The Monster Within

After Beast Man seizes control of Man-E-Faces' monster form and turns him against his friends, a shaken Man-E-Faces swears never to become Man-E-Monster again. Skeletor, tired of his warriors' failures, hires two feuding bounty hunters, Tuvar and Baddhra, to destroy He-Man, and they lure He-Man and Man-E-Faces into the Tar Swamp with rumours of a monster. When Beast Man tries to command Man-E-Monster a second time, Man-E-Faces plays along, then turns on the Evil Warriors. Skeletor punishes the bounty hunters for refusing to cooperate by binding them into one body.

"Guess there's a little bit of the monster in all of us. We all get angry, jealous... sometimes feel like saying mean things. It's all a part of being human. But just remember that we alone are responsible for our own actions."

Skeletor: "He-Man always shows up, you fool!"

Man-E-Faces: "I'm an actor. The monster is just a role. One I never care to play again."

Baddhra: "You fall for that like rock in Ocean of Gnarl!"

Man-E-Faces: "They call it acting, hairball."

Skeletor: "Don't like each other, hmm? Well, then... too bad!"

Tuvar: "Hit me with your one arm?"

An actor who has been typecast knows the feeling: the part you played best becomes the only part anybody will let you play. Man-E-Faces gets the darker version of that problem in The Monster Within, because the role he is known for has a face of its own, and in the opening skirmish over the Emerald of Orkas Island somebody else takes the director's chair. Beast Man reasons that a man who is part beast is a man he can command, cracks his whip, and Man-E-Monster turns on his friends. When it is over, Man-E-Faces can only ask "What have I done?", and Skeletor's crew are gone with the Emerald.

Skeletor's response to another failure is to stop relying on his own staff. Whiplash knows two bounty hunters, Tuvar and Baddhra, who are good at their work and cannot stand each other; Tuvar trades in full-sentence threats, and Baddhra boasts in broken English that he will take on anyone "for right price." Their audition is a brawl with Beast Man and Trap Jaw, and the bigger fight starts when Skeletor tells them they will be working together. Evil-Lyn, for her part, would rather let them beat He-Man and then take the credit herself.

The Monster Within is about who gets to direct Man-E-Faces, and Larry DiTillio's script holds its answer back until the last act: nobody but him. Back at the palace a joke about the swamp monster being Man-E-Faces "out for a stroll" lands badly, and he answers like an actor who has quit a part: "The monster is just a role. One I never care to play again." The rest of the plot keeps asking him to play it. He and He-Man go into the Tar Swamp to find the monster attacking tradesmen, Man-E-Robot works out that the roaring is a lure, and the bounty hunters spring their trap. When he realises Man-E-Monster could track them by scent, Man-E-Faces takes the idea back before he has finished saying it.

The bounty hunters are the comic half of the same idea. Their partnership lasts as long as He-Man is losing; once they have him, they fight over who gets paid, and Baddhra's double-cross ("You fall for that like rock in Ocean of Gnarl!") is the best line either of them gets. The swamp scenes give the animators plenty to work with, from He-Man struggling in crackling chains in a cloud of purple smoke to the green-tinted view screen that stands in for Man-E-Robot's eyes.

Paul Dobson voices every face Man-E-Faces wears, according to the He-Man wiki's cast list, and the switches between the robot's clipped syntax ("Man-E-Monster face is needed") and the actor's own voice are clean enough that you always know who is talking. Brian Drummond and Mark Gibbon split the bounty hunters, and they sound like two men who have been arguing for years.

The weakness is the climax's twist. Beast Man catches Man-E-Monster again, the monster struggles ("No, I... Yes, I obey"), He-Man pleads with him to fight it, and then the episode reveals the struggle was a performance: "They call it acting, hairball." It is a fine payoff for a character built on acting. But it means the fight we watched him lose was never real, and the harder story, a man winning back a part of himself in front of us, is traded for a trick. The episode gets its punchline and loses some of its weight.

The ending makes up for a lot. Man-E-Faces thanks He-Man for reminding him that he gets to choose what roles he plays, and the bounty hunters, who chose nothing, get cast by Skeletor as one body because they refused to work together. "Don't like each other, hmm? Well, then... too bad!" It is a terrible pun and a perfect one! The bickering creature it leaves behind has a long career ahead of it.

1. Production: According to the He-Man wiki, which cites the episode's commentary on the Season 1, Volume 2 DVD, rewrite to say only what the DVD commentary is cited for, or check the wiki wording, and story editor Dean Stefan liked it enough to build this episode around it.
2. Continuity: This is the first appearance of Tuvar and Baddhra, fused at the end into the villain the He-Man wiki calls Two-Badd. In Separation they go looking for a spell to split themselves apart again.
3. Homage: The original Two Bad's name is a play on "too bad", according to the He-Man wiki, and Skeletor delivers the pun as he binds the pair together: "Well, then... too bad!"
4. Voice cast: Brian Drummond voices Tuvar and Mark Gibbon voices Baddhra, while Paul Dobson covers every face of Man-E-Faces as well as Trap Jaw and Tri-Klops, per the He-Man wiki's cast list.
5. Voice cast: Brian Dobson doubles as Skeletor and Buzz-Off, who beats Man-E-Faces at chess in the closing segment, according to the He-Man wiki.
6. Continuity: Swamp Hoppers last turned up in Lessons, in the flashback where Orko first saves young Prince Adam and Cringer from them in the Tar Swamp. Here the heroes leave the beaten bounty hunters to "the swamp hopper". Larry DiTillio wrote both episodes, per the He-Man wiki.
7. Homage: The 2002 series keeps the Filmation idea of Man-E-Faces as an actor who uses his faces as roles, and the He-Man wiki notes that this episode gives him a split-personality story close to the original concept behind the character.