He-Man/Thundercats #2 (review)
DC Comics, November, 2016
Writers: Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason
Our review of “He-Man/Thundercats” #1 was less than favourable due to what we felt was a needlessly complex premise: characters from the two Saturday morning children’s cartoon, “He-Man and Masters of the Universe” and “Thundercats”, smashing against each other, to puzzlingly enable a cadre of ancient omnipotent evil beings to steal He-Man’s sword of power, and then use the sword to defeat the Thundercats. We were of what we regard as the simple and reasonable view that godlike beings with the power and audacity to mess with multiple realities do not need He-Man’s magic sword to achieve what they want. In other words, the plot was silly.
Fortunately, the second issue of this crossover miniseries has relegated that roundabout plot to the background, focusing more on the story’s primary villain, named Skeletor. This character is the primary antagonist of the “He-Man” franchise, portrayed as a heavily muscular, hooded figure but with the face of a skull (the skull visage giving rise to the otherwise contradictory but ominous name).