Ya gotta love old time comics. There is a certain magic in them. Anything can happen and often does.

When I was a kid, I loved He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I don't know which I saw first, the action figure or the old cartoon. I remember rushing home off the bus to watch the cartoon on old WFLD TV in Chicago, way before it became a FOX affiliate. I remember the old action figures. One time, my He-Man broke-the rubber band that held his legs snapped-any my mom helped me write a letter to Mattel. I ended up getting a brand new He-Man in the mail.

He-Man's world was filled with swords and sorcery yet also filled with technology and laser guns. It gave me my first understanding and taste of different dimensional planes and alternate planets.

Plus, it was just so damn cool. The character named Trap Jaw had parts to switch. Tri-Klops had three eyes. Zodak was cool as just this strange "reality caretaker." Skeletor has to be one of the coolest-looking villains ever. I fell in love with the one girl figure in the bunch: Teela. They all came with cool little mini-comics, obviously one of the precursors to my love of comic books in total. He-Man ended up being my crossover into the world of comic books. (That and Transformers as the comic book started way back in 1984.)

Not too long ago over winter break, I did a search for "good old comics." It amazes me what you find when you change your search terms up a bit. I came across this website that scanned all the old mini-comics! They are in jpeg format but you can use the CBR (Comic Book Reader) program to view them in large format in sequential pages, like a book.

So I downloaded them to relive those days of being seven to ten years old again. They also had the old DC Comics three-issue limited series that I remember reading too although I have no idea what happened to those old comics. Maybe they were in the same box that my sports cards were in that my mom threw away one day. She thought they were a jumbled mess and didn't know I was in the process of organizing them. Remember sorting sports cards and Star Wars cards? You could look at them all by mixing them up and then starting piles for 1-9, 10-19, 20-29, etc, and then arranging them. Could even find doubles for trading that way. This might be another reason I am anal retentive about little messes and order on some of the small things because I might have been afraid that my mother was going to throw away my stuff. But I digress.

This first comic isn't actually the first DC comic of He-Man. He appeared in a preview with Superman in DC Comics Presents and then as a solo feature in the same magazine a few issues later. I have those. This one starts the real magic of the He-Man universe that was strong and rich.

First of all, we get to see all of the classic characters like Man-At-Arms, Stratos, and Teela. Teela is the daughter of Man-At-Arms but is not dressed like the old figure. That is the snake-outfit that the Sorceress wears, the protector of Castle Grayskull and the two-halves of the Sword of Power. The neat part here is that Skeletor has a great plan of using He-Man to find the other half of the Power Sword that is been flung among the dimensions. He-Man starts to unravel a mystery of prophecy and portents and talismans to find the sword in order to save the life of the captive Sorceress.

One of the great things here is the dialogue. He-Man and Skeletor both use speech with words like "ere" and "e'er." It sounds like those great old Thor comics. It took some mind power to read this stuff.

There is wizardry and flying birdmen, talking Battlecat and hordes of Beastmen (not just one Beast-Man).

The quest has begun. A great comic book.