NEW ADVENTURES - 1990

The Blacksmith of Crelus

The Blacksmith of Crelus title card
E61

Official Synopsis

He-Man holds a sword ready facing Skeletor in a room with a pink-lit dome.

The Mutants have searched every weapon maker in Gorn City without luck, and when Skeletor presses a stranger about his arms he names a blacksmith on Crelus. Flogg decides to go there and arm the Mutants for the games, and Primus sends the Galactic Guardians after the same man. The Mutants fire heat-seeking strike sticks at Starship Eternia, and the Guardians try to give the missiles something else to follow. The blacksmith Yolt takes the Mutants for the good side after they return a chain sword, but when the Guardians show him no harm he sees he was fooled and arms them instead. Skeletor attacks, retreats, and Flipshot is warned about ladders.

Morals by closing safety lesson, paraphrased from the episode audio

Flipshot is warned that the top of a ladder is not a step, and the closing lesson tells viewers to use a ladder the right way: be on steady ground, have someone hold it if not, and do not use the top as a step.

heman.org Episode Review

Whom should a stranger believe when two sets of visitors reach his forge on the same day and each is ready to be called the good side? "The Blacksmith of Crelus" builds its half hour on that question, and it opens with the Mutants, not the heroes, shopping for the one thing Gorn City cannot sell them. Their complaint is that every weapon maker there offers blades so feeble they could not cook dinner with them, and elsewhere Skeletor leans on a stranger to learn where his weapons came from, which brings out the name of a blacksmith on Crelus and a retort that nobody lives on Crelus at all.

Both camps hear of the blacksmith and both draw the obvious conclusion. Flogg announces that the Mutants will go to Crelus and arm themselves for the games against the Galactic Guardians, while on Primus someone checks the geography, remarks that the planet was thought to be uninhabited, and then says that if Meliac was right about a blacksmith there, the Guardians should go and have weapons made so that Primus can win the games. The script lets the villains reach the forge first.

Put in plain words, this is a story about how easily a kind person can be fooled, and what he chooses to do once he knows it. Yolt greets the Mutants by saying the fires of his forge foretold two visits, one by evil strangers and one by good, and asks which they are; when they hand back a chain sword that he says was stolen from him, he decides they must be the good ones, and by the time the Guardians arrive he has been told that they are the wicked party. What turns him is an argument: a man who meant harm would have used his chance, and the good have nothing to fear from each other. His admission afterward, that he has been fooled but is wiser for it, is the emotional centre of the piece, and his advice to take time over making friends and let people prove they deserve them is a decent thing for a children's cartoon to say aloud.

The action around that centre has a nice rhythm. The Mutants launch heat-seeking strike sticks at Starship Eternia, Skeletor gets his Lone Ranger joke in as he spots He-Man, and Slush Head is left to grumble that he is the one who has to land the ship, a small piece of put-upon comedy that suits him. On the Guardians' side the pursuit by a swarm of homing missiles ends in a plan to give them something else to follow, which is the sort of quick, clear problem a half hour handles well.

The weakness is how quickly the scales tip, first one way and then the other. Yolt is won over by a returned chain sword, then talked round again by a short exchange in which the Guardians point out that they could have harmed him and did not, and a character who has just been taught that evil is everywhere takes very little convincing in either direction. We can guess why: the story has a weapons delivery, a missile chase and a skirmish to fit in, and a longer test of the visitors would have cost one of them. The shortcut sits oddly beside Yolt's own lesson about patience.

The closing safety tip turns to ladders: the top of a ladder is not a step, and viewers are told to use one the right way and to have someone hold it if the ground is not steady.

Verdict: a brisk, good-humoured opener to the series' last five-part run, with a solid idea about trust that it states clearly and then rushes slightly. Its best line is also its simplest, that a friend should be allowed to prove himself.

Notes of Interest

  1. Toys: The He-Man wiki says the new weapons Yolt makes are based on variants from the last wave of the He-Man toy line, except Kayo's and Optikk's, which may have been meant for a later wave.
  2. Homage: Skeletor mentions the Lone Ranger in jest, per the He-Man wiki.
  3. Edit history: The He-Man wiki records a layering error where, as Needle-Nose is kicked toward the camera, a tiny Flogg appears in front of him for a few frames.
  4. Edit history: Hoove has the wrong color palette, blue instead of brown, as the Mutants first stand in the blacksmith's doorway, according to the He-Man wiki.
  5. Continuity: Needle-Nose and Yolt appear only in this episode, and Karatti and Staghorn make their last Jetlag appearances as cameos, per the He-Man wiki.
  6. Edit history: Per the He-Man wiki, Optikk's alternate outfit seen here shows up early in a scene of There's Gems in Them Hills.
  7. Continuity: The He-Man wiki notes that Adam of Grayskull does not appear in this story.
  8. Continuity: Wikipedia's episode list labels this episode Part 1 of 5, opening the run of stories that ends the series.

Cast Appearances

Full roster →
He-Man
Good

He-Man
Skeletor
Evil

Skeletor
Flogg
Evil

Flogg
Slushhead
Evil

Slushhead

Episode screenshots

A mutant in red and blue tumbles through the air over a bar as others look on.
A mutant in red and blue tumbles through the air over a bar as others look on.
A long-nosed mutant sprawls backward on the floor with a spiked ball and chain trailing from his whip.
A long-nosed mutant sprawls backward on the floor with a spiked ball and chain trailing from his whip.
Skeletor grins in a stone doorway, gripping his staff.
Skeletor grins in a stone doorway, gripping his staff.
Skeletor locks an arm around the orange-haired mutant from behind as he struggles.
Skeletor locks an arm around the orange-haired mutant from behind as he struggles.
Skeletor holds the mutant in a headlock while the mutant grips a whip handle.
Several figures stand in a bar while a faded image of a large red-suited figure overlaps them.
Several figures stand in a bar while a faded image of a large red-suited figure overlaps them.
Skeletor glares sideways while the mutant beside him holds up a spear-tipped whip.
Skeletor grins beside the mutant, who holds a long pole across his chest.
Skeletor grins wide, his face filling the frame beside the mutant's orange hair.
The mutant holds a pole and a whip handle while Skeletor grins behind him.
Skeletor and the mutant stand side by side as Skeletor leans on his staff.
The mutant sits on the floor holding his nose as a robot and a tall man look on.
The mutant sits on the floor holding his nose as a robot and a tall man look on.
Skeletor grins beside a green door, holding his staff.
Flogg glares sideways while Slush Head stands beside him.
Flogg glares sideways while Slush Head stands beside him.
Flogg scowls as Skeletor turns his back toward him in the foreground.
Flogg scowls as Skeletor turns his back toward him in the foreground.
A grey-skinned one-eyed man stares ahead with parted lips.
A grey-skinned one-eyed man stares ahead with parted lips.
He-Man stands facing an elderly man in a purple robe who gestures from his chair.
He-Man stands facing an elderly man in a purple robe who gestures from his chair.
A floating space station hangs above a glowing planet horizon.
He-Man and a man in blue armor look ahead from a cockpit as another sits behind.
He-Man and a man in blue armor look ahead from a cockpit as another sits behind.
Figures sit at stations inside a large purple alien vessel with a spiked curved hull.
Skeletor and Flogg stand in a dim chamber beside a pale curved console under a full moon.
Three round ports on a purple spacecraft hull reveal small darts inside.
A cloud of tiny white lights streams away from a purple ship above a red planet.
Flogg leans over a console as Slush Head, in a clear helmet, watches beside him.
Flogg scowls toward the camera while Skeletor stands beside him.
A pink hatch slides open on the underside of a purple ship.
A pink ramp extends from the underside of a large clawed ship above the ground.
Armored walkers carrying seated pilots stand in the dark, one raising a weapon.
A moonlit rocky plain stretches under a starry night sky.
A woman in a red skirt walks past a wall lit by a burning torch.
A hammer strikes a glowing pink blade on a yellow anvil.
The bearded blacksmith frowns in a stone archway.
Skeletor grins in front of the mutants as Flogg and Slush Head stand behind him.
Two glowing pink windows are set in a rounded stone wall.
A hammer glows with blue light on a wooden floor.
A sandaled leg steps forward as Skeletor and the mutants wait at the far end of a hall.
Skeletor grins and holds a chain mace across from the blacksmith, who grips a hammer.
The blacksmith holds up a folded blue cloth as Skeletor stands with a spiked mace and staff.
Skeletor grins in front as Flogg, Slush Head and other mutants stand behind him.
Skeletor grins past his staff while a purple-faced figure's eye glares from behind him.
He-Man stands behind two seated men at the controls of a dark blue bridge.
He-Man glances sideways with mouth open, a sword hilt over his shoulder.
A white and blue spaceship with red engines flies through starry space.
He-Man stands behind two pilots with a hand on a seat, looking forward.
The white spaceship glides through space as small sparks trail behind.
He-Man and two pilots look ahead anxiously from the cockpit.
Explosions burst against the white spaceship's hull as bright lights flare.
The white spaceship flies through space as a trail of tiny objects streams behind it.
A blue energy streak swirls across the starry sky.
A fiery explosion bursts in space beside the ship's nose.
The blacksmith examines a pink glowing panel as Flogg, Skeletor and the mutants stand in a metal room.
A green-skinned mutant with fangs scowls beside Slush Head in a clear helmet.
A green-skinned mutant with fangs scowls beside Slush Head in a clear helmet.
Dark twisted shapes rise against a blue and orange sunset sky.
The blacksmith, Flogg and Skeletor stand together in a bare metal room.
A red-armored figure strikes a leopard-patterned fighter, who falls across a metal floor.
A dark armored figure's white chest plate carries a small yellow dial.
A green-skinned mutant in red and black armor stands tensed beside a dark doorway.
Flogg and Slush Head look on beside a muscular man in a sleeveless shirt as hooks sway overhead.
A muscular man in a red skirt stands among Flogg and the mutants in a metal room.
A small spaceship flies over purple hills under a pink sky.
A red-haired man with a bandaged arm leans on the ship's console and smiles.
He-Man runs with sword drawn alongside four companions across a purple plain.
He-Man holds a hand to his chest in a dissolve that overlaps a second image of him.
A gloved hand holds a white scanner with two antennae and a small screen.
A thatched hut with a blue door stands among dark trees at night.
He-Man runs toward a blue-paneled doorway across a sandy floor.
He-Man grips a blue sword while a masked man in blue and a winged-helmet pilot stand behind him.
A masked man in blue sits between barrels and sacks, leaning on a large mallet.
A closed grey metal door carries a triangular symbol.
The bearded blacksmith braces his arm as a bright burst flashes beside him.
The blacksmith raises a spiked mace in one hand beside a wooden fence.
A yellow anvil sits on a stone floor.
A blond man lifts a bearded man in a red skirt as a masked man watches.
A yellow anvil fills the frame at a tilted angle.
He-Man looks past the blacksmith's shoulder with a frown.
He-Man looks to the side with a stern face.
The blacksmith stands with his back to the camera facing He-Man and a winged-helmet pilot.
He-Man stands with the blacksmith and four armored companions in a workshop.
A masked man in blue punches a yellow gauntlet through a crumbling stone wall.
A pilot in a winged white helmet and blue armor looks to the side, mouth open.
Skeletor grins through a square window opening.
A winged pilot kicks and shoves a green-skinned mutant against a wall.
A mutant in brown armor lies sprawled in an open doorway under a starry sky.
A masked man in blue lashes out with a line while a red-armored figure sails overhead.
A red-tipped missile flies through a grey room trailing smoke.
Stars show through a jagged hole in a stone wall.
The winged pilot stands with fists clenched, an orange shield on his chest.
Skeletor grips an axe across his chest, grinning.
Skeletor stands holding his staff in front of a pink-windowed dome and a yellow anvil.
Skeletor stumbles back, swinging his staff, as dust kicks up at his feet.
A mutant in brown armor runs out an open doorway into the starry night.
He-Man and the blacksmith stand side by side between rock walls.
He-Man faces the winged pilot, a masked man and the blacksmith in the workshop.
The winged-helmet pilot holds a red boomerang beside a dark window.
A red-haired man in blue walks toward a tall wooden ladder leaning on a blue wall.

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