Stratos

Stratos is the winged Eternian who rules the bird-people of Avion, a kingdom in the clouds that keeps its power of flight only as long as the Egg of Avion stays safe. Mattel put him in its first wave of figures in 1982, and he flies with the very first Eternian heroes in the minicomics packed with that wave.

Filmation used him as the Heroic Warriors' eyes in the sky, a regular through the first season's rescues and crowd scenes, voiced by Lou Scheimer under his Erik Gunden credit. Most of those parts are support work, but in the second season the show finally handed him a story of his own, and it is a good one. The 2002 series brought him back with Scott McNeil in the role.

Clipped from our own copy of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Colossor Awakes (1983), 4:54 to 6:51, 1 minute 57 seconds. Nothing is added and nothing is sped up. Copyright Mattel.

Filmation gave Stratos exactly one episode built around him, and it is a real story rather than a cameo. When Avion's defenses drop during a raid by Skeletor, a citizen named Hawke accuses Stratos of sabotage. The crowd believes her over him, and he is banished, a sentence that will cost him the power of flight entirely once he has been away from Avion's Egg too long.

Exiled and uncertain what comes next, Stratos stumbles into the nest of a giant creature called the Carrock and is rescued from its anger by Prince Adam and Orko, who happen to be nearby. Once Adam becomes He-Man and calms the Carrock by feeding it rather than fighting it, the three agree to find Avion's real saboteur and clear Stratos's name. But Skeletor strikes again before they can, this time succeeding completely, and makes off with the Egg of Avion itself while Hawke mysteriously vanishes from the colony.

The Sorceress traces the Egg to the Demon Zone, the lair of Skeletor's ally Whiplash, reachable only through a gateway that the zone's demons permit to open twice a year at most. He-Man and Stratos go through, leaving Orko stranded outside when the Sorceress's warning against breaking the gate open again proves impossible to ignore, even to save a friend. Inside, they find Whiplash's menagerie of caged creatures and discover Hawke trapped among them: she admits to sabotaging the generator for Skeletor, expecting a reward that never came, and was caged instead once Whiplash decided she made a useful pet.

He-Man is willing to give her a second chance; Stratos is not so sure, but helps recover the Egg from Whiplash's dragon regardless, and the two escape just as He-Man is forced to smash the gateway shut behind them, sealing it before any of the demons can follow. Back in Avion, Stratos argues for a lighter punishment than banishment when Hawke faces the Bird People's judgment, giving her the chance to earn back the trust she broke.