Awesome / He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002)

• He-Man's first appearance in the show. From coming out of nowhere to save Teela, to single-handedly beating Skeletor's top generals (using nothing but a giant rock), to going toe to toe with Skeletor (or Skeletor going toe to toe with He-Man while he's still learning just how strong he is and trying to take him alive).
  • Before that, we get to see that the other Masters of the Universe (still known as The Defenders) are considered Eternia's top warriors for a reason, who, led by King Randor, were winning before Evil-Lyn started using high explosive magic. Also, we're treated to Adam spontaneously joining the battle as himself (he won't become He-Man until after Skeletor caught Randor) and beating up Whiplash.
  • One of Evil-Lyn's mightiest assaults: she hijacks a meteor shower to bombard the defenders. And The defenders manage to counterattack this: Man-At-Arms starts blasting meteors to rebound the fragments onto the Evil Warriors, and Ram-Man pulverizes one with an headbutt. Then Evil-Lyn summons one too large for Man-At-Arms to blast, Tri-Klops' drones are keeping Teela in place to get hit directly... And that's when He-Man joins the battle by crushing the drone and punching the meteor so hard he disintegrates it.
  • After He-Man leaves to save Randor, the newly dubbed Masters of the Universe and the Evil Warriors joined battle again. We don't see most of it, but the Masters win. The only thing we see is Mer-Man's giant flying fish eating Man-At-Arms, Teela giving chase to try and save her father or at least avenge him, and Man-At-Arms blowing the fish like a balloon and escaping from its mouth when it started blowing out the air.
• In "Sky War", some for Skeletor: he effortlessly manipulates Stratos and Buzz-Off into believing the other is going at war against their people, all to make sure Buzz-Off's Andrinians aren't guarding their reserves of ambrosia-a food that made Skeletor strong enough to overpower He-Man.
  • How does He-Man win? Easy: he goads Skeletor into making the Ambrosia poison him and his minions faster. Turns out it's poisonous to anyone but the Andrinians and the more you use its power the faster the effect, and He-Man knew it.
  • Still, there's a war starting. How does He-Man stop it? He tanks the Wave-Motion Gun shots from both Andrinians and Avionians to gain their attention, before explaining them the situation.
• Props must be given to the writers for truly showcasing why Skeletor is such a serious, perennial threat to Eternia. The pilot episode features him totally annihilating the Barrier once a crack is made by his minions. And once he and the other Evil Warriors are free, he engages his old rival and half-brother Randor in single combat, and the battle isn't even close. He then gives the newly minted He-Man all he can handle one-on-one, with their fight ending in a stalemate. And every subsequent battle between the two, He-Man is never able to definitively defeat Skeletor; the "Overlord of Evil" always manages to escape. And let us not forget the episode "Underworld", where Skeletor, unleashing his dual blades, successfully duels He-Man and King Randor at the same time before getting away yet again. Oh, and Skeletor utterly dominates the extremely capable Man-At-Arms in the first chapter of "Council of Evil".
• Usually Mer-Man doesn't appear too smart. But in "The Deep End" we see he was the only one smart enough to realize the Corodite Crystal had not been destroyed by the explosion of the machine that brought down the Mystic Wall-notable because Skeletor himself had no idea, and he had been the one who originally sent Mer-Man to retrieve it.
  • Later in the episode, a mishap leads to Mer-Man's giant fish eating the Crystal and getting mutated by it. The now mutated monster easily overpowers Evil-Lyn, forcing her to defend herself with a shield and pushing her back with any hit from its machine gun teeth... And then we're treated to Mer-Man casually dodging the attack. Sure, they were underwater, but...
  • How is the situation solved? Easy: He-Man jumps inside the now Kaiju-sized fish, retrieves Man-At-Arms and the Crystal, climbs up the throat, and forces the mouth open when he finds it closed, all of it before the monster gets too close to Castle Grayskull and the Masters have to destroy it as ordered by Man-At-Arms. He then punches the monster out and, seeing the Crystal is about to explode and nuke a large chunk of Eternia, absorbs the energy of the explosion with his sword and survives. Only itch in all of this is that the Evil Warriors realize where He-Man's power comes from...
• Count Marzo uses his debut episode ("Mekaneck's Lament") to great effect when it comes to affirming his bonafides. Not only is he established as a straight-up badass in the flashback where he singlehandledly battles the entire Eternian army (only defeated by the most narrow of margins), but in the present day, he neutralizes the entire Eternian guard (including the Masters) with nerve gas, and legit KO's He-Man one-on-one. Only trickery by Mekaneck prevents Marzo from winning the day.
• In "Lessons" we get to see Orko when he still had his wand to channel his powers. He really deserved the name Orko the Great.
  • Later, we have a bad situation. Skeletor gets his hands on the Ram Stone, a powerful artifact that can take down any and all barriers, and uses it first to knock out He-Man (reverting him to Adam in the process) and then to defeat the defenses of Castle Grayskull. With the Sorceress trying to get He-Man back in combat, Orko is the only thing between Skeletor and the Power of Grayskull. Darkest Hour? Nope, time to see Skeletor tricked and Orko stealing the Ram Stone from his hands with ease.
  • After Evil-Lyn steals the Ram Stone, Man-At-Arms is left facing Beast Man and Trapjaw alone. At the end of the episode we see that Duncan has beaten the crap out of both of them.
• In "Siren's Song" a pissed-off Ram-Man tries to ram Buzz-Off, believing him a traitor. Ram-Man's charge can shatter walls, and his head once took a meteor strike with little damage. He-Man stops him with one hand.
  • Later in the episode, the Masters realize Ram-Man has been hypnotized into stealing the Immobilizer for Skeletor. Cue giving Ram-Man an anti-hypnosis gizmo and locking him in, ready to 'get ambushed' to recover the device (that Man-At-Arms made with an activation code, so Skeletor can't use it). And once that happens, Man-At-Arms defeats Skeletor and his warriors in five seconds. Had Evil-Lyn not been sufficiently out of the way to escape the Immobilizer, Skeletor would have been defeated for good then and there.
  • He-Man accidentally loses the anti-hypnotic gizmo and gets hypnotized by Evil-Lyn. He's trying to resist her order to jump in a pool of lava, but is losing-Cue Ram-Man dropping a tree on her, breaking the spell and destroying the Immobilizer.
• "The Monster Within" serves as the first appearance of mercenaries Tuvar and Baddhra, and swiftly establishes their ass-kicking cred. First, they prove their skills and toughness to Skeletor by wiping the floor with Trapjaw and Beast Man, and then Tri-Klops and Evil-freakin' LYN right after. And later in the episode, they actually succeed in their assigned mission by disabling and incapacitating He-Man, and would have killed him but for Man-E-Faces taking advantage of Tuvar and Baddhra's in-fighting.
  • "Separation" amply proves that despite their being merged into "Two-Bad" (as punishment by Skeletor for ultimately failing in their original mission), they are still extremely capable and dangerous. In the course of their personal quest to find a way to undo their merging, despite their utter hatred for each other, they not only stay several steps ahead of He-Man for most of the episode, but they also manage to take down a full-grown DRAGON: a creature even Skeletor and He-Man himself dreads facing.
• "The Council of Evil" is a big one for Skeletor:
  • First, his master plan to capture the good guys works. Sure, it cost him most of his Evil Warriors, but he could replace them anyway.
  • Second, he breaks into Castle Grayskull with barely a sweat, now that no one's around to stop him.
  • Finally, Skeletor demonstrates why he's in charge. He constantly insults and bullies his new Council of Evil, to the point Count Marzo shoots him in the back with all of his power and destroying the cliff they were standing on- and Skeletor just ''ignores'' it.
• From "The Last Stand", He-Man fights against all of Skeletor's Evil Warriors and the Council of Evil - beating a lot of them silly despite being outnumbered. The tide does turn against him, but by then, he's held out long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
  • Even before he transforms and faces the villains as just Prince Adam to delay them as long as possible.
  • This is probably the first time He-Man goes all-out... And before Count Marzo got in a lucky hit, he was winning, punching giants into the other enemies (most notably Stinkor) and doing the same with all enemies stupid enough to come into grabbing reach, dodging in such a way enemy blasts hit other enemies and just plain forcing Tri-Klops to do it... The beating was such that when the Masters of the Universe showed up, their mere appearance was enough to send most of the Council of Evil running for the hills. For if they were barely a match for He-Man alone when they were fresh... What about him with reinforcements including the overpowered Moss Man after being beaten silly?
• In "Second Skin," Orko tries to interrogate the captured General Rattlor about King Hiss's latest plan. Rattlor won't answer any questions and even threatens his interrogator. Ultimately, Orko whips out a mongoose, makes it grow with his magic and lets it try to break into Rattlor's cell.
  "Keep it away! I'll talk! I'll talk!"
  • It gets better when we see Orko just hovering nearby as the giant mongoose is trying to get at Rattlor, acting completely nonchalant.
    "I'm waiting..."
    • And it gets even better when Orko goes up against King Hssss himself!! He even manages to slow him done by muzzling his five mouths, preventing him from casting his spell! And while he winds up getting blasted in the end, he does buy He-Man enough time to get in close enough to save the day, even cluing him in on how exactly to do it!
• In "History," Tung Lashor unknowingly interrupts a By the Power of Grayskull! moment and tries to eat Adam. Cringer responds by biting down on the Snake Man and sending him flying into the brush.
  • He-Man's battle against King Hssss and Rattlor on a river of flowing lava.
  • He-Man destroying the Well of Darkness in front of Evil-Lyn and Count Marzo, thus keeping Hordak imprisoned.
    "Hate to spoil your fun, but Hordak's not welcome here."
  • When Count Marzo betrays Evil-Lyn, she angrily fires a huge blast at him. Marzo just walks right through it and sends her flying with a slap to the face.
  • It may be a minor example, but one interesting thing to note is that once King Hssss, who up until that point was shown to be completely unintimidated or afraid of He-Man, Skeletor, the Sorceress, Zodak or really just anybody else in the show, halts his ENTIRE PLAN to summon Serpos(a literal snake god), the moment he learns that Hordak is coming back. Despite Rattlor's suggestion they go ahead with their plan, King Hssss insists they much stop Hordak before they do anything else. If Hordak is the only person that Hssss considers to be a genuine threat, then the good guys should feel very lucky that he did not escape.....
• The series once had He-Man team-up with a giant fire-breathing dragon in season 1 episode 24 "Separation". Awesome pretty much describes the entire episode.
• "To Walk With Dragons" has one for Stinkor: Skeletor needs to get every dragon out of the country so his newest monsters can attack without their natural predator getting in the way. Stinkor instantly steps up and drives them all out of the country. By himself. Not bad for a villain the original series' runners felt was too lame to even be in the show.
• From "The Power of Grayskull," the titular king is about to be overwhelmed by Hordak and his forces. He gets repeatedly beaten down by Hordak's sorcerers' magic and is about to be exiled to "the terrible dimension of Despondos." But then he gets back up and turns the spell against them after saying four simple words: "I have the POWER!"
• Even Mekaneck got a chance to be badass in the series. In the episode "Mekaneck's Lament" he got the chance to save the whole kingdom from Count Marzo, even gaining an impressive Arch-Enemy in the process.
  • Of Course, Mekaneck had the occasional badass moment apart from his focus episode as well, such as using an extending headbutt on Tri-Klops in the pilot episode. After all, he was part of the original Defenders of Eternia for a reason, even if he lacked the self-confidence to see why.
• In "Awaken the Serpent", Zodak defeats King Hssss by hypnotizing his secondary heads into eating the main one.
  • In the same episode, He-Man's final fight with Serpos, the mountain-sized three-headed snake god. He-Man is strong, but Serpos is friggin' Snake Mountain given (back) life... And He-Man, after a hard fight, beheads it twice, punches the third so hard the whole body disintegrates, and when the monster returns in spirit form he shouts "I have the power!", summoning the spirits of the Elders that had turned the monster into stone in first place to re-transform it into Snake Mountain. He really does have the power.

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