BEFORE THE ARMOR
Young Man-At-Arms
Before he was Man-At-Arms, Duncan was an impatient apprentice. Filmation shows him blowing up his teacher's time machine, and Revelation shows him promising Teela's mother he will never leave their daughter.
Young Duncan is Man-At-Arms as a young man. Filmation's "The Remedy" (1983) shows him as the apprentice of the inventor Rohad, and Revelation's "Cleaved in Twain" (2021) shows him with Teela-Na and their baby daughter.
The record
The facts
WHO HE IS
Rohad's apprentice
Man-At-Arms is the palace's inventor, and Filmation once showed where that started. In "The Remedy" the young Duncan is an apprentice to Rohad, an older inventor, working beside him in a workshop full of half-built machines. He wears the gray helmet already, and the green and orange of his later uniform, but his face is younger and he has no mustache yet.
This page covers that younger Duncan in the two places he appears on screen. The grown-up Man-At-Arms, Teela's father and King Randor's armorer, has his own entry.
THE EPISODE
The Remedy
Ron Schultz and Sam Schultz wrote "The Remedy", and it first aired on November 22, 1983.[1] Rohad has been bitten by a venomous dauber in the Tundra Caverns, and while He-Man flies the Wind Raider toward Mount Zelite for the herb that can cure him, Man-At-Arms tells him who Rohad is: "When he was my teacher, he was always pulling me out of trouble."[2]
The flashback is the story of one of those times. The two of them were building Rohad's "synergetic time machine", meant to reach "another point in time similar to ours", and Rohad would not rush it. Duncan could not wait: "When Rohad was asleep, I returned to try and finish, following his plans just as he'd drawn them." The young Duncan climbs into the glass capsule, there is a giant flash, the workshop fills with smoke, and Rohad pulls him out and behind a metal counter a moment before the machine blows.
What Duncan remembers is that Rohad was not angry. "He praised me for my eagerness and told me, 'Sometimes, before you can make something work, you have to know how it doesn't work.'" The episode closes the circle at the bedside, where the cured Rohad tells Duncan, whose new web-cord was lost on the journey, "I've never known an invention that couldn't be made again. And probably made better than before."
The young Man-At-Arms, already doing the job the grown-up does at the palace.
Clipped from our own copy of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, The Remedy (1983), 6:37 to 8:26, 1 minute 49 seconds. Nothing is added and nothing is sped up. Copyright Mattel.
REVELATION
A promise in the candlelight
Masters of the Universe: Revelation, a 2021 continuation that tells its own version of these characters, opens its second half with a younger Duncan. "Cleaved in Twain" begins in a candlelit chamber, with Duncan holding the baby Teela while Teela-Na, her mother, prepares to leave. She marks the child with "a blessing" that will "manifest when she needs it most"; he tells her, "I'll never leave our baby's side," and she asks him to "train her to protect herself." Then she is gone and Duncan is left alone at the edge of a pit ringed with candles, comforting the crying baby.[3]
The live-action films keep to the grown man: the 1987 film has no Duncan at all, and the 2026 film casts Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms.
[3] ^ Filmation's own "Teela's Quest" (1983) had already revealed that Teela is the Sorceress's daughter; the full story is on the Teela Na entry.
IN BRIEF
Two flashbacks
"The Remedy" airs
Man-At-Arms remembers wrecking his teacher Rohad's time machine.
"Cleaved in Twain"
Revelation opens with Duncan, Teela-Na and their baby daughter.
Questions
Young Duncan questions, answered
Where does a young Man-At-Arms appear?
In a flashback in Filmation's "The Remedy" (1983), and at the start of Revelation's "Cleaved in Twain" (2021).
Who is Rohad?
The inventor who taught Duncan. In "The Remedy" he is dying from a dauber's bite, and He-Man fetches the vimward herb that cures him. John Erwin voices him.
What happens in the flashback in The Remedy?
Duncan tries to finish Rohad's time machine alone while Rohad sleeps, the machine blows up, and Rohad pulls him clear. Rohad forgives him and tells him that you sometimes have to learn how something doesn't work before you can make it work.
Who wrote The Remedy?
Ron Schultz and Sam Schultz.
Does the young Duncan have a mustache?
No. Filmation draws him clean-shaven in the flashback.
What does Duncan promise in Revelation?
That he will never leave their baby's side. Teela-Na asks him to train Teela to protect herself.
Is Teela's mother the Sorceress?
Yes. Filmation revealed it in "Teela's Quest" in 1983, and Revelation names her Teela-Na. The Teela Na entry tells that story.
Is there a figure of the young Duncan?
No figure of this younger Duncan is on sale; the figures are of Man-At-Arms.
Is the young Duncan in the movies?
No. The 1987 film has no Duncan, and the 2026 film's Man-At-Arms is Idris Elba, with no younger version announced.
Compiled by the heman.org desk from the Filmation episode "The Remedy" (dialogue and cast list), TVmaze and Wikipedia's episode list for the writing credit, air date and production code, and the Revelation episode "Cleaved in Twain" (dialogue).
Alongside
Characters in the same story
Man-At-Arms Heroic Warriors 
Teela Heroic Warriors 
Teela Na Heroic Warriors 
Prince Adam House of Miro On Screen