the noise pulled Tytus from thoughts. Far below him, dozens of long saurian necks snaked up, regarding the sky with dull fear. Tytus rose to his full, immense height and took in the unnatural storm that had gathered above the mountains of Perpetua.

For a moment, he feared the truce had been broken and that the Snake Men had unleashed some new horror on Eternia but the troops of King Hssss had seldom ventured as far north as these cold mountain lands and, from all Tytus had heard from the refugees that had passed through his valley to the northern sanctuaries, the Snake Men had never been known to announce their arrival from the air. Rather, it was their way to swarm their enemies over land with a seemingly inexhaustible infantry. Tytus had often feared that he would one day witness their arrival, like a dark, reptilian tide filling the valleys of Perpetua.

A trio of loud booms cracked the sky apart. The thick clouds that had gathered overhead now broke, and from their heart, a fiery arrow fell from the heavens, like the shooting stars that often blazed in summer nights. The burning object raced across the zenith and disappeared behind the mountains. Tytus heard an echoing explosion in a neighboring valley, and his beasts moaned and stomped in protest.

  He jumped into action, sliding down from his overlook, his huge, muscular hands hooking around tree trunks to slow and control his descent. Tytus landed near his animals, which were already skittish from the noise. He shouldered his way through the herd of Sauropods, roughly pushing muscular necks and tails aside. His race was one of the few on Eternia that was large and powerful enough to move safely among these giant quadrupeds. Tytus secured the animals with a crude wood-and-rope fence that would hold them until he finished investigating. Hopefully, none of the Therosaurs that had been sniffing around his herd would cause trouble in his absence.

He had outfitted one of the Sauropods, the large female Gyga, with a leash and a rope harness, and a wooden trailer. Tytus pulled her behind him as he set off for the next valley using a well-worn mountain path. He could see a plume of smoke drifting up over the snow-capped granite peaks.

Tytus and his animal rounded the last pass, and he witnessed the black smoking scar which had been gouged into the green valley. In the heart of the burning black crater was an enormous metallic object, like a giant silver shield, half embedded in the ground. He roped Gyga to a tree and climbed down to the valley floor, careful to avoid the fiery debris. Tytus approached the object, which gleamed silver through the smoke. He walked its great length and circled it a few times. Upon closer inspection, Tytus determined it resembled the shell of some exotic creature from the Sea of Rakash than a shield.

Tytus gently touched the object and found it strangely cold. He heard a kind of whirring from deep within, and a series of fine cracks appeared on one end of the shell, forming a complex pattern on its surface. The cracks widened, and a section at the top of the object opened. Titus awkwardly climbed atop it and saw a compartment in which sat the figure of a human male inside. The man was unconscious but breathing. He was fine of appearance and wore strange clothing of a type that Tytus had ever seen before, including a jeweled golden headband, like a crown. The man looked to have suffered wounds in the crash, and he had a large gash on the side of his head, but it seemed to ooze some sort of fluid like molten metal instead of blood.

Tytus wondered what to do for him. He could take the man to his hut in the nearby Valley of the Spiders, but the giant was little more than a shepherd and certainly no healer. The Mountains of Perpetua were sparsely populated, and to reach one of the human settlements would take several days. He simply couldn’t leave his herd unattended for that long.

Tytus carefully reached in. He pulled the man free from his restraints, careful to avoid the silver ooze. He lifted the man out and noticed a golden gleam from inside. Tytus reached in and pulled out a gold and silver staff which featured an ornate bulb at one end. 

There was also a sword. For a human, it would have been a considerable weapon, but in Tytus’ hand, it was little more than a dagger. Tytus’ father had been a metalsmith, and he was raised around weapons, but he had never seen a blade this finely wrought.

The sword seemed to have a presence about it. As he held it in his open hand, Tytus felt a power flowing through him. In the sword's metal, Tytus saw the reflection of a pair of frantic yellow eyes which looked up towards the sky and then down, and seemed to search the crash site. It settled on the man, now resting on Tytus’s shoulder like an infant. The eyes looked back at Tytus, as though evaluating him. They closed and disappeared. In their place was the image of a dark city.

***

DaVann stood atop his ramshackle tower and looked out over the bustling village. He breathed in the fresh air and exhaled the stress of the Council meeting from which he had just come. He leaned his broadsword against the jadestone ashlars that made up the tower wall. His blond hair fell over his massive shoulders, tied into a pair of braids in the northern style. His rough-hewn brown cape, topped with wolf hide, flapped in the wild wind atop the tower.

It was the only building of any size on the large grassy plain that his people now called home, and it was a beacon for men all over Eternia and a symbol of humanity’s return to the southlands. After centuries, DaVann’s people had fought off the Snake Men and claimed a land of their own, far from their exile in the frigid northern mountains or the dark depths of Subternia. Like many, he was still unaccustomed to the uncomfortable southern heat and, except for a leather harness, went bare-chested.

DaVann enjoyed the solitude of the tower’s crown and made it a point to spend an hour or so each day watching the progress as the village changed from hide tents to huts of clay and thatched roofs to something more permanent. Far below, he saw actual croplands. Soon it would be a town and then perhaps one day an actual city of men, the likes of which had never existed before.

Ah, he thought, that’s a fancy.

In this time of fragile peace, DaVann knew the Snake Men could wipe his people’s new homeland out at any moment. So tentative was their existence that the village still had no name, perhaps for fear that daring to name it would bring the wrath of the Snake Men upon them. It was simply known as ‘The Village.’

DaVann would have to remedy that. Of course, he had no real name himself, nor family house of his own. No men did. The Snake Men had been ruthless in employing assassins to hunt down the royal houses of men that had survived in the frozen North. They had left mankind bickering and leaderless for over a century. In selecting DaVann, a tribal chieftain to lead the men of Eternia, the Council was creating a new royal house to lead humanity itself.

Of course, the future of humanity relied on the outcome of this war. It was vital that their forces find some advantage during whatever time the Truce of the Three Towers held. Everyone knew that the war was inevitable. It was for this reason that DaVann had dispersed many of the members of the Council of Elders to the far corners of the continent to seek allies, knowledge, and technology that could end the stalemate between the Free People of Eternia and the brutal Snake Men, who ruled in the east from their Viper Tower and their fortress at Snake Mountain.

In the sky to the west, he saw what he was hoping for: a bird-like figure banked in the distance. DaVann granted himself a rare smile. He never ceased to be amazed by his friend’s arrival. The figure drew closer, revealing a winged, vaguely human figure: Nimbos of Avion.

Nimbos approached the tower and spread his long, simian arms, braking on the enormous wing attachments that he wore on each powerful arm. With a few flaps, the Avion warrior landed softly near his human friend and folded his red wings under his arms and into the harness that he wore around his barrel chest. Nimbos was covered in shaggy gray fur and wore a helmet fashioned from the head of one of the Snake Men’s former generals. Nimbos’ heavy-browed face looked out between the serpent jaws, the area around his eyes dark in a band of war-paint.

The Avion people inhabited a remote part of the Mystic Mountains and were distantly related to the Beast Men of the Vine Jungle, but unlike their brutish relatives, the Avions long ago fled their arboreal homeland in search of a new home. According to their traditions, the Avion tribe had wandered Eternia until a mysterious falcon named Zoar led them to a bountiful mountain valley. The culture that they developed in the Mystic Mountains revolved around emulating and worshiping birds. As Nimbos once put it, “Our ancestors were beasts who dreamed of becoming birds.”

DaVann respected the Avion people for their sheer courage and audacity, and because they practically willed themselves into the air with a combination of ingenuity and fearlessness. DaVann knew that they also possessed a rare material which they wore in their armor and harnesses, which somehow reduced their body weight and helped them aloft. This was a secret that he pried from his wife, Veena, a human woman and sorceress of the Order of Zoar who had lived among them for many years. Indeed, she was seldom seen without her ceremonial falcon armor.

“King DaVann,” Nimbos said with a grin as he scrambled over the greenish stones of the tower floor. The Avion people were less than graceful on land.

DaVann made a sour face. “I hate the sound of it. King DaVann of No House. I don’t know why I could not continue to be Chief.”

The two embraced warmly.

“A chief rules a small tribe,” Nimbos replied. “You will be the King of Men.”

“Maybe,” DaVann grumbled. “Tell me, friend, what news of Anwat Gar?”

Nimbos regarded him solemnly.

“Is it that bad?”

“They have rejected the Council’s offer. The Gar are convinced that what happens on the continent will not directly affect them.”

The Gar were a race of blue-skinned humanoids that inhabited a large island in the Ocean of Gnarl off the western coast of the continent. While somewhat insular and superior by nature, the Gar possessed the most advanced weapons and machines on the planet. Many were also accomplished mages and sorcerers as well. To date, they had remained neutral in the war.

“The fools! I would have thought for sure that they would assist us after Talon Freidor’s last visit,” DaVann glanced over to his sword. It was a Gar “techno-sword” presented to him as a gift of goodwill during Freidor’s visit. The sword was forged of a gleaming silvery metal and intricately designed with moving parts on the guard and blade that responded to what the Gar had called his “bio-feedback.” DaVann found it powerful and unlike any other sword he had ever wielded. He had hoped he could obtain more weapons like this for his army.

“We are running out of people to ask for help,” he said.

“We have the Speleeans. Or what’s left of them. More forces from Avion are on call.”

“What about the Andreenids?”

Nimbos scowled. “If you bring those bugs in, you will lose half of Avion. Not that they would lift a claw to help anyone.”

DaVann groaned. “Has Fraxxis returned from Eternia Tower,” Nimbos asked.

“Yes. The Quadians are convinced that their fortress can withstand the Snake Men, as it has for centuries.”

“It might very well. That thing is nearly impregnable.”

“Come, friend. You must be tired after your long journey. Let’s put our troubles behind us in my hall. I know Veena will be happy to see you.”

***

Eternia had a habit of swallowing its own past. Home to dozens of sentient races, the planet’s history was a long chronicle of power struggles, battles, and wars. Long before men became the most populous race, dozens of non-human societies vied for control of the planet, from the feline Qadians, the bee-like Andreenids and all of them not only left behind their living descendants but physical artifacts of their time in power. On Eternia, every farmer fancied himself an archeologist, for to dig in the planet’s soils was to discover remnants of the world’s chaotic history.

 The old man walked through the abandoned mountain citadel that humans had dubbed The Obsidian City. Its true name, he knew, had been lost with its original inhabitants, the Arachneans, an ancient race of Spider Warriors who had been driven to extinction by the rise of the Snake Men many centuries ago. Still, “The Obsidian City” accurately conveyed the place’s sharp, glossy blackness, the trademark of Arachnean architecture. Here, the walls were so smooth and black that snow would not even collect on them, and the place stood starkly against its icy backdrop. From a distance, with its jagged, jutting towers, the place looked like an enormous claw tearing into the sky.

It was not widely known, but their advances in science, architecture, and mathematics had been adopted or stolen by all the other civilized Eternian peoples and, despite their fearsome appearance, the Arachneans had been a peaceful race. The old man knew of their wisdom, and it was what had brought him to this place.

It was here, in this abandoned mountain castrum, that he hoped to encounter more of their knowledge. Like the other members of the Council of Elders, he had been sent by King DaVann on a mission to scour Eternia for ancient artifacts and devices which would be of use when the treaty inevitably fell and the war against the Snake Men continued. He knew it was something of a hopeless mission. Eternia’s small population of scholars and mystics had long ago surveyed the site, and the old man doubted he would find anything of use, but the Council of Elders was desperate for anything that would end the long stalemate.

It was then that he noticed a human shape in the distance approaching the citadel. The figure had long hair which danced in the savage mountain winds. He seemed to carry a bundle in his arms. The old man squinted at the distant man, who seemed close and yet far away at the same time. As the man crossed the bridge into the citadel, he realized that the approaching figure was not a human but one of the giants of Perpetua.

While most of the giant tribes had remained neutral in the conflict—their chilly mountain lands little interested the Snake Men—many had joined the opposing forces as mercenaries. One could never be too careful with giants, as they were notoriously territorial and quick to anger, although there were several of them who worked and lived among the Free People. Because of their size and strength, they were often employed in the construction of buildings and other projects. To their disgrace, many of the Free People had enslaved them in the past. The old man knew that this was another very legitimate reason to treat approaching giants with trepidation. He whispered a few words and vanished into the cold air, his breath the only trace of his presence.

***

The wind stung Tytus’ eyes. The hours-long trek through the mountains had exhausted him, and he was terribly worried about his herd. This trip had been a bad and stupid idea. What had possessed him to come here?

Crossing the bridge, he arrived at the Obsidian City. He was sure that he had seen a robed figure in the distance, but when he arrived, there had been no one. There was no way he’d even be able to fit into most of these structures, let alone search them. Perhaps he would simply leave the man in a building and be on his way.

“What brings you to the Obsidian City, giant?” The voice was huge and booming and echoed off the smooth black walls of the city. It spoke the Eternian Common Tongue.

“Show yourself,” Tytus replied, in the same language.

Nothing.

“I come,” Tytus said, “with an injured human. He...fell from the sky.”

“Unlikely. And why bring him here of all places?”

“I saw this city in a vision.”

The only response was a wind that howled through the citadel. Tytus waited for a response as his hair whipped around his head. Sharp ice had formed on the ends of his blond locks, and it cut at his face.

“I cannot help him,” the giant said desperately. “Please. He will die.”

“Show me this man,” and the speaker revealed himself to be an old, bearded human who regarded Tytus with suspicion. A rough-hewn hood hid most of his face.

Tytus looked down at the man. He gently set his bundle down before him. The giant peeled back a layer of fabric from the man’s face. The metallic fluid now seemed to cover half of his head. Unconscious, the man moaned in agony.

The old human looked taken aback. He looked up at Tytus, all the suspicion gone from his face. He laid a hand on Tytus’ large forearm.

“Take him, my friend. This way.” The old man led Tytus to an immense building. It was one of the few that were great enough to accommodate his enormous size.

Sealed inside from the freezing wind, the old man pulled back his cowl, revealing a gleaming bald head adorned with strange tattooed symbols. He muttered a few unfamiliar words, and a ball of fire appeared above their heads, illuminating the room and providing a comfortable warmth. Tytus noted that as the man spoke his incantations, some of his tattoos flared.

“Please sit.”

Tytus carefully set down the injured man and sat cross-legged before him. The old man sat down as well and regarded him with kindly eyes which danced in the fireball's light.

“I am Eldor,” he said. “I am a member of the Council of Elders of Eternia.”

“My name is Tytus. I am a shepherd. I live in these mountains but further west, near the Valley of Spiders.”

“Is that where you found our friend?”

“Yes. I saw a light in the sky and then heard a crash. When I went to inspect it, I found him sealed in some sort of great metallic shell. Can you help him?”

“I hope so,” Eldor replied. “To be clear, he was in the shell, which you say fell from the sky? Is that correct?”

Tytus nodded.

“And the vision?”

Tytus reached into his tunic and pulled out the sword, which was wrapped in hide.

Tytus pointed to his temple, struggling to explain what had happened. “It wasn’t a...head vision. It was in this.”

He held his long arm out over the suffering man. Eldor stood, regarding the sword.

“The vision was in the sword?”

He reached out and took the sword from Tytus, and when he held it in his hand, he felt an amazing power flow through his body. The sword changed color in his hand, no longer metallic but deeply black with stellar pinpoints of light. It was like the night sky, but clearer and more vivid than any sky that Eldor had beheld in his many years.

The sword seemed not so much an inanimate object but a living being with its own will, and it seemed to evaluate him as though trying to determine whether he was worthy of its power. Eldor fell to his knees, the ball of light hovering above them dimmed as the old man lost his focus. The tattoos on the old man’s head exploded in a riot of light and color. Tytus stood to his full height.

“Eldor! Are you all right?”

“Yes.” And as suddenly as the power had grabbed him, it had released him.

“That sword,” he gasped, “is a powerful magical object. It belongs to the man?”

“Yes. It was in the shell with him.”

Eldor regarded the man again. From his robes he pulled a small vial and a swab. He pushed a sample of the metallic fluid into the vial. He also produced a large book with a weathered leather cover.

“I’ve seen nothing like it before,” he said. “And you said the shell was metal?”

“Yes. There were machines and devices inside.”

“Machines,” Eldor repeated. “Machines are not uncommon. The Gar build machines, although mostly for their own amusement. But they’ve built nothing like what you describe.” Eldor thought that his trip to the Obsidian City was to be significant after all. The sword and the craft could be important to the course of the war. It was critical that he revive their owner.

Eldor sat cross-legged before the prone man. He cracked open the book, searching through the pages which were not paper but sheets of a dried hide-like material and covered in markings not unlike his tattoos. Eldor pulled back the sleeve of his robe, revealing sinuous arms that were covered in many tattoos depicting symbols and what appeared to be words in unknown languages. At the touch of his fingers, the symbols and words illuminated and danced on his skin, and the symbols on the book responded in kind, apparently communicating.

“What manner of markings are those,” Tytus asked, fascinated.

“It is a kind of book. You could say I am a kind of book as well. But it is a repository of the lives and experiences of generations of Eternian wizards, mages, and mystics, and imbued with their power and wisdom.”

“Amazing! Are you a... wizard, then?”

The old man chuckled. “I’ve never cared for that word much myself. I prefer to think of myself more as a scholar.”

  With a quill, Eldor drew a circle on his open palm. Quickly, symbols and runes ran down his arm and orbited the drawn circle. Eldor poured the silvery contents of the vial into the circle, and they vanished into his skin. He grimaced, inhaled sharply, and closed his eyes.

“Now what,” asked Tytus.

“We wait.”

Featuring:

Patrick Garone

The Mandalorian and Grogu: A Review-ette

Note: ​You can’t trust reviews of Star Wars movies. Not even this one. Certainly traditional movie reviewers have always struggled with Star Wars movies and they see there is a “Disney Star Wars is in disarray” narrative that they want to engage with. Influencers who get lots of perks like set visits are desperate to prove their independence and that they are not Disney shills so their reviews are often looking for edgy hot takes. And of course there are the predicable trolls and haters, the Star Wars “fans” who are determined to hate Star Wars at all costs. So, of course the “reviews” are a hot mess.

Many people are framing this movie with weird existential questions like “Why does this movie exist?” And “Is it a bunch of The Mandalorian episodes stitched together?” This is a strange way to approach a review of a movie. Do you go into any other movie—even a bad one—and question why it exists? That’s a piece of grace we typically give to the difficult endeavor of moviemaking. The Mandalorian and Grogu exists to entertain people and make money like any other Hollywood movie. I don’t know why when talking about Star Wars people all want to put on their studio executive hats and speculate on marketing strategies and the relative position of the franchise. 

As far as whether or not this is a bunch of episodes strung together, the story is that originally a fourth season of The Mandalorian was written which was lore-heavy and lead into season two of Ahsoka and the New Republic/Thrawn storyline. Those scripts were deprioritized and this movie was written as a standalone adventure. That doesn’t stop people from speculating about where “the episodes” start and end in this movie because some people are determined to do anything but sit down and enjoy this movie on its own merits. If I were of a mind and wanted to I could also do the same thing with all the Lucas Star Wars movies and show you exactly where the “episodes” would be were it a TV show. But I won’t do that. Because it’s a dumb exercise and a waste of time. Star Wars is based on Flash Gordon adventure serials. It’s always been episodic.

Oh, my review. I almost forgot.

It’s a very straightforward fun movie that takes Star Wars back to its early roots as lighthearted family entertainment. It’s a movie that families can go see without necessarily having seen much Star Wars and enjoy, very much like A New Hope in 1977. Certainly if you enjoyed The Mandalorian, particularly the first season, you will like this movie.

While I’d say it’s mid-level Star Wars, in that it’s pretty simple and unambitious in its storytelling—you are not getting the plotting and tragedy of Revenge of the Sith, the gritty Rebellion intrigue of Rogue One—you are getting a solid fun family friendly adventure, with all of the adorable child-endangerment you loved on the Disney Plus series. Besides, mid-level Star Wars is still awesome. It’s a straight-forward movie that is beautifully made. You are getting the things that cinematic Star Wars has sometimes struggled with in the Disney era: great visual storytelling and imaginative well-thought out design, all the hallmarks of that elusive thing that is “good Star Wars.” This movie is loaded with all kinds of cool creatures and locations, this should be no surprise because The Mandalorian did this so well.

So standouts for me include the planets of Shakari and Nal Hutta. Shakari is an urban environment that at first recalls Coruscant or Daiyu but you soon realize that with its elevated trains, gritty underpasses, and house music-esque audio that it is based on Chicago. I accept this honor on behalf of my city. I want Shakari merch stat. Also I loved that the Salt Bar location looked like a Suncoast video. Something tells me Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni spent many hours of their youths in Suncoast locations. 

Nal Hutta, the Hutt homeworld, is appropriately gross and swampy and filled with slimly lounging Hutts, who seem to be occupying every shadowy alcove doing God knows what. The buildings seem to be made out of rotted pumpkins. The surrounding environs have a very bayou almost Splash Water Falls vibe complete with a Cajun-sounding alligator alien on a crudely made rocking chair.

I also really enjoyed the return of Rotta the Hutt, Jabba’s son. I wasn’t sure how this was going to play based on the trailers as Hutts have proven pretty difficult to get right in the past. While Return of the Jedi Jabba remains an amazing achievement in creature design and puppeteering, he doesn’t actually have to do much in the movie. When we’ve had to make Hutts move and emote it his been difficult, ie the Star Wars Special Edition. The twins in The Book of Boba Fett looked great, but again didn’t have to do much. Here Rotta is a gladiator, which means lots of action. Also, he’s a full on character in this movie with lots of emotion and dialogue. It’s okay, mostly because the character works well, I. The same way that you accept the limitations of prequel era Yoda because the technology always you to have a fully realized character who can move and emote despite having a weird uncanny sheen. The performance is good here and Rotta forms who I think will be a centuries long connection with young Grogu.

Lastly, the Anzellans from Rise of Skywalker and season three of The Mandalorian return and there is a delightful section of the movie where they and Grogu go on a little rescue mission together, complete with a tiny spaceship. It’s genuinely cute.

All in all this is a fun movie and I think one that will have a lot of kid appeal, which is great. This may be the movie that thirty years from now adults will remember as being their Star Wars. Despite the fact that it occasionally veers into darkness, Star Wars should always have something for kids to get into which is also well-made enough for adults to enjoy. 

Patrick Garone

The Most Healing Piece of Casting in Star Wars

​A long time ago, in the mid-1990’s, a Lucasfilm executive had the very consequential idea to “engage Star Wars fans online.” After all, the Gen X fans were young and computer savvy. They used the Internet and discussed the movies in message boards and in chats. What was the worst that could happen?

For The Phantom Menace, what happened was that between the time the movie was released in theaters and months later when it came out on home video, disgruntled "fans" congealed into a kind of online hate campaign directed against the film. This very successfully changed people’s impressions of the movie from a well-reviewed box office hit and pop cultural milestone to an embarrassing turkey which could never be referenced online without reflexively making a snide comment. We often talk about people having “derangement syndrome” about different topics but Prequel Derangement Syndrome was a real thing. To paraphrase the Grand Inquisitor: It was like an itch. They couldn't help it. This colored people's perceptions of this movie and its subsequent prequels for years.

We see stuff like this all the time now both in pop culture and, sadly, in our political life. Whether it’s the all-female Ghostbusters movie to Captain Marvel or The Acolyte, projects are routinely lambasted and trashed online often before they are even released and usually there is some regressive political/social agenda at work. Sites like Rotten Tomatoes have facilitated this as has the ability of any goober with an opinion to leave a review. The Phantom Menace was ground zero for this phenomenon.

As hard as it was to be a reasonable Star Wars fan during the prequels, I can only imagine how hard it must have been for the people making them. The nasty backlash to these movies is partially what drove Lucas to sell the rights to Disney. But the brunt of the hate landed squarely on people in front of the camera such as Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen and especially Ahmed Best, the actor who performed Jar-Jar Binks. This character was a lightning rod for prequel hate.

Best has been very gracious and open about discussing the psychological toll of this toxicity on his life. His origin story with Star Wars has all the makings of a Greek tragedy. Imagine you get the thing you want more than anything and it turns to poison in your hand.

Picture it: You are a young actor in your early twenties. You were a kid who grew up loving comic books and Star Wars.You are a theater kid just getting started in your career, doing a production of Stomp in San Francisco. Someone sees your show and offers you a role in the new Star Wars movie. You get discovered, like in some old movie.

Ahmed Best and I are about the same age and I was in theater school at the time he was recruited for Episode I. I probably had many of the same dreams and aspirations he had. I can imagine how big of an opportunity it was for him. To go to England and be in the new movie and work with Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Natalie Portman and Ewan MacGregor and George Lucas. To be a pioneer of a brand new style of performance? (Andy Serkis owes this man a fancy dinner at the very minimum.) I know that if I had been in his position, I would have lost my damn mind. 

That’s why out of all the lovely and fascinating people involved with Star Wars over the years (and there seem to be many), Ahmed Best’s story has always resonated with me. His relationship with the franchise is fascinating and complex and full of amazing highs and terrible lows.

Obviously, the man has worked through the trauma and is in a good place. He’s been open and kind enough to talk about all that in some detail, in the interests of helping others. He’s got a life and a family and a career outside of that experience. But something like that has to have left a mark.

Fast forward to the 2010’s. People’s attitudes about those moves rapidly changed and they were seen not just for their flaws but for their brilliance as well. The people who grew up with the prequels had kids of their own. Ahmed began dipping his toes back into Star Wars and hosted a kids show called Jedi Temple Challenge as the new Jedi character Kelleran Beq.

Meanwhile The Mandalorian became a big hit on Disney Plus. Grogu, or Baby Yoda, became a pop culture icon and the show began doling out the backstory of his rescue from the Jedi Temple during Order 66. People were wildly speculating about who rescued Baby Yoda from the temple. Was it Quinlon Voss? Was it a one-armed Mace Windu? It was finally revealed in season three and thankfully it was not spoiled in advance because when the elevator door slid open and it was Ahmed Fucking Best to the rescue.

Kudos to the people who make The Mandalorian for pulling off what is Star Wars’ finest casting coup. It was a complete surprise because if you had asked me, I would have said I wanted to see maybe Mace Windu or some juicy cameo pulled from Star Wars lore. That’s what I wanted. Seeing Ahmed Best it turns out what’s what I needed. It was strangely therapeutic and redemptive. I got emotional about I’m not gonna lie.

For Best it was an opportunity to show another side of himself as a performer and also to put to use some of the movement and martial arts training that helped him get cast in the first place, now as a badass Jedi Master who steps up to protect a kid who is in danger. For those of use who experienced the prequel releases and saw the negativity and abuse heaped upon him and understood the context, it was a beautiful moment. His return to Star Wars has been a real gift to the fans.

I was at Star Wars Celebration last year and could only really justify one autograph (they are super expensive) and I made sure to see Ahmed and he was as kind and gracious as you would hope. He told me the story about his tattoos which inspired the detail on his Jedi robes. Even more gratifying was seeing the adoring reception he received from the crowd. He’s become a beloved elder statesman of Star Wars fandom and that’s a beautiful thing.

Now, Hasbro, please explain to me why I have not been able to buy a Kelleran Beq Black Series action figure.

Patrick Garone

The Mandalorian, Season 3

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To paraphrase Shmi Skywalker, “you can’t stop Star Wars fans from hating Star Wars, anymore than you can stop the suns from setting.” After two shockingly well-regarded seasons of The Mandalorian, Star Wars fans reverted back to their feral state and turned on the show. Among a vocal and persistent swath of the fandom season three of the show is considered a turning point for both the show and really the whole Disney+ era and from here on in the response to new Star Wars projects has been mostly hysterically negative (The Acolyte) or apathetic (Skeleton Crew, The Bad Batch, Visions, Ahsoka) or in the case of Andor, hysterically positive. As we await imminent theatrical return of Star Wars on the big screen, the Disney+ experiment seems to be over.

Now that's not to say that the season is not without its flaws. Even for a show that has been notable from the beginning for its herky-jerky pacing and emphasis on weird side-quests, season three of The Mandalorian takes a lot of unexpected detours. Some of this is to do the heavy work to establish some important plot points for the overarching New Republic storyline shared by the other Mandoverse shows. This show is from the director of Iron Man 2, after all. And some of the other excursions are just…weird. But Star Wars should be weird, so that’s okay.

Some have complained about the ascension of Bo Katan as almost a co-lead this season. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. I have always been of the opinion that the Mandalorian monicker does not exclusively refer to Din Djarin. I enjoy Bo Katan’s relationship with Mando and Grogu and the way the three seem to be forming a family unit in this season. Besides, Bo Katan is also an important character to help tell the larger story of the reunion of the Mandalorian people, a story she has been involved with since The Clone Wars and Rebels. And this larger story of the Mandalorian people is a major focus of season three. 

This show was clearly never going to be about Din Djarin becoming the Mand'alore but there is a certain segment of men online who project their insecurity onto fictional characters and view Mando’s support of Bo Katan and disinterest in ruling as some kind of weakness. For some men, a male character who is not a total dick, is somehow a “cuck” or a victim of “wokeness.” Sigh.

While season three may lack the simplicity and focus on the prior seasons, it is stuffed to the gills with awesome Star Wars and brings the first phase of the story of the Mandalorian to a satisfying close. Also there are lots of cool connections to the wider Mandoverse and Star Wars lore in general and also does a lot to characterize the reality of the New Republic, the government established by the Rebel Alliance after the war. The season features some interesting references to the Sequel Trilogy and helps to lay some much needed groundwork for those later movies. There are awesome new creatures, troopers, and other characters. There is even what is perhaps the greatest and most meaningful cameo in the history of Star Wars. More on that here.

We start off with the Children of the Watch who have replenished their numbers and moved to what is essentially Space Australia—beautiful oceanfront property that is riddled with deadly prehistoric fauna. Din has located the community but because he had previously removed his helmet, he is considered an “apostate” and is tasked to bathe in the waters of the mines of Mandalore to redeem himself, a difficult proposition since that planet has been bombed into oblivion and believed to be uninhabitable. 

In order to do this, Mando decides he need a droid to help him navigate the ruins and he returns to Nevarro with the idea to restore IG-11 the bounty-hunter turned nanny who sacrificed himself to save Din and company at the end of season one. The Mandalorian famously dislikes droids, so this was an important relationship for him. En route and in hyperspace, Grogu notices a pod of Purrgils—hyperspace capable whale-like creatures—which figure prominently into both Rebels and Ahsoka. Indeed, it’s possibly the same set of Purrgils that Ahsoka rides to Peridia in the first season of her show.

Once on Nevarro we see how much the location has changed since its gritty introduction in season one. Nevarro has been a hub of the series from the beginning, in the same way Tatooine is in the Skywalker saga. Here Grief Carga (the dearly-missed Carl Weathers) has led the town into a new prosperity and respectability, despite pirates hovering around on the periphery. Mando is told by the local tiny Anzellan droidsmiths (think Rise of Skywalker’s Babu Frik) that he would need to find a new memory board to restore IG-11 and they are very rare. Side quest granted.

Mando then visits Bo Katan to join her on an expedition to Mandalore only to find her alone and embittered after her forces left her when she failed to acquire the Darksaber, which Mando still carries. Remember for a certain sect of Mandalorians, possession of the Darksaber is seen as a designation of leadership and it can only be won by combat. Ironically, among Din’s community neither bloodlines or possession of the Darksaber are valued, only faithful observation of The Creed. Indeed, most of them are not even connected to Mandalore. This season is very much an exploration of what it means to be a Mandalorian. Alone and defeated, Bo Katan sends Din on his way.

Their quest for a droid takes them back to Tattooine and frequent ally/babysitter Pelli Motto. It is Boonta Eve in Mos Eisley and Pelli gives Mando a deal on a new droid, none other than R5-D4, the droid Owen Lars almost bought instead of R2D2 in A New Hope. R5 has a storied history in the old Expanded Universe, a various times having been a Rebel asset who blew his motivator on purpose to ensure R2 got to Luke or even "Skippy the Jedi Droid." The EU was certainly a vibe.

Mando, R5, and Grogu head to Mandalore to begin their search for the Living Waters but Mando is trapped and captured by a truly gnarly creature, a gross cyborg who traps him and begins to drain his blood. Grogu makes his way back to the ship and heads off to get Bo Katan. Let's talk about this awesome creature for a second. It is Star Wars in the best possible way in that it is weird and beautifully designed and leaves you asking more questions than it answers. A truly good Star Wars design should leave you speculating and leave your imagination spinning off wild back stories. It should be provocative and imaginative enough so that people are writing comics about it years later. I think this design is that cool.

Bo Katan and Grogu return to Mandalore and rescue Din Djarin, with Bo Katan expertly wielding the Darksaber which the cyborg had removed from Mando. Mando's faith and earnestness begins to pull Bo Katan from her funk and she agrees to help him find the mines. They make their way to the there and both descend into its waters with Bo Katan getting a glimpse of the legendary Mythosaur, seen as a symbol of the Mandalorian people and their rebirth. 

They return to the Mandalorian culvert in Space Australia and Bo Katan joins them after the Empire destroys her castle. She spends some time with these Mandalorians and learns their ways...which are weird and involve a lot of shooting their guns into the water for no reason. For example, we learn that these fundamentalist Mandos cannot even eat in front of one another. Their rules seem super arbitrary and impractical. Like can married couples see each other unhelmeted? Do they wear their helmets during sex? Make it stop. It's so dumb.

Meanwhile the aforementioned pirates have invaded Nevarro and Grief Carga petitions the New Republic for help. However, the show makes it clear that the New Republic suuuucks. This is some decent table setting for the sequel trilogy, in which the New Republic's failures have allowed it to fall prey to the First Order. We spend a decent amount of time on Corscant this season. First following the cloner Dr. Pershing in the New Republic amnesty program, which shows us that the grinding bureaucracy of the New Republic is not that much better than that of the Empire. 

These sequences have some ominous THX-1138 vibes and Pershing is subjected to dehumanizing droid-led "counseling sessions" and eventually torture after he is framed by another reformed Imperial who is secretly working for the remnant.  Later, X-Wing pilot Carson Teva attempts to rally New Republic forces to assist Nevarro and he is rebuffed partially by the same Imperial agent who has infiltrated the New Republic military.

Teva then turns to the Mandalorians, who defeat the pirates and liberate Nevarro in a thrilling sequence. It is awesome to see so many Mandos in action kicking pirate ass. Despite being granted land to live openly on Nevarro, the Armorer-who is the spiritual leader of the Children of the Watch-decides that it is time to retake Mandalore and unite the Mandalorian people. She grants Bo Katan the freedom to remove her helmet, stating that she "walks both paths" and can "unite the Mandalorian people." Um...okay. Can she make it so that everyone can take off their helmets? Cause the helmet rule is super dumb.

In the weirdest episode of the season-and the one that some people refer to as proof that the show lost its way this season-Mando and Bo Katan track her former Mandalorian followers to a planet called Plazir-15 and a city that looks like Epcot Center concept art. It is a utopian city and as we are reminded several times, a "direct democracy." 

This episode is so quirky that I think it was secretly directed by George Lucas. It is so weird that its opening scene ends with a Quarren and a Mon Calamari making out. It's so weird it has a reverse Mos Eisley Cantina. It's so weird it ends with Christopher Lloyd ranting about Count Dooku.

It has bizarre cameos from Jack Black and Lizzo. Jack Black plays an ex-Imperial called Colonel Bombardier (a George Lucas character name if there ever was one.) In order to be given access to the Mandalorians that are working on the planet as security, Din and Bo Katan are given the side quest to investigate a series of droid-related crimes on the planet which they do in full television procedural style complete with a consultation with a "medical examiner." It also has echoes of the detective subplot in Attack of the Clones. I kinda love it because it's weird, unexpected and prequel-ly. I also love when Star Wars plays around with different genres.

Bo-Katan and Din Djarin meet up with and recruit the lost Mandalorians. She defeats Axe Woves in combat. Din also reveals to the Mandos that Bo Katan is actually the rightful owner of the Darksaber since she slew his cyborg captor in the mines of Mandalore. In the characterizations of Mando and Bo Katan the show has wisely avoided expectations in how these two would interact in a third season of the show. The easy and predictable dynamic might have been one which pitted the two against each other for the Darkaber or depicted Bo Katan as some kind of lazy "vengeful woman" trope. Instead the show takes the more interesting route of them being mature human beings who have a mutual respect and affection which outweighs any ambitions for power they might have. It's actually refreshing to see that Favreau and the writers have avoided a stupider version of this season based on dumb and easy conflict.

The united Mandalorians-an uneasy mix of the Armorer's "zealot" followers and Bo Katan's more cosmopolitan Mandos invade Mandalore and discover two things: first the planet can sustain life and survivors hide in the wasteland and, second, Moff Gideon has escaped from New Republic custody and has made a base there complete with beskar-armored commandos and a pair of Praetorian guards (a squad to these red-armored warriors were famously in The Last Jedi) that he has petitioned from the Imperial Remnant council. The idea of Mandalorian "Super Commandos" goes back to the ideas that Lucas had when he created Boba Fett who was originally envisioned as a kind of super Stormtrooper. 

We learn that the remnant is fractured and working on different projects and some are awaiting the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn, lost in Rebels prior to A New Hope  and others, the eventual First Order faction, are working to clone Palpatine. The show is doing some legwork to provide the "somehow" of Palpatine's survival.  Thrawn is also who Ahsoka is currently tracking in her own show concurrently with this season. Gideon however has been working this whole time to create force-enhanced clones of himself and we see him show up wearing some sick black Mandalorian armor.

Mando, Bo Katan, and Grogu defeat him, losing the Darksaber in the process and destroy the clones. Although, it must be asked, did they actually defeat him or one of his clones? The door definitely seems open for a return. 

The Mandalorians retake their planet and reignite their sacred forge, under the political leadership of Bo Katan. It should be noted that Din Djarin and his new apprentice Din Grogu, decide to live on Nevarro where they have a homestead. IG-11 has been restored and is now serving as the Marshall of Nevarro. The vibes here are very series finale, with the Gideon story arc apparently concluded as well the longer-in-motion story of the Mandalorian diaspora told over decades and multiple projects.

Patrick Garone