Masters of the Universe was not only one of the most successful toy lines of the 1980s, it also spawned one of the most popular cartoon series of the decade, as well! There was a remarkable 130 episodes produced of the original series, plus 93 episodes of a spin-off, She-Ra, Princess of Power and 65 episodes of a follow-up series, The New Adventures of He-Man. With so much time to fill, the settings of those three series -- Eternia, Etheria and Primus -- were filled with a wide variety of villains of varying power levels. One of the most interesting things about the He-Man series of cartoons is that the Masters of Universe toy line had no overarching design criteria, so the sky was the limit when it came to creating villains for the toy line and then, later on, the shows themselves. Not only that, but there were a number of villains that were created just for the series that were too big or strange to ever become toys.
What this means, ultimately, is that there was no set type of villain in the He-Man universe. The power levels of his villains were all over the place. This is not even getting into the 2002 reboot series, which changed characters so dramatically that we are not going to count them in this list, as it would mess the order up too much. Instead, going just by the villains from the original He-Man series of cartoons, here are the 25 strongest He-Man villains.
* Feature Image by MUTI.
25 TWO-BAD
Two-Bad was really a case of severely diminishing returns. He had two heads, which ostensibly made him a better (or smarter) strategist than others, but in reality, he mostly just saw his two heads arguing with each other.
It would be cool if he had twice the strength of a single monster, but as it turned out, his extra head did not add any strength whatsoever. Still, as a monstrous creature, he was already strong enough to make the list, just at the very bottom.
24 WEBSTOR
Webstor is another example where it is difficult to precisely gauge his strength level beyond the fact that he is a "monster," and thus is stronger than a standard humanoid in Eternia. Do note that even standard humanoids in Eternia appear to be super-strong.
With Webstor, it is a matter of comparing him to villains like Mer-Man, who is also a monster. It appears as though Webstor has fared slightly better in fights with He-Man, so it appears likely that he deserves a spot on this list while Mer-Man just missed the cut.
23 RATTLOR
One of the members of the evil Snake Men, Rattlor was the bruiser of the bunch. He was definitely not much of a talker, as he liked to keep quiet until he would start shaking his rattle right before he attacked a victim.
Outside of their leader, King Hiss, Rattlor was probably the best sheer fighter of the Snake Men and at least once, he managed to go toe-to-toe with He-Man and actually cause him some discomfort, so he merits a spot on the countdown.
22 FLOGG
In the New Adventures of He-Man, the hero traveled to a new world of Primus, where Skeletor had set up shop with the Evil Mutants who were trying to take over that planet. The leader of the Evil Mutants, Flogg, agreed to help Skeletor take down He-Man in exchange for Skeletor agreeing to help him take over the world.
The Evil Mutants, as a whole, were not all that impressive, with Flogg being their one really tough fighter and a worthy foe for the indomitable He-Man.
21 BEAST MAN
It is so hard to properly measure Beast Man because of how he was portrayed on the Masters of the Universe cartoon series for so many years. He was essentially the biggest joke on the series, even bigger than Tri-Klops, so of course you would typically want to place him very low on the list.
However, at the same time, he is quite clearly extremely strong. He's also a coward and an imbecile, though, so his strength levels sort of force him to have a respective showing on the countdown.
20 SSSQUEEZE
Surprisingly very few of the major villains from the Masters of the Universe line of toys were specifically designed to involve feats of strength. Most of the time, their powers are less physical things, like Stinkor's odor or Mosquitor's "blood draining" power.
One of the rare instances where strength was directly involved in a power was Sssqueeze's extra long arms that are designed to envelop an enemy and crush them. Sssqueeze was not one of the Snake Men's best fighters, but in pure strength he was near the top.
19 MODULOK
Modulok is one of the oddest Masters of the Universe characters because his whole set-up as a character -- the ability to break his body up into different parts that he could then re-assemble into different configurations -- was far too elaborate to be animated on the cartoon series, so on the show he was more of a traditional mad scientist character.
Modulok's origin involved him experimenting on himself to give himself super-strength. It succeeded, but only by splitting his body into different modular pieces that he has to combine to get to his higher strength levels.
18 CLAWFUL
The fact that Clawful is a strong character is right there in his design, as his giant claw sort of gives it away. The pun makes him super in a whole other way.
Clawful was one of the villains in the Masters of the Universe cartoon who was really hurt by the addition of later villains. You see, the more villains producers added to the series, the less time there was for the earlier villains, so someone like Clawful, who was a real threat when he debuted, ended up being little more than just another lackey by the end of the run.
17 TRAP-JAW
A villain who was able to hold off the effects of being on the Masters of the Universe series for too long was Trap-Jaw, who managed to remain a legitimate threat for a number of years before he, too, ended up becoming a background lackey.
As a cyborg, Trap-Jaw's robotic arms allowed him to be a very physically strong villain, while he wasn't turning his arm into a different type of weapon, that is. What's interesting is that he was originally created as a bit of a sociopath, but those aspects were toned down for the cartoon series.
16 EVIL-LYN
Now we are getting into the really tricky characters, as Evi-Lyn is really just a normal human. In fact, she might literally be from Earth itself! However, she still is one of He-Man's deadliest villains because of the magic skills that she possesses.
In general, she was able to use her magic to make her a physical threat, so we think that this would count as putting her still as an impressive physical threat, even though obviously she is a lot slighter than some of these other villains behind her on the countdown.
15 CHOPPER
For this character, we are going with the name that he used on the Masters of the Universe series, which was less offensive than the name that he was given on the original toy, which was "Jitsu." You can tell that the creators were embarrassed by him as a character, as shown by the fact that they only had him make one background appearance and they changed his name.
As for strength levels, he was designed as the evil counterpart for the heroic Fisto, and Fisto was very strong, so he is likely one of the stronger low level villains.
14 WHIPLASH
The number one lackey of Skeletor when it came to brute strength has got to be Whiplash, hence his high ranking on this list.
Whiplash is a reptilian creature who has a powerful tail that he uses to whip at people and cause major damage. Whiplash has taken on a number of characters at once in fights, showing off a great might that was otherwise unheard of unless you're talking about the upper echelon of villains. As noted, Fisto is one of the stronger characters in Eternia and Whiplash once defeated him easily in hand-to-fist combat.
13 GRIZZLOR
In order to give you a good idea of just how imposing of a figure Grizzlor is, when we were first introduced to him, he was literally being discussed as an urban legend by He-Man's friends. This was the sort of scary story that you share around a campfire. Only here's the thing -- that scary story was legit!
An almost mindless creature, Grizzlor is a furiously dangerous fighter and able to take on multiple warriors at once. One of the only ways to stop him is to show him his own grotesque image in a mirror!
12 SCARE GLOW
Scare Glow is one of the strangest of He-Man's villains because he did not appear in that many stories during He-Man's heyday. Thus, there is some confusion when he is listed as "Skeletor's ghost." In other words, is he seriously supposed to be the ghost of Skeletor or is he just an un-related ghost who works for Skeletor?
While his powers are mostly mind-related, as he can make people feel great fear, he once took on He-Man and Fisto at once in battle, suggesting he has great strength. That fight used a lot of deception, though.
11 KING HISS
Over the years, there were four main groups of villains that fought against He-Man and his friends. One of them, the Snake-Men, were led by King Hiss, whose body consists of a whole bunch of snakes... which really should be enough to tell you how awful (yet amazing) this being is.
While being made of snakes would not necessarily suggest that strong of a character, as it turns out, King Hiss was the strongest member of the Snake Men and was able to fight He-Man one-on-one, which is something that few villains can say that they have achieved.
10 COUNT MARZO
On the cartoon series, Count Marzo was an odd character because he was mostly shown as a pathetic wretch who sold illicit substances to children and actually seemed to use child bullying as a strategic tactic, which is just super bizarre.
However, at the same time, while he chooses to be manipulative instead of directly physical, he is a powerful enough sorcerer that it is implied that he could take on He-Man one-on-one using his magic to enhance his abilities. he is a strong enough wizard that we had to rank him high.
9 SHOKOTI
Similar to Marzo, Shokoti was a powerful wizard. She was able to defeat He-Man, Battle Cat and Ram Man until they were rescued.
Her problem is that she is a literal dark magician, in the sense that she is severely weakened by exposure to light. When she is in the dark, however, especially at her own darkened temple, she is nearly unbeatable. Her magic makes her strong enough to take on most comers. However, she also fights through a sleeping giant sort of totem and when He-Man destroyed it, she was destroyed as well.
8 FAKER
Faker is perhaps the easiest villain to rank high on this list because he is a robot created by Skeletor to mimic the powers of He-Man. Thus, since He-Man is obviously incredibly strong, then Faker, too, is incredibly strong.
Amusingly enough, on the cartoon series, Faker is a being made out of magic instead of being a robot. This, though, creates the obvious question of why, if Skeletor can just create an evil version of He-Man like it's no big deal, he doesn't just make dozens of them to attack He-Man?
7 PLUNDOR
It is bizarre to think that a giant bunny is this high on the list, but Plundor is a surprisingly tough warrior. When He-Man ran into him in an episode where Skeletor erased He-Man's memory, Plundor had conquered an entire world and used up all of its natural resources.
He easily captured He-Man, but when He-Man broke free of Plundor's robot servants, Plundor worried that He-Man was going to capture the natural resources Plundor had stolen, so he shot them off in a rocket that He-Man was able to catch and then released the resources back to the planet.
6 DAIMAR
He-Man's friend Orko tries out a lot of spells, but they often backfire horrendously. One of the worst examples was when Orko saw what appeared to be a baby demon, so he opened up a portal for the baby to enter into their dimension.
The baby quickly grew into the powerful demon, Daimar, who threatened to invade all of Eternia with a powerful demonic army. He-Man knew that even he was outmatched, so he instead reasoned with Daimar, convincing him that friendship was better than war. Daimar had never considered this before and he accepted He-Man's offer of friendship.