- by Owen Morton
It’s been a while since we considered in depth any question regarding He-Man. I reviewed ‘Diamond Ray of Disappearance’ last month, and I let you in on the secrets of the new He-Man series now airing in the US a month before that, but other than these two articles, I don’t believe we’ve had anything He-Man-related since June. And that being the case, I thought it was high time for another pointless discussion about the original series of He-Man.
It didn’t take me long to think up a suitable subject. If there’s one of He-Man’s friends who is unlikely to be appearing in the new He-Man series, it is Man-E-Faces. (Though I suppose an equally good case could be made for such diverse talents as Snout Spout and Fisto.) The question posed above in pink is likely to be answered simply by the fact that most of those now reading this article will have very little – if any – recollection of the character to which I refer. I only remember him because I had the figure, and I don’t remember his name for that reason. I remember his name because of a visit to the recently deceased He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Site, which let me in on the secret of this interesting fellow. (Well, actually, it didn’t, because I didn’t read the review in question. Or, indeed, any of the other reviews. Honest.)
Man-E-Faces appeared at least once in the original He-Man series, in an episode called ‘The Mystery of Man-E-Faces’. The title of this episode was the clue as to whether Man-E-Faces would be in it or not. I realise that it conceivably could be called ‘The Mystery of Man-E-Faces’ even if Man-E-Faces himself wasn’t in it, but I think this would be a little too subtle for the writers of the cartoon series under question. Therefore, it is only an assumption that Man-E-Faces appeared, but I don’t expect anyone’s too bothered whether he did or not, especially since this has been a totally irrelevant paragraph, given that I never saw ‘The Mystery of Man-E-Faces’ and thus have no idea what happened in it. But anyway.
So, I suspect that anyone still reading this garbage is likely to be wondering who Man-E-Faces was, or what assets he brought to the He-Man team. The answer to the second question is, in fact, none. At first glance, you might be forgiven for thinking he had something to offer, but on questioning his abilities a little deeper, you would learn that his special ability is, in fact, completely useless. But I’m choosing to keep you in the dark a little longer on this issue, and instead I’ll start by detailing the appearance of Man-E-Faces’ figure to you.
Now, Man-E-Faces was actually one of the more bizarre persons (if he can even be described as such) ever to grace the surface of Eternia. I can’t remember every detail of his stupid body, but I have distinct recollections of him having blue boots, yellow legs (which were of the same stupid design of all the He-Man figures – you know: easily detached, less easily reattached, and moreover made it bloody difficult to make the figures actually stand up) and very hard blue underpants. His torso was where it got interesting. He was covered in funny red wire-like things, though his main colour was blue. But! instead of the usual He-Man type head which could move from left to right (and vice versa!), Man-E-Faces was equipped with a very large domed helmet thing which meant he was totally incapable of looking in any direction other than straight ahead. Inside his helmet, you could see his face.
But with a name like Man-E-Faces, which is clearly a pun (and not a very good one at that), you would expect him to have more than one face, wouldn’t you? The answer is yes, you would. And, oddly enough, more than one face is precisely what this unusual beast had. If you inserted your finger into the front of the helmet, you would discover – to your surprise and immense delight – that his face spun round! One moment, Man-E-Faces would be just a regular guy with the sort of face you might expect from a man dressed like he is (bright orange with sunglasses, if you want to know what type of face that would be), but the next, he would present a frankly unpleasant visage which was more a sort of grey and robotic kind of thing. I can’t remember it very well, but I do remember that it, well, didn’t look very nice. I also vaguely recall that he was capable of showing a third face, but what that was, I really don’t know.
Okay, so what kind of benefit might this provide? Well, when you first think about it, it sounds fairly useful. Given that the robotic face looks rather evil, you might easily think he was one of Skeletor’s men while he was wearing this face. And this was undoubtedly the plan: Man-E-Faces would put on his evil face to go and spy on Skeletor and learn all his secret plans (though this wouldn’t be too hard, given Skeletor’s predilection for shrieking out his plans to anyone who’ll bother listening), then, wearing his good face again, he would return to He-Man and the others and let them in on what he’d learnt. A cunning plan, you might think.
However, you’d be wrong. The reason for this is that, though his face might change, his body remains the same. Therefore, Skeletor – despite being notoriously thick – would catch on quite quickly to the fact that this evil fellow dressed very similarly – nay, identically – to the good guy Man-E-Faces. Add to this the knowledge that Man-E-Faces could change what his face looked like, and you’ve got a conclusion that even Skeletor wouldn’t have too much trouble drawing. All this, of course, would be irrelevant if characters in He-Man were known to change their clothes every once in a while, but this is not the case. Everybody is always wearing the same thing. Of course, Skeletor could be forgiven for not realising it was Man-E-Faces if Man-E-Faces were wearing something different, but I personally think that it’s unlikely Man-E-Faces would ever do this. His interesting outfit is part of his identity, and asking him to go without it would be like asking you to go without your left hand (unless, of course, you don’t have a left hand, in which case substitute right hand – and if you don’t have one of those either, substitute some part of the body that you do have).
Therefore, when Man-E-Faces gets all dressed up in his evil guise to go and learn Skeletor’s secrets, Skeletor would know it was him coming, despite the cunning disguise! I think we can all then predict what happens fairly easily: Skeletor captures Man-E-Faces and holds him hostage in exchange for He-Man. In fairly short order, He-Man shows up according to Skeletor’s plan. Not according to Skeletor’s plan, however, he elects to – instead of submitting to becoming Skeletor’s prisoner – knock a few walls in Snake Mountain down and rescue Man-E-Faces. Skeletor would then no doubt utter some profundity such as “I’ll get you for this, He-Man!” to which He-Man would probably say something stupid like, “Let me give you a hand!” and then leave.
Man-E-Faces thus joins the ranks of He-Man’s friends whose only use is to be captured and then rescued by He-Man himself. So I suppose he’s not really useless, more a sort of unexceptional. But then, his very concept is exceptionally stupid, so quite what we have in the long run with Man-E-Faces, I don’t know.
Nor do I care.