After three truly excellent episodes in a row, along comes this one that sees Skullmaster, recently liberated from an eternity of imprisonment in the center of the Earth, immediately getting down to some seriously evil mischief by manipulating most of the sorely misguided islanders of Dragon Island into partaking of a chalice of dragon's blood, at which point they painfully transform into mindless lizard monsters that are enslaved to him forevermore. All the natives that is except for the one who is unwillingly forced into going through with the ritual, and who only half-transforms and retains his human mind and escapes to eventually aid our intrepid heroes in throwing a wrench into Skullmaster's latest plans. Ah, snooping kids.. So this episode is by no means a bad one or anything, but in comparison to the previous three it's definitely a bit mediocre. Not even the ever-awesome and striking presence of Skullmaster is enough to make it all that great. "I'm ashamed of myself(!)" Heh, Norman gets the episode's best line with that one! I love it when Norman squares up to Skullmaster who despite being several good feet taller and more physically immense, falters before the barbarian. The show seemed to tease the audience several times about a confrontation between the two, but sadly it just never happens. I love the scene where Max says to Skullmaster that he doesn't want the responsibility of being the Cap-Bearer anymore, which actually echoes a scene early in the episode where Max laments while sitting on the couch at home, and he pretends he's going to give up the Cap to stall for time. I wonder, is Max the Cap-Bearer because he's mighty or mighty because he's the Cap-Bearer? What I like best about this story is that Skullmaster's gigantic guardian pet dragon gets a little more action. I don't think they ever really used it again in any of the later episodes and that's a shame, as the scale and animation of it was quite amazing. I think it would have been much better if, when Norman hurls the boulder into the dragon's nostril, if its head would have blown up with the pressure of the fire, instead of it comically sneezing the snot-covered rock through the portal and into Virgil, which leads Max to utter his hilarious "Dragon lugies!" line. This episode is loosely inspired by "Mighty Max Storms Dragon Island", which was one of the largest of the play-sets and was one of the few that I never had as a child. Although in the plot there is a dragon and there is an island called Dragon Island, it looked absolutely nothing like the toy, making this an adaptation in name only! Thank you, till next time, all praise be to the Max!!!