Zodac

Zodac was in the first wave of Masters of the Universe figures in 1982, and for a while nobody at Mattel seemed sure which side he was on. Mark Taylor built him out of Skeletor's arms and legs and Beast Man's furry chest, with a new helmeted head, armor and blaster, and the card called him only the Cosmic Enforcer. Early material went both ways: the DC comics that year made him a neutral observer, and by 1983 the cross-sell art was calling him the Evil Cosmic Enforcer and lining him up with Skeletor's warriors.^[1]

Filmation settled it. In the cartoon he is a watcher of the universe who serves the Overlords of the Eternal Dimension and has sworn, as he tells the Sorceress, "not to interfere with the affairs of mortals." Lou Scheimer voices him, credited as Erik Gunden. What makes him worth watching is that every one of his three episodes is about how close he can come to interfering without technically doing it.

David Wise wrote "The Search," which aired on October 31, 1983, and it opens with Zodac at Castle Grayskull delivering a warning so large it barely fits in the room: "Grave danger faces all of us this day," and its origin is "right here in Eternia itself." He shows the Sorceress what is coming on his thought projector and leaves the rest to her, since neither of them can act, and the job falls to He-Man.^[2]

The danger is the Starseed, a fragment of the energy that made the universe, hidden since the dawn of time and known only to a few Cosmic Enforcers. Skeletor has learned where it is and is drilling through the planet to reach it, and He-Man fights his way past rockfalls and a swarm of Crystal Demons to get there first. With Orko's help he ends up holding the real Starseed, feels its pull, and puts it down, reasoning that if he used it he would be no better than Skeletor.

The last scene turns the adventure around. Back at Grayskull, Zodac congratulates He-Man on passing his test, and when He-Man asks what test, Zodac explains that he let Skeletor learn the Starseed's location himself, because great powers have to be tested from time to time. It is the clearest picture the series gives of how he works: he will not lift a finger against Skeletor, but he will arrange for Skeletor to be in the right place. He closes the episode with its moral, that true goodness comes from knowing when not to use force.

Clipped from our own copy of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, The Search (1983), 1:45 to 2:29, 44 seconds. Nothing is added and nothing is sped up. Copyright Mattel.

"Quest for He-Man," written by Paul Dini, is his first appearance. With He-Man lost on another world, the Sorceress calls him down as "Zodac, rider of the cosmic space waves," and he explains that although he observes everything in the cosmos he cannot use his powers to change it. He can, though, give Orko a wand that will guide the search party, and he tells them that talking about home may bring He-Man's memory back, which is how they bring him home.^[3]

"Golden Disks of Knowledge" gives him the most to do. He reveals that he is the last surviving member of the old Council of the Wise, which sentenced Zanthor to the Phantom Dimension for selling the Golden Disks to Skeletor, and he agrees to hear the prisoner out. He lets Zanthor go after the disks with He-Man, and at the end, rather than pardoning him, he announces that watching over the universe is too big a job for one man and makes Zanthor a Cosmic Enforcer at his side.

Later versions sit apart from the Filmation canon. The 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series respelled him Zodak and rebuilt him as a mystic with a war of his own against the Snake Men; the Zodak (200x) entry covers that version.

Masters of the Universe: Revolution brings the classic Zodac back for its finale. In the closing minutes of "The Scepter and the Sword" the Cosmic Enforcers sit in session, and Zodac, in the red helmet, delivers a lesson in balance the way he once delivered Filmation's morals, then welcomes "Lyn of Zalesia" into the Cosmic Enforcers for bringing balance to herself and to the universe.

Zodac has no part in the 1987 movie, and the 2026 film has not cast him.