The Not So Original He-Man

Long before the champion of Grayskull got the power, there was another to hold the mantle of He-Man. With only a single appearance in the one-shot Tally-Ho by the Bailey Publishing Company, this He-Man was really just another of those lovable lumbering lunkheads like Joe Palooka, Lil' Abner, or Ozark Ike who have the strength of an ox and a heart of gold. Drawn by veteran comic artist Charles Voight, the story opens in Snood, North Dakota as Sampson Hercules Muckles is a sheepherder who is lifting up his entire house just to get a better view, and he gets a letter from the granny he never knew he had. Gran'maw Nuckles tells Sampson that he is part of a lineage of circus strong men and his uncle Herman (nicknamed: He-Man) set up He-Man Inc., a school of physical education which she wants him to take over. Sampson has a phobia of metal, so Gran'maw gives him a special talisman his grandpa had in WWII that's supposed to make him impervious to metal. It turns out the talisman was fake and belonged to a pair of crooks who threaten Gran'maw's life, but Sampson socks them out and then passes out when a cop tells him he'll get a medal for his efforts. So, this He-Man is not really the original He-Man as his uncle was the first to bear the name, plus he still has a dreadful fear of metal, so unless he ever got that placebo talisman back, Mr. Muckles would've been a pretty ineffective comic book do-gooder. At least he didn't have to worry about getting pestered every other day by Skeletor.

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