Sky War

Skeletor wants Ambrosia, the miracle food the Andreenids make in the Mystic Mountains, and he sets out to get it by starting a war. At the royal palace Buzz-Off rejects King Randor's call for an alliance, and on the way home both Buzz-Off and Stratos are attacked by warriors who look like each other's people but are spell-disguised gargoyles. Tri-Klops intercepts Randor's peace broadcast and Skeletor rewrites it in the king's voice. While the two armies face off, Skeletor raids the Ambrosia and overpowers He-Man until the food turns toxic and drains him, and He-Man reaches the armies in time to stop the battle.

"Sometimes it's important to be a team player. When people work together, they can accomplish great things."

Buzz-Off: "Alliances are for the weak."

Buzz-Off: "So, Stratos thinks he can pull the wax over our eyes?"

Stratos: "I won't be the one who starts a war, but I will be the one who finishes it."

He-Man: "And I didn't think you could get any uglier."

He-Man: "Okay, so maybe you picked up a little strength."

Wars in cartoons usually need a villain to fire the first shot. In Sky War the shots are fired by faces nobody can trust, and the voice everybody trusts is the one being faked.

Michael Reaves moves from Snake Mountain to the royal palace, where King Randor asks Buzz-Off and Stratos to stand together against Skeletor and Buzz-Off turns him down flat. Buzz-Off is the episode's new face, and he arrives fully formed: proud, insular and sure that Andrinos is impenetrable because its sensor screens can see an attack coming from far away. "Alliances are for the weak" is the kind of thing a character says in the first act so that the third act can take it back.

Sky War is about trust, and how cheaply it can be forged. Gargoyles wearing the faces of Avion and Andreenid warriors attack both delegations on the way home, and when Randor tries to calm things with a broadcast to both peoples, Tri-Klops intercepts it and Skeletor reads a new speech in the king's voice. The cruel part of the plan is that it works because Randor is trusted. Even Stingrad, the counselor urging Buzz-Off to send ambassadors instead of armies, accepts that Randor's word can be trusted, and Stratos tells his own council that Randor would not warn them unless he was sure.

Reaves gives both leaders a reason to hold back, which keeps them from looking like fools. Buzz-Off listens when Stingrad calls war an extreme act, and Stratos refuses to send his people into battle without proof, then gives the episode its best piece of character writing when the armies meet in the canyon: "I won't be the one who starts a war, but I will be the one who finishes it." These are proud leaders being manipulated, not idiots; the tension comes from watching two sensible positions edge toward the same disaster.

Adam spends the episode on the edge of it. He is needled at court for never being on hand when a battle starts, and Randor agrees, sadly, that Adam isn't much help in this time of war. It is the same wound The Courage of Adam opened a week earlier, and the script presses on it lightly before sending Adam off to transform.

The middle stretch is the weakest part. The Wind Raider goes down in smoke over a jungle, He-Man and Teela fight off thorned vines and Skeletor's henchmen, and then they are jumped again on the road to Avion, at which point He-Man says what the audience is thinking: they are trying to delay us. A delay the hero can name is still a delay, and the episode would have had more room for its two armies if the detour were shorter. What carries it is the design work. Andrinos is a golden hive of honeycomb windows, the Avion hall is white and cool, and the canyon of rock spires where the armies gather fills with swarms of tiny fliers.

The standout scene belongs to He-Man and an Ambrosia-swollen Skeletor, and what a sight that bulked-up skull is! Brian Dobson plays Skeletor drunk on his own strength, gloating that he is stronger, faster and better armed, and Cam Clarke's He-Man answers with a mild "Okay, so maybe you picked up a little strength" that sounds like a concession and works as a goad. When the power curdles, Skeletor works it out too late: He-Man knew Ambrosia turns toxic in anyone but the Andreenids and kept him showing off to burn it faster. The hero wins with the villain's own trick, letting the other side believe something untrue.

It ends with He-Man telling both armies that neither of them started this war, and Buzz-Off declaring the Andreenids allies in the struggle against Skeletor. Sky War is the series building its world outward, adding a people, a politics and a new hero at once, and its closing alliance is earned by the same thing that nearly destroyed it: both sides were willing to believe Randor. This time the voice that stopped them was real.

1. Continuity: This is the first appearance of Buzz-Off and the Andreenids in the 2002 series. The He-Man wiki notes that his personality, sullen, independent and distrustful, is developed far beyond his 1980s portrayal.
2. Continuity: The trade dispute between Avion and Andrinos was set up in the previous episode, The Courage of Adam, where Stratos asked King Randor's leave to go home and settle it.
3. Continuity: The Eye of Zarkane, the pass where Adam and Stratos were ambushed in The Courage of Adam (use one spelling on both pages), is on He-Man's route to Avion again here.
4. Toys: Skeletor's Ambrosia-powered look is based on the Battle Sound Skeletor figure Mattel released in 2002. The He-Man wiki says the matching looks for Evil-Lyn and Tri-Klops were original designs made for the episode.
5. Continuity: Ambrosia returns in the season two episode Web of Evil, where the same rule holds and a character spells it out: "Ambrosia is toxic to anyone but Andreenids."
6. Voice cast: Brian Dobson voices both Skeletor and Buzz-Off. Garry Chalk doubles as Man-At-Arms and Stingrad, Kathleen Barr as Evil-Lyn and Hawk, and Michael Donovan as King Randor and a Hornet Warrior.
7. Production: Writer Michael Reaves (1950 to 2023) had written for Filmation's original series, including The Dragon Invasion and Song of Celice, and for The New Adventures of He-Man. He later wrote Roboto's Gambit for this series.
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