Hordak and the Havoc Staff

[Red Trinity]

There were several images in the 1980s depicting Hordak holding the Havoc staff. These included the Battle for Eternia game and Hordak's own cardback. Do you think this was somehow significant? Was he going to take the staff from Skeletor? In 80s canon did it originally belong to Hordak and Skeletor took it from him? What do you think?

hordakback.jpgThe Evil Horde.jpg

[Matthew L. Martin]

There were several images in the 1980s depicting Hordak holding the Havoc staff. These included the Battle for Eternia game and Hordak's own cardback. Do you think this was somehow significant? Was he going to take the staff from Skeletor? In 80s canon did it originally belong to Hordak and Skeletor took it from him? What do you think?

hordakback.jpgThe Evil Horde.jpg

I've been aware of the image on the cardback for 28 years and always read it as a mistake, but I'd forgotten about it showing up on the Horde trap in Battle for Eternia. I don't think he was going to take it from Skeletor--but I do notice that after the Horde's release, the next two variants of Skeletor (Dragon Blaster and Terror Claws) don't have the staff. Its design ethos doesn't quite mesh with Hordak, but it's entirely possible he took it from someone else in turn. Skeletor having stolen it from Hordak or vice versa is an interesting twist, although it requires keeping Hordak as a sorcerer as opposed to the technological tyrant of Filmation.

In the story in the Summer 1985 issue of the He-Man magazine, Skeletor uses the staff to seal the gate between Eternia and Etheria after Hordak flees through the gate. This is a detail that I think gets overlooked--we just see Hordak flee through the gate in SotS, but this story and the Horde backstory from the figures and style guide has Skeletor trapping Hordak there. Although never made explicit--I'm not sure if it even occurred to the writers--this can explain why the Sorceress was never able to find Adora. Thanks to Skeletor's meddling, there was no way to travel between Eternia and Etheria until the seal on the dimensional portal broke.

[mitchybabysc]

wow just noicted that

[Midwinter]

I always just assumed as a kid that Hordak was out to get He-Man and Skeletor. He had at some point either taken Skeletor's Havoc Staff or had one of his own.

With Matthew's post that Skeletor was able to seal the gateway with the Havoc Staff it makes sense that Hordak would have wanted control of this powerful staff so that Skeletor would not have any power to seal him out of Eternia.

The Horde was based on classic movie monsters and from what I had remembered reading was supposed to reenergize the evil side. Maybe the thought was that kids would recognize the Havoc Staff and know that Hordak was now the main bad guy.

[Matthew L. Martin]

With Matthew's post that Skeletor was able to seal the gateway with the Havoc Staff it makes sense that Hordak would have wanted control of this powerful staff so that Skeletor would not have any power to seal him out of Eternia.

Well, I don't want to read too much into that story--it's one panel in a fairly obscure story. I find the story interesting because a) it's the only thing that really shows us Skeletor as Hordak's apprentice, b) it connects the toy backstory and SotS backstory, and c) it uses that connection to give us a possible explanation for why Man-at-Arms and the Sorceress never found Adora.