Written by Adam McCombs

Name: Hordak
Faction: Evil Horde
Approximate US release date: August 20, 1985

For some unfathomable reason, Hordak was the only member of the original 1985 Evil Horde that we didn’t have in the house growing up. My brother had Grizzlor, and I had Leech, Mantenna and Modulok. But what’s a faction without its leader?

Design & Development

Hordak is the leader of the Evil Horde, which debuted in 1985. According to Roger Sweet, the Hordak character name and the concept of the Evil Horde were created by Dave Capper, Director of Marketing for Boy’s Toys at Mattel. Mattel and Filmation apparently worked in tandem to develop Hordak, going through many iterations of the character before arriving at two final designs. One design would be appear on  toy shelves and the other in the She-Ra cartoon (source: The Power and the Honor Foundation Catalog).

Dušan M. put together a nice graphic showing the sequential evolution of Hordak’s design. You can check it out at the Ancient Library of Grayskull Facebook group. I’ll go through each design, following Dušan’s ordering. The Filmation images come from Dark Horse’s Art of He-Man, Dark Horse’s He-Man and She-Ra, Dušan M., and eBay.

In this early concept (below), Hordak, while menacing, has the look of a post-apocalyptic thug, like a He-Man character crossed with something from Mad Max.

In the concept drawing below (by Gerald Forton and Herb Hazelton), Hordak looks much less human, and more menacing, in an alien punk-rocker kind of way. The overlapping plates on his armor give him a bit of an H. R. Giger quality. An early Shadow Weaver concept is included.

This concept below looks quite close to the first one, although it lacks the Horde emblem on the chest.

In this concept image shared by Dušan, Hordak’s costume is starting to come together, although his face still looks relatively human.

The concept below is closer still to the final Hordak design, although he still sports a punk rock row of spikes on his head.

From here we get a couple of divergent looks for Hordak, one from Filmation and one from Mattel. Both of them dropped the one-armed look (although in the Filmation cartoon Hordak could transform his arm into a cannon, and Mattel eventually came out with a Hordak variant with arm attachments).

Both of them had a similar looking, mask-like face, with a bone cowl around the back of his head. Filmation’s Hordak had a blue body suit and symmetrical arm bands. The animated Hordak has a somewhat sharp, mechanical-looking head:

Meanwhile, at Mattel, Ted Mayer took an early Filmation model sheet and tweaked it slightly, adding a red cape (thanks to Dušan M for this information). Ted can’t recall much about Hordak, but he remembered that unlike the other Horde characters, he wasn’t Hordak’s creator, but something Marketing asked him to execute. Hordak was colored gray, black and red – good vampire colors. He was given a bat-shaped shield and a strange organic-looking weapon. He has Horde bat insignias all over his costume, including on the armband on his left arm (the Filmation version had two armbands with no insignia). His head has warty-looking bumps on it and looks organic rather than mechanical.

The Evil Horde insignia is actually Hordak’s face, with batwings on either side:

According to Roger Sweet, Hordak’s face was based on a witch doctor’s mask. The “Tiki mask influence” is possible, but given the evolving design with Hordak; it is not the main one. Interestingly, Ted Mayer did another concept that’s even closer to that idea, although this one is unlikely to have anything to do with Hordak:

Production Figure

The toy was based on Ted Mayer’s final design for the character, although the strange weapon was changed out for a crossbow:

An early version of the figure feature red “ribs” on the sides of the armor, and a painted red bat on the back, underneath the cape. The extra paint applications are omitted from subsequent releases, however.

Packaging

In the illustration on the back of the packaging, Hordak and his minions make ready to storm Castle Grayskull. Interestingly, Hordak holds Skeletor‘s staff here:

Other Artwork

Errol McCarthy also depicted the character in a number of different contexts (images below are from He-Man.org), including the 1987 Style Guide, which described him this way:

Hordak acquired his power while passing through the plane from Etheria to Eternia. He as since discovered how to retain and refine it.

The 1986 Style Guide describes Hordak this way:

Name: Hordak
Group Affiliation: Evil Horde
Role: Ruthless leader of The Evil Horde
Power: Attack with rotary action weapons.
Character Profile: Hordak acquired his power while passing through the plan from Etheria to Eternia. He has since discovered how to retain and refine it.
Weapons: Now he has fashioned gruesome weapons such as helicopter-like batswing propellor, 4-pronged “kinetic shield” and 3-headed thunderballs” mace that all attach to his whirling arm.
Year of Toy Intro: 1985

The above of course is in reference to the Hurricane Hordak variant. The 1984 She-Ra/Princess of Power leans into Hordak’s ability to transform himself mechanically (images via Allison Troy):

Gift Sets

Hordak was sold in a number of gift sets, including a couple of different sets with Grizzlor, and a Canadian set with Roboto and Sy-Klone. Hordak was also sold in 1986 together with Mantisaur, his insectoid steed.

Update: Interestingly, in the JCPenney catalog, Hordak is shown with a black crossbow, which appears to be the Grizzlor crossbow design. This is in context of the Hordak & Grizzlor gift set. I’m not sure if any Hordak figures were actually released with this black crossbow, but it would be interesting if any showed up. On the front of the JCPenney two-pack, both Hordak and Grizzlor have the same crossbow design, the one that was associated with Grizzlor.

Comic Depictions

As a toy, Hordak was marketed under the Masters of the Universe brand, despite being the primary villain in Filmation’s She-Ra series. Although Hordak was a constant presence is the She-Ra cartoon, Mattel treated him very differently in their own stories. He only shows up in She-Ra’s first minicomic (The Story of She-Ra). In the Princess of Power minicomic canon, Catra is actually She-Ra’s primary nemesis.

Hordak, meanwhile, is a frequently-appearing villain in He-Man’s minicomics starting in 1985, appearing in the following comics:

• Grizzlor – The Legend Comes Alive
• Leech – The Master of Power Suction
• Mantenna and the Menace of the Evil Horde
• Hordak – The Ruthless Leader’s Revenge
• The Treachery of Modulok
• The Power of the Evil Horde
• Escape From the Slime Pit
• The Menace of Multi-Bot
• The Warrior Machine
• The Hordes of Hordak
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place
• Enter… Buzz-Saw Hordak

In Leech’s surreal comic, Hordak and Leech both had the power to grow and shrink at will – which doesn’t seem to follow in any other stories.

Animation

In the minicomics cannon, Hordak is generally less well-equipped on Eternia than he is on Etheria, the setting for the She-Ra cartoon series. In Etheria, Hordak’s Fright Zone is a massive industrial nightmare structure, and he has access to legions of troops and vehicles:

In the He-Man cartoon series, the heroes are in power, and the villains are constantly trying to take it from them. The She-Ra cartoon series has it flipped – the Horde has already defeated Etheria, and She-Ra and her allies strive to overthrow Hordak (voiced by George Dicenzo). The Horde is something like the Empire in the Star Wars series.

When Hordak was introduced, he was written in as the former master of Skeletor; Skeletor is said to have betrayed Hordak and set up shop on Eternia. Hordak has the ability not only to transform his arm into a canon, but his entire body into various mechanical devices. He reports to his mysterious brother Horde Prime, who is the supreme commander of the Horde Empire across all its worlds.

Box Art & Poster Appearances

Hordak makes appearances in the following box art:

• The Fright Zone
• Hordak Grizzlor
• Hordak and Mantisaur
• Slime Pit
• Beam-Blaster & Artilleray

Hordak also appears in several posters by William George, Earl Norem, Esteban Maroto and others. He is variously portrayed in both his Filmation and toy looks:

Other Appearances

Hordak of course appears in a wide variety of published media. Because he’s a primary villain, it’s not practical to try to track his every appearance, but I’ll cover some representative samples here:

Golden, 1985: The Horde

“Day of the Comet” newspaper story

UK MOTU Magazine, Issue 71

As a villain, Hordak is certainly creepy enough, although he doesn’t have the archetypal quality of Skeletor. Skeletor is a symbol for death, and you instantly recognize what he’s about at first sight. Hordak has more of a horror movie creature quality. To me, Hordak is outshone by his even more freakish henchmen, while Skeletor is the most interesting villain in his faction. Still, I would have loved to have had this figure as a kid to lead my shambling band of bizarro Hordesmen.

Hordak in Action

Øyvind Meisfjord has kindly shared the following image as well as a short video of Hordak in action:

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