Occasional Wombat

Anyone in their 30s (and many people older or younger) will recognize He-Man and Skeletor.  But who’s the guy in the middle?

This is Faker’s bio on Mattel’s web site:

Originally built by Man-At-Arms® to cover for He-Man® when Prince Adam® is needed, Faker® was abandoned in the royal junkyard after his first mission and salvaged by the evil warrior Tri-Klops®. At the request of Skeletor®, Faker® was reprogrammed to replace He-Man® and convince the people of Eternia® that He-Man® had betrayed King Randor™ and turned to evil.

So apparently the story here is that He-Man’s friends were so cracked out in the 80s that they couldn’t tell the real guy apart from this robot, despite the fact that the robot’s skin is blue and his chest harness looks suspiciously like an orange version of Skeletor’s.  Or, you know, they wanted to make a new toy with as little expense as possible so they took He-Man’s body and Skeletor’s accessories, repainted the lot, and made up some story about a robot.  Oh, and stuck a “computer” sticker on his chest under the harness.

Then again, this is the toy line that has the back story that somehow Skeletor is both He-Man’s uncle and from a different race.  The original back story was that Skeletor was from a different dimension.  This is the only situation I can think of where the “other dimension” explanation actually seemed more plausible.

At any rate, when Fox got his Faker toy and linked me to the pictures, I decided that someone needed to make a venn diagram of this, and that someone should be me.