TEELA'S FRIEND
Ileena
Ileena is the girl who wanted to be Teela. In Filmation's "A Friend in Need" that wish leads her to a sorcerer's potion, a stolen machine and a closing warning from He-Man about drugs.
Ileena is Teela's friend in the 1983 Filmation episode "A Friend in Need", voiced by Linda Gary. The daughter of the inventor Zikran, she wishes she were as strong as Teela, takes a potion from the disguised sorcerer Jarvan, and steals her father's Transmutator for him before helping He-Man catch him.
The record
The facts
WHO SHE IS
The girl who wanted to be Teela
Ileena has one episode, and Filmation built it around a single wish. Her father is Zikran, an inventor who flies to the royal palace to deliver his Transmutator, a machine that turns solid things into liquid or gas. Ileena is Teela's friend, blonde, in a red winged headband and red armor, and she is sure she comes up short beside her.
The episode proves it to her early. Out riding, the two of them stray into a field of gas geysers, Teela is overcome and Ileena panics, and once He-Man has come to their rescue she says, "If only I were more like Teela, this wouldn't have happened." Alone afterwards she says it again in another form: her father can make anything, so why can't he make her big and strong? Everything that goes wrong for her afterwards starts from that question.
Linda Gary voices her, and Teela, and the kindly old woman who offers her the cure.[1]
[1] ^ The episode's cast list gives Linda Gary as Teela, Ileena and the old woman, so the same actor voices Ileena, her friend and the disguise that sells her the potion. TVmaze also credits Linda Gary as Ileena.
THE EPISODE
A Friend in Need
J. Brynne Stephens wrote "A Friend in Need", and it first aired in September 1983.[2] The villain is Jarvan, a sorcerer King Randor and He-Man once locked in the Prison Mine, who escapes in the opening minutes swearing revenge. He finds Ileena feeling sorry for herself, puts on an old woman's shape and offers her a potion that "will make you feel anything you want to feel... strong, tall, anything." He also gives her a ring, and the words to call him with it: "Em Ot Emoc."
On the first dose she perches somewhere high and tells Teela she is not afraid, and Teela has never seen her do anything like it. Then she feels sick and weak and calls the old woman for more. On the second she takes her father's air car up with Prince Adam aboard, cannot land it, and needs He-Man to get them down. The third time the old woman says no: "It's time you paid me back." Jarvan cannot pass the voice print that guards the Transmutator, and Ileena can.
She steals it, with Orko cheerfully helping her move it out to the terrace, and Jarvan takes it and leaves her lying there without the potion. He-Man stops him by bracing himself at the center of the palace while the Transmutator shrinks it, until the machine overloads and blows up. Then Ileena does the brave thing on her own account: she uses Jarvan's ring to summon him back, still weak, and He-Man finishes it. Asked at the end why she took the potion, she answers, "I wanted to be like you, Teela."
He-Man's closing message is about drugs, and it is blunt: there are no magic potions, and no magic drugs either.
[2] ^ The guide here and TVmaze both give September 26, 1983, as the first air date. The guide numbers episodes in Filmation's production order; TVmaze lists this one as episode 16 of the first season, in broadcast order.
Ileena's fortress in A Friend in Need, with Orko on its ramparts.
Clipped from our own copy of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, A Friend in Need (1983), 1:39 to 3:33, 1 minute 54 seconds. Nothing is added and nothing is sped up. Copyright Mattel.
LATER SERIES
A scene cut from Revelation
Ileena has not appeared on screen again in any continuity. Masters of the Universe: Revelation did write her a scene, a fight with Teela, with Kevin Smith's daughter Harley Quinn Smith as Ileena, but it was cut, and Smith talks about it on the commentary for "The Poisoned Chalice".[3] She is not in the 2002 series or Revolution, the 1987 film did not use her, and no Ileena has been announced for the 2026 film.
[3] ^ For Eternia's transcript of Kevin Smith's commentary on "The Poisoned Chalice" has him describing a scene Diya Mishra wrote for the character, a big fight with Teela, voiced by "my own daughter", and saying "we had to cut her out which was such a bummer." Harley Quinn Smith is his daughter.
IN BRIEF
Ileena, from 1983 to Revelation
"A Friend in Need" airs
Ileena visits the palace with her father and his Transmutator, and Jarvan finds her.
A Revelation scene, cut
Kevin Smith says a scene written for her in Masters of the Universe: Revelation was cut.
Questions
Ileena questions, answered
Who is Ileena in He-Man?
Teela's friend in the 1983 Filmation episode "A Friend in Need", and the daughter of Zikran, the inventor of the Transmutator.
What happens to Ileena in A Friend in Need?
Wishing she were as strong and brave as Teela, she takes a potion from the sorcerer Jarvan, disguised as an old woman, and comes to depend on it. To get more she steals her father's Transmutator for him, then helps He-Man catch him with the ring he gave her.
Who voices Ileena?
Linda Gary.
Who wrote A Friend in Need?
J. Brynne Stephens.
What does Em Ot Emoc mean?
It is "come to me" said backwards, the words that call Jarvan through the ring he gives Ileena.
Was Ileena ever in She-Ra?
No. She belongs to the 1983 He-Man series and never appears in She-Ra: Princess of Power.
Is Ileena in Masters of the Universe: Revelation?
Not in the finished show. Kevin Smith has said a scene was written for her, with his daughter Harley Quinn Smith as her voice, and then cut.
Is there an Ileena figure?
No, and none has been announced.
Is Ileena in the He-Man movies?
No. She is not in the 1987 film, and no Ileena has been announced for the 2026 film.
Compiled by the heman.org desk from the Filmation episode "A Friend in Need" (dialogue, cast list and closing message), TVmaze for the voice credit and air date, and For Eternia's transcript of Kevin Smith's commentary on the Revelation episode "The Poisoned Chalice."
Alongside
