Mattel revealed two more MOTU Classics Bios yesterday with packaging reveals for July’s Spikor and August’s Sir Laser-Lot. Spikor gave Mattel an interesting opportunity to provide back story to a relatively clean-slate vintage character, but it was Sir Laser-Lot’s bio that snagged the fan’s attention.
Spikor is currently scheduled for July…
Spikor – Untouchable Master of Evil Combat, Real Name: Kleffton
Originally a blacksmith from the Eternian village of Nordling, Kleffton was fused with an enchanted suit of spiked armor and a mystic trident when he attempted to steal a sacred scroll from the city’s high priests. Banished from his home, Kleffton became an outcast, wandering into the Sands of Time. He was discovered by Skeletor, who saw his natural talent to forge weapons and recruited him to battle against the Snake Men. Now called Spikor, he serves Skeletor by creating new arms and armor for the Overlord of Evil. Spikor uses his spike-studded body and trident arm as mighty weapons!
And Sir Laser-Lot is currently scheduled for August:
Sir Laser-Lot – Heroic Knight of Grayskull, Real Name: Unrevealed
Across the continent of Preternia, the mightiest of King Grayskull’s Knights was Sir Laser-Lot, a master of weapons and hand-t0-hand fighting techniques. He wore an enchanted suit of armor powered by the great Gem of Tamadge which enhanced his strength and let him unleash powerful energy blasts. So legendary were his deeds that the future king He-Man sent one of his loyal Time Agents into the past to bring Sir Laser-Lot forward to his time. Here, Sir Laser-Lot became the King’s new Man-At-Arms, training both the Royal Guards and the King’s young son Dare in ancient battle techniques. Sir Laser-Lot uses his energy blade to fight for chivalry and justice in any time.
For Spikor, Toy Guru noted that the character had never had a proper origin in the comics or TV series, giving the MOTUC team a chance to flesh out the character in the bio with his mini-comic appearance as the starting point. This worked pretty well, delivering a bio that including an actual retelling of the events related to Spikor specifically instead of it having to serve as a tease for the overly story.
However, it was Sir Laser-Lot’s bio that stirred the fan reaction. If you’re not familiar with some of the more obscure parts of the MOTU mythos. In the mid 90s, Lou Scheimer Production pitched a new cartoon “He-Ro: Son of He-Man” that followed Adam’s adopted son, Dare. The name He-Ro was re-used from the Powers of Grayskull pitch, but there was no immediate connection between the two. It’s not clear in the bios how much Toy Guru intends to use, but there are already clear differences with Teela being Sorceress and Laser-Lot being Man-At-Arms. Whether Dare is adopted (and was raised by savage Bearcats) or not still remains to be seen.
I’m interested to see exactly how much of the post-NA MOTUverse that we start seeing in the bios, if it will mean possible figures, and how the consumer base will respond to that. For now, this particular bio seems to have gone over fairly poorly, but I think that may be in the wording more so than the intent. When I read the bio, it seemed “clear” that Spector removing Laser-Lot from the past was done in a way that didn’t affect anything – either Laser-Lot always mysteriously disappeared or died in a way that left no remains which left Spector the opportunity to save him in a way that they couldn’t do for Duncan or the Sorceress. While I think that’s probably the intent, the bio doesn’t specifically state that though. (And to add the ambiguity or pre-destination in time travel stories – would SLL have always “mysteriously disappeared” and Spector merely fulfilled destiny or was there an original timeline where SLL never disappeared… oh, time travel, how you complicate things…).
Anyway, two more bios for us to chew over. I don’t find much objectionable in either, but that’s why there’s a comments section…
I’ll have these bios added to our Sortable/Searchable Bio Page at MOTUClassics.Com in the coming days. That page features an organized table of all the MOTU Classics bios with a nifty search feature. For example, if you type in “Zalesia”, the page will show you just the bios that mention the fabled city specifically. Go try it out!
I happily ignore the bios. See no reason to change that here.
Haha! Totally, they’re just kind of “there”.
Spikor’s is cool but I like that sir-Laser-lot is from Powers of Grayskull and he’s brought into the future to be the new Man-at-Arms and train King He-Man’s son Dare.
For all their flaws and inconsistencies I have been enjoying the bios. Like it or not its really the only new MOTU related media we’ve seen in almost a decade. That said I have never taken the bios as gospel. For instance I’m still wrestling with the whole ‘Keldor being merged with Demo-Man’ thing. Also, in my book Draego-Man is a good guy. I don’t know why but there’s just something about him that kind of implies that he’s not evil.
As far as Sir Mix-A-Lot, I think I’m going to choose to completely ignore that bio completely. I’d rather see him as some sort of robotic knight. I might even make him a bad guy, who knows! =)
I just read these to be curious, as I don’t plan on buying either, but…blue guy who has a gem embedded in his chest and gives him laser powers? Mikaal “Starman” Tomas much? and wasn’t he the one Johns designed? oof.
the issue i have w/ the lazer toad bio is, as i said in the boards, it throws clamp champ under the bus. what a way to treat one of the only canon brothers in the whole mythos.
and it means sir lazertard gets to be a badass in two eras of time. yeah, that’s johns keeping it simple. i’m sure his real name was intended to be hal jordan, but they couldn’t get the rights. here we see why i hate time travel stories, cuz one guy now monopolizes two slots, and the time traveler has changed the past and the present, which ineffably alters the future.
lastly, it ruins the “hero story” of the preternia era by stacking the good guy side w/ too many powerhouses. that makes three heroes, He-Ro, King GRayskull, and SLT fighting the horde and the snake men… too many heroes!! really, any era that co-mingles grayskull and he-ro fighting the same nitwits is already stacked in favor other heroes, but every time you add another world beater into the mix, you diminish the significance of the guys already there (ever notice how le mort de arthur is really about the non-canonical lancelot? not a coincidence) and you decrease the long odds that the individual hero must overcome to make and complete their “hero quest.” that’s mega weak sauce. we’re talking writing 101 kind of storytelling here, and johns shouldn’t get off the hook for that like toy guru can. SLT isn’t just some rank and file guy, he’s got his own magicks and his own technology here… that puts him, in a narrative sense, way above guys like man at arms or the sorceress, who get one or the other… hell, even the various he-men all use the sword of He, the only guy who’s gotten to expand the mythos there is the sword of gaz for vikor. unique items are a HUGE deal, narratively, in any fantasy story. this dude is toting magical armor w/ it’s own unique power gem, and a laser sword & shield… comparatively, lion-o is the chief guy in his mythos, and is the ONLY hero character w/ a named artifact. (and he gets three of them) so in t-cats land, SLT is the second most powerful dude in the land… at least in the old stories. in the modern u-verse, he’d be on par w/ mumm-ra. that is just too much attention/status given to a brand new dude. hell, in all of the motuc bios thusfar, we have marzo’s gem, the ram stone (and only mention of the legacy stones) as named magical artifacts, and look at how potent the characters are who carry those items.
I don’t really care too much for SLT’s inclusion in Preternia, seriously, I like to see that time period as a bit more savage than current Eternia…SLT does not seem to fit that MO…some of these new MOTU figures aren’t cutting it…I mean I liked Draego Man, Spector and Laser-Lot not so much…
Laserlot has metallic paint and clear plastic?! Man I’m so easy to please. Spikor looks so serious, I don’t think it’s meshing well with me.
Wouldn’t you look serious all the time if you got fused to spiked armor?
The figures look like they’d be nifty additions to my collection, and Spikor was one of my favourites as a kid, but these two bios are kind of “Enh” for me. Sir Laser-Lot I knew was going to be shoehorned in as some kind of Marty Stu bad mammajamma to keep office egos happy, but Spikor’s new bio surprises me.
Remember the MYP cartoons where the three artefacts of the Spell of Separation had to be returned to their resting places? And the open ring was lodged into a huge underwater frieze showing a battle between what looked like Mer-Man’s people and some sort of Urchin-Men race? I was hoping Spikor would be an Urchin-Man brought in to cause some motivational friction with Mer-Man, is all.
I’m just glad that I’m getting Spikor. I never had the original and always thought he was one of the creepiest Masters. Sir Laser-Lot is a blank slate to me like any post 80’s character, but if there’s metallic paint and clear plastic involved, I’ll be happy.
spikor looks to me badder assed than the bio reads. the guy’s covered in spikes! if he’s not one of beedo’s urchin men, he must be one ticked off customer to want to avoid contact like that. i loved the idea of him as skeletor’s blacksmith, which was one thing i didn’t care for about the MYP revamp… tri-klops is a badassed bounty hunter, on par w/ he-man for sheer martial prowess… and he’s not building darth maul or anyone else a spybot!! spikor was the blacksmith, and like all fantasy blacksmiths, i always played him as the last guy to get angry, but the worst guy to get angry. he was a serious iron-handed badass… but admittedly, because of that characterization of him in my house, he didn’t get a ton of play time. he was too mean and potent once angered to make him a regular fixture on the battle field, plus he was a behind the scenes guy. i had him as the maker of the decepticons, and the guy who forged anton arcane’s tranducer (many years later). he was my go-to craftsman character when skeletor needed to up the ante on he-man.
and seeing spikor again reminds me that i had to toss that transducer a few years ago when my very young kids caused a small breakdown in the equipment… hmmmm. maybe i’ll spends me some money and get a new one!
Why would LaserLot disappear from the past? It’s time travel. LaserLot could leave with Spector at sundown, spend eleven years training He-Man’s brat, and be back before sunrise the next day. Plus with the face mask and helmet old LaserLot can avoid those annoying questions about why it look like he aged a decade over night.
I do wonder where Clamp Champ’s place in anything is now. Maybe he kicks it fighting MAA to the death? I like Spikor’s bio a surprising amount as it’s simple and to the point; plus, he wasn’t unleashed from years of entrapment by Evil-lyn so that’s always a bonus to me.
The biggest thing out of this for me is that both He-Man and Skeletor apparently have kids. Odd to think about since I never really imagined MOTU as a generational conflict with Adam eventually passing while his son goes on to fight Skeletor/Son of Skeletor in his stead. Anyone else think that Dare may serve as an outlet for 200X style Prince Adam?
A though occurred to me in th smallhours of last night while trying to get into a night-shift sleep schedule: how much you wanna bet Laser-Lot’s “real name” is something like Jephh Jonnz? Discuss.
And, man, sleep deprivation makes for some weird thoughts.
I’ve just read the comic prologue by Geoff Jones… It looks like Sir Laser Lot and Clamp Champ are the same character???