In my post about Ram Man last year, I touched very briefly on the character’s appearances in minicomics and Golden Books. I’d like to expand on that now with an exhaustive look at every single appearance of Ram Man in these media. I’ll be skipping pages and panels where Ram Man is absent. Selections from the minicomics come from the excellent Dark Horse Minicomic Collection, and Golden books come from He-Man.org.
1983 Minicomic: He-Man Meets Ram-Man!
Ram Man tousles with He-Man over a misunderstanding, causing some hard feelings. Skeletor is able to use that to trick Ram Man into bashing his head repeatedly against Castle Grayskull’s doors in order to get the power to defeat He-Man. In the end, Ram Man comes to understand that He-Man is not his enemy, and aligns himself with the heroic warriors. Ram Man is given a deep red and magenta color scheme that looks like it wants to follow the cross sell art/concept scheme (the figure was originally designed by Mark Taylor), but couldn’t quite get there. Written by Gary Cohn, penciled by Mark Texeira, inked by Tod Smith, colored by Anthony Tollin.
1983 Minicomic: The Terror of Tri-Klops!
When third wheel Ram Man walks off into the woods to give He-Man and Teela some privacy, Tri-Klops strikes, nearly defeating our heroic warriors. Written by Gary Cohn, pencils by Mark Texeira, inks by Tod Smith, colors by Anthony Tollin.
1983 Minicomic: The Tale of Teela
Ram Man is a minor background character in Teela’s breakout comic. Written by Gary Cohn, pencils by Mark Texeira, inks by Tod Smith, colors by Anthony Tollin.
1984 Minicomic: The Secret Liquid of Life!
Ram Man gets a chance to bust into an ogre’s cavern using his battering ram of a head. Ram Man is portrayed with the green and red color scheme used in the mass-produced toy. Written by Michael Halperin, pencils by Larry Houston, inks by Michael Lee, colors by Charles Simpson, letters by Stan Sakai.
1984 Minicomic: Double-Edged Sword
Ram Man’s head is ineffectual against Skeletor’s vine monsters, but together with He-Man he is able to break through a magic seal. Written by Michael Halperin, pencils by Larry Houston, inks by Michael Lee, colors by Charles Simpson, letters by Stan Sakai.
1984 Minicomic: Temple of Darkness!
Ram Man batters his head against several giant minions of Skeletor, and even seems to have the power power of flight in the final panel. Written by Michael Halperin, pencils by Larry Houston, inks by Gerald Forton, colors by Charles Simpson, letters by Stan Sakai.
1985 Minicomic: Skeletor’s Dragon
Ram Man is barely noticed in the background of this story about magically reanimated dinosaur bones. Written by Christy Marx, illustrated by Peter Ledger, colors by Charles Simpson, letters by Stan Sakai.
1985 Minicomic: Mantenna and the Menace of the Evil Horde!
Ram Man is background character with no lines in this story that, despite its title, isn’t really about Mantenna at all. Pencils by Mike Sekowsky, inks by Steve Mitchell, colors by Charles Simpson, letters by Stan Sakai.
1985 Minicomic: Hordak – The Ruthless Leader’s Revenge!
Ram Man is crushed by Spydor and then plays fight commentator in his last minicomics appearance. Pencils by Larry Houston, inks by Michael Lee, colors by Charles Simpson, letters by Stan Sakai.
1985 Golden Book: The Magic Mirrors
Ram Man is another background character in this engaging story about magic mirrors and trickery. Written by Jack Harris, illustrated by Fred Carillo, cover by Earl Norem.
1985 Golden Books: Demons of the Deep
Ram Man and Fisto accompany He-Man in an underwater rescue mission to save Teela. Of all the characters to take on an underwater mission, Ram Man and Fisto seem the least likely candidates, given their heavy metal armor. Ram Man sports his prototype colors here.
Written by R.L. Stine of Goosebumps fame, illustrated by Fred Carillo.
1985 Golden Book: New Champions of Eternia
Ram Man is a barely-present background character in this story about some mysterious new heroes. Ram Man sports his prototype color scheme in this book. Written by Jack Harris, illustrated by Jeffrey Oh, cover by Fred Carillo.
1986 Golden Book: Power From The Sky
Skeletor uses the power from an eclipse to launch an assault on Eternia. Ram Man shows up occasionally in the background, without any lines. Written by Wallace Green, illustrated by Fred Carillo, cover by Earl Norem.
Love it! Never got to really get a good look at the Golden Books. Too awesome!!!
Thanks for reading!
I think the flying was probably something that seamed fairly common at the time, in that a character who could ‘launch’ themselves into the air, could kinda fly.. it didn’t work very well in most cases.. In this, the Springs in his legs which allowed Ram Man to launch himself at enemies could allow him to launch himself into the air.
Marvel comics had the biggest failure in this department I think… the Hulk was able to use his strong legs to launch himself into the air to give the impression of flying but for some reason, he was also able to control his angle quite a bit while ‘jumping’ so it became more flying.. Thor couldn’t fly but he throw his hammer as hard as he could and it pulled him along, but that also allow him to change direction quite a bit, and became flying.. DC comics gave up early with such a thing.. Superman couldn’t fly at first, he leaped over ‘tall buildings’ etc.. then they just gave up and changed it to flying. In Transformers, the Character of Springer, even got his name from his powerful leg springs and allow him to launch himself into the air like that.. problem was, one of his alt modes was a helicopter.. so he just used that to fly.. no need to ‘fake it’ when you can do it ^_^
the Ability also often gets lost when there are quite a few other options to fly.. MOTU has a number of flying characters, a number of flying machines and devices too.. so being able to leap great lengths isn’t really needed much.
Great analysis, thanks ManicMan 🙂
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