In the 2016 mini-series He-Man/Thundercats, the Masters of the Universe team paired up with the Thundercats. Of course their union is brought on by the Thundercats villain Mumm-Ra trying to steal He-Man’s sword; the blade rivals Lion-O’s Sword of Omens. When Mumm-Ra traces the sword to Eternia, he also catches the attention of Skeletor. Though they hate each other, the two most evil beings in the universe decide to team-up.
Taking every opportunity they can to betray the other, they finally put aside their differences to do some damage. Mumm-Ra inhabits Skeletor’s body and Skeletor does his best to kill the Thundercats, and nearly succeeds. He slices one of Lion-O’s eyes right out while Mumm-Ra stabs Adam/He-Man through the chest. The heroes barely survive, only defeating the evil duo by combining the powers of their respective swords.
There is a wide range of bad guys roaming around in Eternia. Though some like Skeletor to get all the attention, he’s definitely not the worst thing out there. With Skeletor’s ego, it’s difficult for him to acknowledge the concept that there’s always someone bigger and stronger than you. In this case, that someone is a giant snake. Known as King Hiss, the massive snake used magic that far outclasses anything Skeletor was capable of, to battle the early inhabitants of Eternia.
Despite his might, he lost and was sealed in the Void. When King Hiss returned, he saw something of an ally in Skeletor. That kinship was short-lived as the two villains found themselves at odds with one another. While Skeletor could only gripe and hurl insults, Hiss had a giant snake eat Skeletor. That’s a defeat for the history books.
As villains go, Skeletor ranks near the top. This is in part because of how he looks. Ghastly and downright terrifying, he makes for a super cool antagonist to He-Man. He sports a pretty original appearance, what with a skull that sometimes seems to float above his body without any connecting neck tissue. In the original cartoon, he wore a hood and it appeared that his head didn’t touch his body.
Though there are alternate versions of Skeletor with the villain having his hood drawn back and you can see there’s a neck missing, other iterations reveal a thin sliver of yellow flesh jutting out from underneath his cloak. It’s a subject that’s’ never been properly explained. Regardless, it’s pretty awful to live one’s life without a neck; probably explains Skeletor’s general crabbiness.
One aspect of Skeletor’s history that remained a mystery for awhile was the origin of his ghastly face. In the 2002 animated He-Man and the Masters of the Universe reboot, we finally saw how the grisly affair played out. Before he was Skeletor, he was Keldor. During a failed attack on the Hall of Wisdom, Keldor faces Captain Randor in a one-to-one battle. About to lose, Keldor takes a vial of acid at and throws it Randor.
The hero deflects it with his shield and the acid rebounds and hits Keldor right in the face, nearly killing him. Keldor would’ve died too if not for Evil-Lyn taking his body to the altar of Hordak where Keldor bargains for his life. Hordak saves him, but not before peeling all the soft tissue from his face. Unsurprisingly, the newly baptized Skeletor has a lot of anger issues.
While Skeletor is undoubtedly an irredeemable figure by now, it probably didn’t help that he was a victim of racism early on. In recent Masters of the Universe stories it’s been revealed that Skeletor, who once went by Keldor, was the brother of Randor. Though Skeletor was next in line for the throne, his father passed him up and the title was bestowed on Randor. Why? Because of the color of his skin.
Apparently the ruler of Eternia wasn’t pleased to have a relative who possessed blue skin and didn’t think Keldor was right for the throne because of it. This fact alone is definitely one of the darker aspects of Skeletor’s past. When your own father hates you because of the color of your skin, there’s no way you come out of that without being a bit psychologically unhinged.
Though Skeletor would live on to become one of pop culture’s most infamous fictional villains, not everyone was fond of the skull-faced baddie. In that respect, the ‘80s were a weird time. Things like Dungeons and Dragons and heavy metal records were weirdly thought to be associated with the devil. He-Man was not exempt from this persecution.
In Lou Scheimer book Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation, Filmation’s creator reminisced over receiving a letter from a parent accusing the animation studio of doing “Satanic things.” In the book, Scheimer claims he had absolutely no idea what the letter was actually about, as it seemed the writer was ranting. However, all that ranting seemed to be focused on Skeletor and the scepter he carried. Turns out, there was a group of folks who viewed the ram’s head atop Skeletor’s Havoc Staff to be one of the many symbols of Satan.