The first week of May featured a slew of MOTU Classics news: New packaging reveals, new bios released with some interesting tidbits of the He-mythos, and accessory spotlight videos from Toy Guru. We watched it all with interest, but it was Nekron Week, darn it! That’s all done, so let’s recap.
Things kicked off last week when Toy Guru posted a short video that showcased Vykron:
We didn’t learn much new from the video, but it was cool to see some of Vykron’s pieces in action. While we were doing Nekron Week, I wanted to post some of my thoughts on Vykron, but I was just too busy. I am happy with the selection – the SDCC exclusive is the one figure that will never be in the subscription and that makes it a perfect home for a “divisive” figure like Vykron, not that that was Mattel’s intent. I have some minor nitpicks with him, like his chalice/helmet on the Barbarian look or that they all have to sport the standard loincloth, but overall I think he’s going to be fun. I will probably customize him even further, into three unique characters, but Mattel got the figure off to a good start. I didn’t think the bio would be terribly interesting, but Mattel surprised me there!
We got our first look at the bio courtesy of the gang at AFi who headed down to the ComicBug to check out Mattel’s SDCC display. Click here to check out the pics!
Vykron – Ultimate Eternian Champion, Real Name: Vykron
Fifty years before Prince Adam was born, Vykron the Warrior fought in the gladiatorial arena of Lord Choloh, ruler of the Vine Jungle. Learning from each defeated opponent, he became a master of many combat techniques and weapons. As much a champion as a showman, he would often dress in outlandish garb to rouse the crowd and show off his skills. In his final match, he fought against the great Gygor. Before a cheering crowd, the evil fighting gorilla ripped Vykron body in half, at long last defeating the arena champion. Following this match, Gygor claimed not only the arena championship but rule of the Jungle itself, forcing Choloh to abdicate his throne. In life, Vykron was the greatest of Choloh’s gladiatorial warriors, fighting in any environment at any time.
They surprised me there. I think an overly theatrical gladiator is a bit funnier than Mattel intended, but then they went and ripped him in half to bring it home. Ouch.
This week, Mattel released three more Bios on their Facebook Page:
Griffin – Evil Flying Beasts, Real Name: Varies
Griffins, great flying beasts originally brought to Eternia by Star Merchants, broke free and lived in a wild colony deep in the Vine Jungle. Here they were once again enslaved, becoming the steed of choice for the savage Beast Men living in their treetop villages. Raqquill Rqazz, a Beast Man serving Skeletor from Snake Mountain often calls upon several Griffins to carry him and his master into battle. During the Second Ultimate Battleground, several hundred Griffins were commanded to attack Grayskull Tower, hoping to weaken the Master’s defense perimeter. Soaring high above Eternia, Griffins bring terror to those below! .
The Griffin bio is just a straightforward example of a good bio. It’s interesting that they’re not indigenous to Eternia and that we get another mention of the Vine Jungle so quickly. I suppose it wouldn’t be out there to think that Vykron battled a Griffin in the arena? Continue to Page 2…
Why does it feel like He-Man is slowly turning into the boy of destiny, Happy Potter..all the major supporting characters surrounding him are getting killed.. Just hoping that He-Man doesn’t end up using a Expelliarmus/Stupefy spell to get rid of Skelemort..I mean Skeletor..
LOL
Harry Potter is just a more recent example of the basic hero’s journey tenets. Luke & Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan & Qui-Gon, Simba & Mustafa, Connor Macleod & Ramirez, Spider-Man & Uncle Ben, Hit-Girl & Big Daddy, etc.
It’s an incredibly basic storytelling tool, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. It’s not quite cliche yet, though I imagine some folks do consider it as such.
Sorry, I’m still laughing at “Second Ultimate Battleground”, ya know? 🙂
I guess ‘Penultimate Battleground’ didn’t have a ring to it for the first go-round. Oh, wait, of course they figured that was the end of it. Guess they forgot ALL THE OTHER TIMES things were thought to be ‘finished’ only to start up again and again… 🙂
Ya know, more I reflect, the more unhappy I’m getting with these bios and the ‘history’ being built. Maybe I’m fooling myself into thinking MOTUC is a kid’s toy line. I see no reason why Duncan has to die.
To counter that, I see no reason Duncan has to stay alive. I look at Classics as just one aspect of the large franchise. It does knit together various things that have come before, but I don’t view it as collecting those disparate elements and replacing them, just merely forging ahead in a new, and temporary, direction. A MOTU film wouldn’t follow these storylines. The new comic doesn’t even follow these storylines.
The Classics mythos is helped by having characters change from their old forms or die. It weaves a better narrative for me at least, but I prefer stories that have endings much better than ones that have to reset to a status quo.
Understood, except for one thing.
Creating these bios, taking them past “this is this dude and he does this and is friends with that” creates limitations and thus hinders creative play.
But again, I’m looking at these as actual toys intended for children and of course that’s not what they are.
And yet, Mattel keeps wishing they could find a way to bring MOTUC to retail (and good luck with that, regretfully)
I dunno. Not keen on ‘ripped in half’ and ‘Duncan dies no matter what ’cause Clamp Champ done clamped him too hard’. Seems a tad too much influence from that DC guy who’s the darling of ToyGuru.
“Well, what about Star Wars? Limbs cut off left and right, Anakin tossed in Lava, all that? hus? HUH?”
But those things happened, or ‘happened’ in the movies. Gruesome as it all may be (and the severed limb count is pretty darn funny when taken as a whole) it’s ‘real’ in terms of the characters. The SW toys reflect the reality and allow to re-enact scenes. MOTUC is…not exactly a blank slate but a block of clay, a basis in which one molds and creates what one wishes.
Of course one can ignore the bios.
I dunno if I have an actual point anymore. Sorry. 🙂
steve, brother… am i reading this right? are you arguing that having connections, giving the characters interweaving stories and standards of interaction, limits creative play? so you never played like lando really was working for the empire? you never played like snake eyes betrayed the joes? you never played that casey jones punked the turtles? every story, ever, has character interactions and “rules of engagement” if there weren’t, it would be impossible for you to contextualize the character (especially for young minds) they could offer the toys completely devoid of any story element whatsoever, but that’s not how motu rolls.
is motuc any more or less detailed than star wars? well… yes they are simpler, but they’re also more open ended… no incarnation, even these bios, tell us the ultimate fate of eternia… we know adam grows into “king he-man” but at the same time, there’s no statement over how much of eternia he rules… and we know that historically, eternia supports rulers for a number of different locations and cultures. there’s no mention yet on if king he-man is still fighting… he may very well be, randor fought, miro fought… so the stories are still largely up to you to decide. that’s not a bad thing, generally speaking.
and of course, the bios are crap… there’s no more need to adhere to these than there is to leave the labels on your mattress. if you don’t like them, ignore them… or if you’re a tad more daring, write your own bio. that’s what i do, and i love doing it. working on a new bio for vykron already, and if you’re curious, it should be up in the motuc board later today. (maybe this evening) it’s kind of sad that my biggest joy from the bios comes from re-writing them, but honestly, that’s turning a frown upside down… win-win baby.
To both you and Noisy, I apologize. I’m sure there’s a bit more rational context to my comment that I had not inserted, like the difference between ‘connections’ and turning things around (well, you know, when Han landed on Cloud City Lando shot his knees out in retaliation for earlier wrongs. s**t happens around Lando, baby) and making up your own stories, and..
You know what it is? Fate Vs. Free Will. I guess that’s what I was getting at in my awkward inept way. Duncan gets turned into a Snake Man? OH NO! but luckily science and Orko and that scary witch person from She-Ra (Madame Raz?) save him! Or the Sword of He and the magicanical (hey, there’s a word! Magic+mechanical=Magicanical) Power Sword combine to blast the Snake out of him or something.
But then again I’m the crazy guy who feels deep down that there is only one Star Wars movie, Leia isn’t Luke’s sister, Darth Vader isn’t Luke’s Father (events of ESB were Darth seriously messing with Luke’s head-hey, it’s a valid interpretation!) and Han shot first because he’s just that bad-a**. 🙂
By that same notion, the Filmation cartoon limits the play pattern though. So did the movie and the comics and the mini-comics. I don’t believe that any of that hinders any creativity. We, as children, had the same opportunity to “ignore the bios” and many of us did. If this were a kid’s line, the same would be true today. I have an evil Roboto from an alternate dimension, Kronis & Trap-Jaw coexisting, and soon a second dragon man.
Also, I’m not sure you can equate the literal “ripped in half” with Duncan’s death in terms of morbidity. Vykron’s bio is direct whereas Duncan’s is more open to interpretation. He was mortally wounded while battling Clamp Champ is all the bio says, right? He stopped to take a drink poisoned by Evil Lyn for all we know. He could’ve stepped on a landmine he had previously discarded. He could’ve broken through and asked CC to do the deed. (See, there’s no block on my creativity!). Vykron’s bio is gruesome, though I don’t mind it, but Duncan’s doesn’t go that far.
I definitely “ignored the bios” as a kid, in lots of instances, and not just with MotU.
That said, I think one of the surest signs of a hack writer is killing off main characters.
If this were a larger, better-told, more well thought out story, most people would have no problem with killing characters. But it’s bad enough to have lame names, really poor writing, plot holes, and clunky grammar without also having to have the “author” killing people.
Killing characters is fine, but it has to be earned. Toyguru has in NO way earned that right.
I nominally agree with that, but since the MOTU Classics bios span eras, I think killing off characters is important. We’re being introduced to this King Adam timeframe and I would hate it if every Master lived to see it (as surely as I hate that so many of the villains are 5k+ years old).
I’m usually the first to jump up in irritation at a character death. I hate when writers like Johns & Robinson commit wholesale slaughter of characters they have no attachment to. That said, these don’t strike me that way. Perhaps it’s because I see them as Wiki entries more than a narrative. And in the millennia-spanning MOTU mythos, all of these characters are dead at some point. For me, this particular bio just reveals the particulars of when Man-At-Arms’ time came. I don’t have any shock that it did.
MAA is my all-time favorite MOTU character, but I’m not put out by the bio. Honestly, the only thing it leaves me with is a sense of dread for Orko. After all, only three people shared his secret…
With MOTUC it’s not about Scott “killing” characters he doesn’t care about, or for shock value purposes. But it is being used to artificially attach deeper significance to these crappy bios that virtually no one likes, and that’s what I’m calling BS on. You most definitely flatter with your Wiki entry comparison. 😉
And yes, obviously these aren’t immortals (most of ’em) but that begs the question: why the need to mention the deaths at all? In all these bios where we actually get no real bio information, why not keep a little bit better focus instead of a continued sprawl into run-on sentence trademark name-drop quagmiredom?
And this is all not even to mention how lame the “snakefying the Heroic Warriors” aspect of the MYP toon was, and how lazy and ill-advised it is for them to have reserved that storyline, and how lame AND lazy the Snake MAA figure initially was (still ain’t gonna top any “Best Of” lists), and how it’s such an unfitting demise for one of the most iconic of all MotU characters.
But yeah, killing MAA is fine. Do it all day long as long as you have a good writer at the helm.
I wouldn’t say it’s flattering, there are good and bad Wiki entries!
I mean more that I look at them as little more than a quick summary of info, a recap of facts, rather than a narrative. I don’t judge the guy on wiki who wrote the Dark Knight plot summary and I can’t get too up in arms over what I’ve read until I see the film. There’s no film, so the raw facts are left on their own merit and if I can fill in the blanks, like in my reply to my brother James below, and find the raw summation of facts workable, I’m partially satisfied. Right now, there’s a ton of great potential for this SMAA/CC battle, my biggest fear is that they’ll try to cover it in the mini-comics and the rationalizations I can make then have to overlook the story itself instead of simply being my interpretation.
Better writing would save this, no doubt. One sentence to incorporate any of the stuff in my reply to James would make this feel/sound so much better. The upside here is there’s nothing to discount them (yet).
I do like the deaths in the bios. I don’t disagree with you about why they’re there, but I like them selfishly myself. And I don’t mind that MAA went out as a villain (even though pretty much any story element I add partially negates it) because they can’t all die heroically. To me, Teela getting him back for a few minutes as he lay dying is the biggest trope, but even that’s workable.
If nothing else, this is a broken clock bio for me.
“My brother James” LOL 🙂
But I don’t know man, I guess I’d just rather enjoy something full-formed. It’s not exactly being Lay-Ze, it’s just a simple matter of not having (or wanting to take) the time to waste on stuff that’s not up to snuff.
Clearly I still do it (to some extent) with MOTUC because as you point out, fans WILL drink the sand. But in general I don’t have the interest in “fixing” these like you and DR and other fans seem to have.
I want it to be great served to the table, without me needing to adjust with salt, pepper, or (GAH!) tabasco or (BLARGH!) steak sauce to make it edible. 😉
I do love Clamp Champ though, and in the right hands that “Final Penultimate Next to the Second-from-the-Left of the Third to Last Ultimate Totally Endgame, Nothing After This, We Super-Pinky-Swear Battle” between he and SMAA could be entertaining, and yes him being cured long enough to say goodbye to Teela is definitely as hamfisted as it gets. But I’d just prefer never having gone there at all.
Turning people into snakes, or into stone, is AT BEST a one-off episode where everyone gets cured at the end of the episode and it’s never mentioned again. To intentionally preserve it in amber as such a pivotal moment in MotU history is itself laughable. (Of course, that’s really no surprise coming from the guy who thinks Vykron SHOULD look goofy.)
To kill off a character while he’s a lame toy variant, it’s just too sad. Imagine if Skeletor meets his end as his Disco Skelly incarnation? It just shows supreme lack of taste, and lack of respect for the characters. Unless I missed that really awesome Spider-Man issue where he dies while wearing his Adventure Hero Skateboarding outfit. 🙂
“Imagine if Skeletor meets his end as his Disco Skelly incarnation?”
PLEASE DON’T GIVE MATTEL IDEAS!
I agree with the “ripped in half” when they are hoping it will eventually market to kids. Seriously, wtF?
i said the same thing in the motuc board… while i personally like the visceral take on gygor, i the fan and dad sat back and went “seriously? no one in this mythos is ever near a cliff without a wind raider parked just 20 feet below the edge, but we just bifurcated a dude??” that is really bad writing, for the mythos, as it’s WAY too R rated for this overwise pg-13 property.
i still don’t get your gripe steve-o. how is the predestiny in motu any more/ess obvious and heavy handed than say, in star wars? a skywalker pretty much ruins the galaxy, only to have a skywalker fix it? what are the odds there? skywalker part deux is raised on skywalker uno’s home world and skywalker uno NEVER thinks to look there? i’d even point out, despite the “no fate but what we make” crap in the terminator franchise, it certainly appears to the outsider as if john conner is the destined hero, no matter how whiny and helpless he might be when they come for him. fate is always a part of the hero tale, that’s why the hero is the hero, he is chosen to rise above the rank and file and do something great. it’s easy to say, “sure, anyone who studied under aristotle and had a dad who’d spent his entire reign building an army could have conquered three quarters of the civilized world” but only one guy did it, right? it was… his density.
When did every body turn in to a bunch of panty waisters? Stop drinking the kool-aid. This whole “cult of the child” thing is seriously out of whack. Kids can handle entertainment violence just fine. There was no shortage of television violence in the 80s. Nobody was emotionally crippled when Darth Maul went to pieces. Toss a couple kids outdoors, tell them to go play, and 10 minutes later they’ll have turned sticks into swords or guns and are off on some grand adventure. The whole sentiment that children can’t handle certain acts of violence is ridiculous. It’s like everybody turned into a bunch of mother hens after they hit 30. I think children deserve a bit more credit than we give them.
I only follow MOTU on the periphery, but I tend to read everything you and Poe Ghostal post about it, and I can’t help but feel that far too much stuff happens in He-Man’s life. I mean, if you consider all of the biographies and everything else, he’s got to be in his mid-forties and just chugging along fine.
The only figure I ever had any nostalgic interest in was Stinkor, and it turns out that I had a bootleg or hand-me-down as a child, since mine came with Mek-A-Nek’s armor, so I should probably stop reading it all. 😛
lol Stinkor does have Mek’s armor, or do you mean you got one that literally had Mek’s red armor?
He is a busy man, to be sure. Vault and used to watch TNG and joke about how often that ship got in a pickle. In real life, they’d replace the Captain!
Yup, literally had his armor. I didn’t even know it was a thing until I posted on Poe Ghostal irate about the fact that they had used a random orange rather than using the red I’d known. I’d known the staction had orange armor, but I pegged that as part of the Horseman’s design, rather than an accurate color choice.
I must be in the minority but I really don’t give two fat rats about the bios. I read them, go “meh” and forget about them. It does help I have a really poor memory as well, but still, they’re inconsequential to the actual figures. 😛
lol It is an extraneous bunch if info. I think the clamoring for new fiction and this being all there is is what creates the fervor. You drink the sand, you know?
I’m with you. I generally ignore the bios, occasionally there is a”diamond in the rough” idea that I keep as part of my own Eternia story line. Then, I’ve never been one to be spoon fed my entertainment.
i can’t help but laugh that they killed man at arms… everyone here knows full well that if man at arms had pulled the old duncan idaho routine, three quarters of the internet fanbase would have immolated themselves by now.
Do you mean if they killed him only after he’d killed 19 Palace Guards? He had to at least get a few in before they “saved” him, I imagine…
Wow. Really looking forward to all these figures. Summer’s going to be pretty good this year, provided I get to order Vykron.
At least you have the option of displaying Horde Prime with his huge creepy visored helmet instead of the silly comics version. Personally, I would’ve preferred a giant-sized, two-headed cyborg, as in the Filmation cartoon. Maybe they’ll get to that in a couple of years. Heh.
I hope it has some fans, but yeah, I’m not too fond of the UK comic head.
Duncan is the reason I like MOTU. I don’t care if he dies in the bios.I myself have my own story for these characters. In fact everybody in Eternia knows Adam is He-Man, and Adora was sent to Despondos at 18 not when she was a baby…
Well you get the idea.
Duncan’s my fave too.
Why does Neitlich insist on displaying that Castle Grayskull box? Is he trying to get fans to “demand it” of Mattel? Only to have it “cancelled” because of “logistics” and then “blame” the “mom/kid factor” on it’s “failure”. and yes, I’m actually doing “air quotes” for this “rant”!
You’d think they could actually PROOF READ some of these bios/press releases before throwing them out on the net. There are several basic errors in there.
Griffin – looks cool, even if it is Battle Cat with wings and a new head.
SMAA – does he come with a “normal” head? otherwise, I only need next week’s re-issue.
Horde Prime – LMAO at the blocking of his face!
I get why they want to build up the “mythology” in the bios, but remember when you were told just the basic facts/origin, and then you could create your own play patterns? sigh….
Sorry guys, I just don’t get this play pattern argument. What licensed toy has ever done that? It wasn’t MOTU because those had pack-in mini-comics. Nearly everything in the toy aisle has had these “creativity destroying backstories” for decades now.
Maybe, when we were kids, we found it easier to ignore all that stuff and maybe that’s where this nostalgia comes from. Or perhaps a couple of you fellas are significantly older and remember the narrow window between the Outer Space Men & Star Wars?
Either way though, I was quite capable of ignoring MOTU continuity as a kid and I don’t have any more trouble today – my Hurricane Hordak is more into practical jokes than universal domination. The existence of the media only limits creativity if you let it!
So the whole noble, long-lived and highly decorated time that Duncan served the Houses of Miro and Randor, he didn’t have a last name. But let him be horrifically tranformed into a monstrous Snake Man, and suddenly he’s “Duncan of The Viper Clan”??
No Fair!
This is an issue I can get behind!
I’m pretty sure his last name was Macleod. Duncan Macleod of the clan Macleod.
I’m not really bothered by what’s in the bios. I’m not a slave to MotU canon, I actually prefer to just make up my own story, but that Vykron bio actually made me reconsider not getting him. He’s basically the equivalent of a professional wrestler!
If he actually came apart at the waist, he’d be a sure buy for me.
If he could seperate at the waist, that’d be Classic! lol
Out of all the 4 bios that are revealed Vykron ‘s is a joke. They got his bio off of SPARTACUS. Come on he was a gladiator no thank you. Love Horde Prime bio now we know there is a Horde World and too sad for Duncan being mortally wounded by Clamp Champ but his daughter Teela restores his humanity. Can’t wait to get these figures!!
why is that a problem, that he was a gladiator? he-man was too, in the mini-comics, fighting a guy named garn who i hope to hell gets made one day in the line… gladiators aren’t new, and they’re aren’t all based on spartacus. (what with spartacus very much not being rent in twain by a gold and green simian)
like, in the scale of things to be peeved about, i’m a lot cooler w/ vykron being a gladiator than i am him serving under a guy named cholo.
I enjoy the Gladiator aspect too. My Tankron is gonna fight a Griffin for sure.
And Choloh needs a pronunciation guide. We know he has a long beard, but not how to say his name.
Now I want George Lucas to buy the rights to “Spartacus” so that he can add a scene where the titular hero transforms into a human tank and kills all the Romans.
Wow, some fans are really losing their cool over Man-at-Arms’ death. I mean, really? Just ignore the bios. Like they said in Pirates of the Caribbean, “they’re more guidelines than actual rules.”
Not to mention the fact that damn near every figure comes with an instrument of murder. So NO ONE EVER DIES in your personal canon?
LOL 😀 This is so true for some folks. We were spoiled by all those wasted laser shots in G.I. Joe!
I don’t think it’s that Man-At-Arms dies that has everyone up in arms (pun only somewhat intended). I think it’s the way that they killed him. Duncan served Adam for decades, and then gets permanently turned into a Snake Man, becomes a villain, and is killed by Clamp Champ? That’s a way for a sucker to go out, not Man-At-Arms. It also makes one wonder how crappy of a sorceress Teela turns out to be if she can’t undo the spell that made him a Snake Man.
Hmm. I don’t think it has to be the way a sucker goes out, the ambiguousness of the circumstances allows for creativity in exactly how MAA goes down (though this death might occur during the new mini-comic timeframe and get woefully specific). He could’ve easily died heroically or, at the very least, we could accept that Clamp Champ saved MAA in the only way that was ultimately possible rather than allow him to continue as a Snakeman.
And I do actually rather like Clamp Champ being the one to take him out because I view his role like I viewed MAA – the grizzled soldier who can make the hard choice, who can afford He-Man the hope & optimism. He-Man might not have been able to do what had to be done to “save” Duncan, but Man-At-Arms could’ve, Clamp Champ did. Heck, I’d like to think that this epic battle between Snake MAA & Clamp Champ roused Duncan enough to give CC the shot and CC boldly took it because he knew that’s what Duncan would’ve wanted. (He help me if they try to portray his death in the mini-comic…)
And Teela not having the skills to save Duncan?! That hurts! But, it’s a good tragic. Could Sorceress have saved him? Could Teela have done more if she hadn’t had her destiny hidden from her for so long?? And that was a secret kept by Duncan no less! A costly secret.
I think any major character dying swells up a lot of negative emotions and it’s hard to sort those out. I don’t particularly like roller coasters because I’ve no need of being thrown around for an easy scare. I do love the emotional roller coaster of storytelling though. I’m happy when a story can evoke negative feelings. This bio sends me on that trek, even if I have to fill in a lot of the layers with things that were perhaps not present in their creation.
Why do I have a feeling that Teela is the “chosen one” to get rid of them nasty ol’ snake men..maybe He-man went back in time to fetch the sorting hat for Teela to pull out a sword and lop off all ’em snake heads…deathly hallows style! Yeah I know..one too many Happy Potter references..just that I am being forced to sit through all 8 movies on Blu Ray with my nephew 🙁
Ever play Mass Effect? Maybe it’s like the scenario with Liara’s mother, Benezia.
Duncan is fighting with the Snake Men, but Teela’s spell allows him to come to his senses long enough to say his goodbyes and tell Clamp Champ to finish him before he becomes a threat again. That’s how I understood it. Makes Man-At-Arms go out like a “for the greater good” hero, not a chump.
Enh, sometimes bad stuff just happens. Like in the American Civil War, General John Sedgewick’s men pleaded with him to get back down below the ramparts in case enemy sharpshooters got a bead on him. His response, and last words: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist–” Sometimes people who have worked and spent time to get into positions of authority just die in pointless ways. That’s life.
Besides, this cardback bio stuff isn’t history. It isn’t religion. It’s fiction. I liked Man-At-Arms, too, but he’s just a character. Get over it and enjoy the toys.
There is just not enough info in the bios for us to know exactly how things went down other than the bare minimum specifics. That is why love the bios, to me i also thought duncan had a moment of clarity type thing, and knew it was the only way to be truely free. It really is sad to say but i think video games and comics and just time and old age hurts a persons imagination to the point that “oh the bio says cc killed smaa, must gone out like a bitch” becomes the norm, and everyone complains. Furthermore jst because duncan is dead doesnt mean his figuren is worthless! I mean look at darth vader/anakin, He died at the end of jedi, yet they still sell his toy, amd they still make weekly cartoons of anakin. If knowing the end permanently kills off a character in every timeline then why would anyone watch theseoies andcartoons or buy the toys? Theres so much more story to learn that the end isnt the end, it can be the beginning. And dont forget, we’re dealing with time travel. So no ones really dead.
If a non snake man at arms duncan was to appear in the future time line, to carry on further adventures before returning to the past to fulfil his own gruesome destiny that story could be awesome. And with some creativity that could happen.
Again, people are comparing these little foot note stories to full length films and novels wothout filling the inbetween lines themselves. There really is a grand story coming together (in my mind anyway) and ithink its great
whose to say too that SMAA didn’t wait his time, and when hsss was vulnerable during the battle, he asserted his will and took the big man out. in his dyign act, hsss lashes out with a big nasty spell and fries duncan into tempura man at arms and THEN clamp champ comes up and discovers that his former mentor is a crispy critter and rapidly dying. teela has to reverse the snake spell and try to patch up his body enough to deliver the heroic deathspeech, then he kicks it.
and in fairness, she may not have been sorceress for very long… and clearly, most of her sorceress training focused on how to apply hair color and the limits of gold discs for support of mammaries during battle… the chafing alone must have taken her weeks to learn how to handle.
For those complaining about Vykor being ripped in half… well, the upper half of Rotor or Twistoid has to come from somewhere, right?
Rotor, I’ll grant you, but Twistoid was just a robot.
Besides, Kronis had his arm & jaw obliterated, presumably Tri-Klops was blinded at some point, Mekaneck had his neck snapped . . . . The whole MOTU series is replete with fun mutilations for the kiddies to re-enact.
The bit about SMAA’s bio that intrigues me the most:
“Duncan was mortally wounded, *but not before* momentarily recovering his humanity”
So… he’s made human again, and THEN Clamp Champ does him in? Hmm. Suspicious.