Strongarm

Skeletor rarely conquers anything alone, and on Phantos he brings Strongarm. Filmation's "She-Demon of Phantos," first aired on September 15, 1983, opens with Skeletor already inside Queen Elmora's palace: he has swapped Eternia's photanium shipment for worthless ore and put Elmora under a spell, and when she demands that he "release my men and leave Phantos," he sends her guards "to the dungeons, and see they are made uncomfortable."^[1] Standing at his side, with Mer-Man, is a blue-skinned warrior in a horned metal helmet, with a fanged jaw and a right arm made of segmented metal.

Skeletor does the talking and the spellwork, Mer-Man works the refinery where the people of Phantos are driven at the point of a force field, and Strongarm holds whatever needs holding: the prisoners, the throne room, and before long the queen herself.

He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Stratos and Battle Cat come to Phantos when weapons forged from the fake photanium break apart in a sparring match back home, and the trip goes badly. Elmora takes Battle Cat and Stratos prisoner, and He-Man, disguised as a hooded worker in the refinery, ends up locked in a photanium body cell. Strongarm and Mer-Man are with Skeletor when the news reaches him, and Skeletor is sure that "the others will be no trouble to us with He-Man out of the way."

It is Elmora who forces Strongarm into the story. As the spell weakens, she tells Skeletor that his "control over my realm will be short-lived," and he answers, "I'll show you whose realm this is. Strongarm, Mer-Man, take her!" It is the only time anyone says his name. Elmora meets them with a cloud of smoke, the two of them stagger through it, and when the episode returns to the throne room her wrists are bound. Skeletor's second spell makes her see his face whenever she looks at He-Man, and Strongarm is at Skeletor's shoulder as they watch He-Man come for her; the rest belongs to Elmora, Teela and the photanium chains. John Erwin, who also voices He-Man and Prince Adam, is credited with the role.^[2]

Strongarm never had a vintage figure; Filmation made him for this one episode and Mattel's 1980s line passed him by. He reached plastic thirty years later in Masters of the Universe Classics, the collector line, as part of Club Filmation, its subscription of figures drawn from the cartoon. The Fwoosh's first look in October 2013 called him the final Club Filmation figure of that year, and Action Figure Barbecue placed him among the December 2013 run of Filmation one-episode characters.

The card did not say Strongarm. Mattel could not use the name, so the figure is Strong-Or, and the Classics shelf has carried that spelling ever since.^[3] The figure comes with a second metal lower right arm, about an inch longer than the first, plus a removable collar and a Filmation ray gun.^[4]