- by Owen Morton
I have a discussion group in an hour’s time, at which I will have to talk about the texts I mentioned in my Tony Hawks article the other day. The logical thing for me to do, therefore, would be to reread the bloody things and attempt to glean some sense out of them. This, I sadly suspect, is impossible, and so I have elected to spend the next fifty minutes before I have to leave writing another website article instead. I simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to insult three more of the most stupid characters on He-Man, especially since we haven’t yet had a He-Man article this month, a sorry state of affairs if ever there was one. So, without further ado, here come the next three in the never-ending parade of stupid creations from He-Man!
Webstor:
Webstor was a relatively innocuous creature (well, as relatively innocuous as you can be when you’re a bright blue demon seeking to establish evil all over Eternia), compared to some of Skeletor’s other minions. As I just said, he was a bright blue creature with some interesting fin-like protuberances on the top of his head, which served no purpose. The creature he was loosely based on was the spider, though this was limited only to his apparent ability to do things with ropes and webs. Quite why they didn’t attempt to make him look a little more like a spider, I don’t really know.
Webstor was special to me because he was one of the only He-Man figures I ever got new. Most of them were acquired for me in one go second-hand – which is, of course, fine, because they were all in good condition, but there’s just something special about getting a figure when it’s new, having the pleasure of ripping the packaging off and everything. You probably know what I mean. The only other He-Man figure I believe I ever got that was new was an irritating fellow called Darius, who was from the New Adventures of He-Man and will thus be ignored.
Webstor first appeared in an episode called ‘The Cat And The Spider’, which I own on video and will be reviewing at some indeterminate point in the future, as soon as I can bring myself to watch it, so I won’t give away too many of the details here (other than to mention that it’s very, very stupid, but then you could probably have guessed that already). Still, in the episode, Webstor is portrayed as not quite so much of an idiot as the rest of Skeletor’s lackeys, in that he answers back to Skeletor with quite intelligent retorts (intelligent in the context of He-Man, of course, which of course in this case equates to deeply nonsensical insults instead of just standing there and taking Skeletor’s abuse). By the time Disappearing Dragons rolls around, Webstor has been relegated to the status of a lunatic who, for no obvious personal gain, builds a machine which sends dragons to an alternate dimension. He doesn’t actually do very much in ‘Disappearing Dragons’, other than get in a bit of a scuffle with He-Man, which – obviously – he loses.
Quite why I’ve bothered including Webstor in this discussion about stupid villains, I don’t really know, because he’s not that stupid at all, compared to many of the others. Bearing this in mind, let’s move on to …
Spikor:
Spikor was a character introduced quite late on, I believe, but I don’t really know. I do recall him appearing in an episode called ‘Visitors From Earth’, though whether this recollection is faulty, I don’t know. Essentially, Spikor drew inspiration from spikes. I suspect someone at the He-Man Creation Office (if such an institution existed) had been having a rather boring morning, drawing pointless squiggles kind of like this: /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ and thought it looked cool enough to model a character on. Either that, or they’d been reading a book called ‘Dragons’ which I used to have when I was about three, which featured a knight who wore a suit of armour with spikes jutting out from it. I suspect the former explanation is the more likely, since ‘Dragons’ was perhaps a little too advanced reading for the kind of people who worked there.
Anyway, Spikor was the sort of creature who you really do wonder about the origins of. (That was one of the most ungrammatical sentences I’ve ever written, but you’re going to have to live with it, because I can’t be bothered to try to work out how to say it correctly.) He had the traditional legs of a He-Man figure, all equipped with the impossibly small waist and such, but his upper body was a departure from the norm. Predictably, it was entirely covered in spikes. Well, okay, his torso and his head were. The spikes weren’t sharp, though they could still do someone an injury if you threw Spikor at them, as my sister probably found out on one or more occasions. Spikor was purple, for the most part, with black underpants and boots, and red arms. His left arm was fairly normal, but his right was rather interesting. Instead of having a hand, he had some form of silvery trident which extended about an extra three centimetres from his arm (which, if Spikor were human-sized, would probably equate to about a foot). I can’t really see the benefit of this trident, especially since the ends didn’t even make a pretence to be sharp – they had little balls on the end. It must have been purely decorative.
The question is, how does a creature like Spikor evolve? I would respectfully submit that it must have been bloody painful giving birth to him, unless of course the spikes grew later, for no apparent reason. Even if that’s so, I don’t see how the trident can possibly be part of Spikor’s genetic make-up. Most people are not born with bits of metal in their arm which they can extend at will. (I recognise that the phrase ‘most people’ cannot be applied in any way, shape or form to the denizens of Eternia, but this is taking even that a little far.) The only explanation I can really come up with is that Skeletor can genetically engineer for himself the servants that he needs, and that his servants are all so stupid and useless because Skeletor, being Skeletor, always manages to bugger up the process in some new and imaginative way.
Actually, that’s one of the best explanations on offer for the existence of …
Faker Folker:
Faker Folker actually has to take the first prize for stupidest servant of Skeletor. Admittedly, it’s not a bad concept – an evil double of He-Man. Skeletor was at perhaps his most imaginative when he came up with the idea of genetically engineering this one. Unfortunately, his skill in coming up with the idea clearly far exceeded his skill in actually putting it into practice, because Faker Folker looked very little like He-Man. Since I don’t know whether he ever actually appeared on the cartoon, I’m going to limit my discussion here to the figure, because I owned it, and always thought it was ludicrous.
I suspect they did use the same mould for Faker Folker as they did for He-Man, since in actual bodily physique (apart from the expression on the face, which on Faker Folker was a little mean, whereas He-Man – as I recall – had some form of inane smile) they were exactly the same. There, however, the similarities ceased. Skeletor was clearly well aware that He-Man had neon orange hair, but Faker Folker’s hair was even more neon than He-Man’s. It was ridiculously orange. Moreover, Faker Folker did not come equipped with any of the accessories that He-Man had – no breastplate, sword, shield, axe, etc. (Quite why He-Man had the shield and axe, I don’t know, because he never had them on the cartoon, but anyway.) You’d think Faker would have these things so he could pretend to be He-Man with greater ease. But all these are minor quibbles, really. No, where Skeletor’s creation of genius really fell down was in the way that Faker Folker came with sky blue skin.
I have to say, this is an error of great stunning magnitude. No one – not even the notoriously stupid Man-at-Arms – is going to mistake Faker Folker for He-Man if he’s got blue skin. If Faker Folker tried to enter the Palace in his cunning disguise, he’d be apprehended – probably by the real He-Man – before you could say, “Gosh, is that a silly blue man pretending to be He-Man?” And that, of course, is another problem. If you want Faker Folker to replace He-Man, you’ve first got to put the real He-Man out of commission so Faker Folker can take his place – and, if I remember rightly, putting He-Man out of commission was never one of Skeletor’s strong suits. At least if Faker Folker looked more than vaguely like He-Man, you could have an exciting scene whereby no one could tell which was the real He-Man. (In fact, when I wished to achieve this effect, I tended to just use my extra He-Man figure, since I did have two, at least up until the point when one of them took a tumble down the stairs and ended up without a right arm, which rendered him pretty much useless.)
Right, I’m bored now, and I’ve discussed three characters, so it seems an appropriate time to stop. Just one more thing before I go: today, in writing this article, I have noticed a disturbing tendency on my part to write ‘which’ when I mean ‘with’, and vice versa. I think I’ve corrected all the offending passages, but if there’s still one or two out there, please accept my apologies.