She-Ra: Princess of Power
“The Sea Hawk”
Voices: Melendy Britt, George DiCenzo,
Erika Scheimer, Lou Scheimer
Story: Michael Chase Walker
Writer: Larry DiTillio
Director: Bill Reed
I had a plan for if the Seattle Seahawks got back to the Super Bowl. As with the New England Patriots, I didn't expect to need it so soon, but I knew exactly which comic I would use.
I had Googled seahawk and superhero or some similar combination, discovering a character called Seahawk debuted in 1992's “Brigade” #1. I have large gaps in my Image knowledge, but I've also bought a number of their first issues from dollar boxes over the years, Brigade among them.
Or so I thought.
I finally decided just to go with “Brigade” #4, which I'd spotted in my earlier search. I would hope Seahawk was in that one too, rather than being unceremoniously killed off a la Battering Ram, and just lead in with a hopefully humorous intro about why I wasn't going the traditional first appearance route this time.
Except I couldn't find issue 4 either.
At that point, I had to consider whether I was the victim of some sort of hoax perpetrated by Joe Quesada, Paul Jenkins and the late Stan Lee or if perhaps Superboy Prime punching the walls of the multiverse had somehow dislodged my afterthought Brigade issues from this reality around the same Jason Todd woke up.* Or maybe I just imagined the whole thing.
Jesse Starcher of the Source Material Comics Podcast assures me Brigade was real and he has all the issues. He was even going to loan me the first one, but I had a backup plan: the Sea Hawk, a pirate with a heart of gold, or at least iron pyrite.
He's a character from the 1985-87 “She-Ra: Princess of Power” cartoon that I didn't discover until years later when my oldest daughter was watching the show with me. I didn't catch many episodes beyond that introductory movie with She-Ra's brother He-Man, and he wasn't in the books I read.
I've written before about my affinity for the Masters of the Universe. She-Ra was, I presume, an attempt to extend the franchise's appeal to girls, but I had no reservations about the expanded lore even if I wasn't the primary target audience. She-Ra was part of He-Man's world. Heck, her primary villains, the Horde, were part of the He-Man toy line. What did I care if the toys surrounding She-Ra herself had more colorful, brushable hair and sparkly accessories?
I think She-Ra was the only one of them I actually got. But I thought Bow was cool because he was an archer, a la Hawkeye or Green Arrow. And Castaspella remains a great character name.
None of those folks are in this episode, which opens with She-Ra riding her winged horse Swift Wind over an ocean when they hear cries for help. A boat crewed by Sea Elves is sinking thanks to a chance encounter with a razorfin, which we don't see, but it sounds dangerous.
She-Ra lifts the boat out of the water before swimming it back to the town of Sea Worthy. The Sea Elves are grateful for her assistance and explain they were fishing farther from the coast due to a flying monster prowling around their town. She-Ra is skeptical, despite living on a planet, Etheria, where something called a razorfin nearly sank a boat full of elves.
She decides to investigate and finds the monster is actually a retro-looking, high-tech boat crewed by pirates and led by the Sea Hawk, Using empathic or telepathic abilities I forgot she had, She-Ra determines that one of them, Swen, feels bad about it, so she changes into her secret identity of rebel leader Adora to investigate.
She's quickly intercepted by Sea Hawk, who is suspicious of her because she looks “too smart to be lost and too beautiful to be an elf.” Clearly, he's also pretty smooth.
Swen recognizes Adora and offers her a ride. Hawk's not thrilled, but Swen hopes Adora can convince his captain to stop working for the Horde, the villainous invaders against whom Adora and company are rebelling. Hawk claims doing such work allows them to remain free, a premise Adora challenges.
When the ship stops in Horde Harbor to deliver the booty snatched from the Sea Elves, robotic Horde troopers spot Adora on board. Horde lieutenant Catra takes a break from drooling over Sea Hawk to order the troops to seize the ship. He resists but the hirsute Grizzlor soon gets him in a bear hug and Sea Hawk orders his men to turn Adora over.
Adora's pretty chill about this, even when she loses the Sword of Protection that allows her to transform into She-Ra. Perhaps she is confident Hawk would have a change of heart or that Catra and Grizzlor aren't exactly the most competent henchfolks.
Swen lets his captain know he thinks he was wrong, and Sea Hawk – motivated by either his own conscience or Adora's brazen refusal to wear pants – orders him to turn the ship around, and get it airborne. They land on the Horde's techno-blimp, which Hawk boards. He defeats Grizzlor so quickly that I'm forced to reconsider him as my favorite Horde member, although his mane isn't nearly as overpowering in animation as it was on my action figure.
Sea Hawk frees Adora and gives her back her sword. She says she knew there was good in him, and he says it took her to bring it out.** Catra interrupts their escape and Sea Hawk, still unaware of who he's supposedly rescuing, pushes Adora into another room. But he's no match for Catra in her were-panther form.
Lucky for him, Adora is away from prying eyes and able to transform into She-Ra. She saves Hawk from both Catra and a falling pipe, prompting the captain to exclaim, “Broil me in butter and call me a flounder – that was a close one!”
Sea Hawk immediately tries to hit on She-Ra, but she tells him he owes her and therefore needs to stop helping the Horde and start supporting the Rebellion. He agrees, remarking that She-Ra is “quite a lady.”
This sets up an awkward love triangle when Sea Hawk returns in a future episode, as Adora is worried he likes She-Ra better than her. I don't remember much about that one, but he seems to be easily swayed by any woman showing a little leg. I'm not sure she should be worried or overly concerned about capturing his attention.
I recently saw someone on social media reference the He-Man and possibly the She-Ra cartoons, saying he enjoyed them but they were bad. Hey, this may not be “X-Men” or “Batman: The Animated Series,” but I loved them as a kid and still get a kick out of watching them now. Having Sea Hawk attempting to rescue the main character who is a damsel who causes more distress than she's ever been in is a simple but amusing twist. The dynamic between them helped the character remain in my memory, which was fortunate when Brigade and that other Seahawk were nowhere to be found.
* - Is this still canon? Mark Waid's New History of the DC Universe suggests it is not.
** - Swen would, perhaps, like a word.
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