Journey to Stone City

Prince Adam, Man-At-Arms and Orko finally track down a legendary lost settlement, Stone City, using a carved map they stumble across in the jungle, not realizing Evil-Lyn, Kobra Khan and Webstor have been trailing them the entire time hoping to loot the ruins first. The villains steal the map and pin the heroes under rockslide debris, but He-Man frees everyone in time to give chase.

At Stone City, the Evil Warriors wake Vokan, an ancient warrior-king who put himself and his people to sleep in stone centuries ago to be revived only when Eternia truly needed them, and the villains take advantage of his confusion to convince him that He-Man stole the device his people need to complete their revival. Evil-Lyn leads an enraged Vokan straight to Castle Grayskull, where the Sorceress calls on He-Man to stop a fight neither warrior actually wants, while Evil-Lyn gloats that she'll trade the device back only if He-Man hands Grayskull over to her.

Needing the device back to save his people, He-Man and Vokan corner the villains at Snake Mountain instead, where an irritated Skeletor, who had no idea any of this was happening, gives the device up just to make the problem go away. Man-At-Arms reinstalls it at Stone City, but the moon it depends on has already drifted out of position, so He-Man resorts to physically shoving the mountain back into alignment to finish restoring Vokan's people, while Skeletor punishes Evil-Lyn and Webstor for scheming behind his back by putting them to work carving his statue.

Orko: "Today, we learned something about the importance of listening to other people." Man-At-Arms: "Orko..." Orko: "Just a sec. Vokan's big mistake was listening to Evil-Lyn without asking He-Man for his side of the story. Before we blame somebody for doing something, we should always find him and ask for his side of the story. It's important, because sometimes we're wrong about who's to blame." Man-At-Arms: "Orko..." Orko: "Remember, listen to what other people have to say. What is it, Man-At-Arms?" Man-At-Arms: "Dinner's ready." Orko: "Oh!"

John Erwin as He-Man/Prince Adam and Webstor

Alan Oppenheimer as Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Vokan and the sleepy tree

Linda Gary as Evil-Lyn and the Sorceress

Lou Scheimer (credited as Erik Gunden) as Orko, Kobra Khan, Attak Trak and Stone City villager

Vokan: "I am Vokan, greatest of all warriors, king of the people of Stone City."

Being the greatest warrior in the world is not the same thing as knowing when to fight, and "Journey to Stone City" spends its back half proving it on two characters at once. Vokan wakes from two centuries of stone sleep already convinced he is owed a fight. He-Man, cornered by the same ancient champion and the same wrongheaded grievance, spends most of the episode refusing to give him one. J. Michael Straczynski's script does not announce this as its subject, but it is there from the moment Vokan demands entry at the Jaw-Bridge: two men built the same way, pointed in opposite directions.

Evil-Lyn gets the episode's other half, and for once she is not waiting on Skeletor's instructions to get it. She tails Prince Adam's search party for three days on her own initiative, traps the heroes under a wall of stone slabs without consulting anyone at Snake Mountain, and only loses her nerve once Vokan starts winning the argument with his fists. Skeletor never learns what the Lifebringer was, never learns what Grayskull almost cost him, and still ends up the only one who comes out ahead, because Evil-Lyn ran the scheme alone until it fell apart on her. It is the most competent she looks all season.

The episode's best scene is not a fight. It is Orko waking the "sleeping tree" by accident and then trying to talk his way out of an argument with a plant, a bit that exists purely to kill time before the stone map turns up, and it works anyway because the tree's groaning, unimpressed face carries more personality than most of this season's actual villains. Filmation reuses the gag's underlying rig sparingly enough that it never curdles, and the payoff, Orko fleeing a hail of century-old rubble, earns its slapstick instead of coasting on Orko being present.

Where the episode loses its footing is Vokan himself, who the show never quite decides how to feel about. He accuses the Evil Warriors of theft on the thinnest possible evidence, beats them down for it, marches on Castle Grayskull on Evil-Lyn's word alone, and blasts the Jaw-Bridge open the moment the Sorceress tells him he cannot come in. The script treats each bad call as a forgivable symptom of urgency instead of a flaw worth examining. He-Man says as much out loud when he finally talks Vokan down, but the words come at the very end, after the damage to Grayskull's gate is already done, and Vokan's own apology afterward feels obligatory rather than earned[1].

The duel at the gate is where the episode spends its animation budget: He-Man blocks Vokan's full-strength blast with the Sword of Power, holds the standoff, then watches it rebound and drop his opponent, and neither fighter is made to look foolish for losing. It is the cleanest piece of action staging this stretch of the series manages. Man-At-Arms gets comparatively little to do beyond carrying the paper map and reconnecting the Lifebringer at the close, but the device itself, a moonlight-triggered restoration mechanism that needs He-Man to physically shove a mountain back into alignment, is a nicely literal way to make "the right tool, used right, matters more than brute strength" a plot mechanic instead of a line of dialogue.

Orko's closing message about hearing someone out before assigning blame is the episode naming its own point a little too plainly, but by then the show has already made the argument twice over: once through a warrior-king who refuses to listen, and once through a He-Man who does.

[1] The animation of He-Man retrieving the Sky-Sled from the back of the Attak Trak reuses the sequence first seen in "Prince Adam No More," here trimmed of its steering-mechanism and laser-gun business; the same cycle turns up again in "Revenge is Never Sweet."

1. Behind the scenes: Script was approved October 5, 1984 and final script revision took place October 10, 1984. The animation model for Vokan was designed by Pat Wong & Gerald Forton. Vokan's pointed ears and physique resemble the Vulcan physique from "Star Trek: The Animated Series", which was also produced by Filmation.
2. Continuity: The animated sequence of He-Man retrieving the Sky Sled from the back of the Attak Trak and leaping onto it was first seen in Prince Adam No More, but this time the animation of the vehicle's steering mechanism, head ram and laser gun popping out is omitted. The same sequence will be seen again in Revenge is Never Sweet. The animation of He-Man catching the falling Life Bringer is reused from the sequence in which he caught a falling tower in Return of the Gryphon. Another variation was seen in Capture the Comet Keeper.