MOTUC Bio Discussion #11: Tri-Klops

Inspired by He-Man.org’s Roast Gooble Dinner podcast, welcome to PGPoA’s latest MOTUC Bio Discussion!

Tri-Klops
Evil and sees everything
Real Name: Trydor Esooniux Scope™

Originally an inter-dimensional bounty hunter and tracker, Scope was recruited by Skeletor® during one of the final battles of the Great Unrest to bolster his weakened forces. As good with a blade as he is crafty, Scope took the name Tri-Klops® after an accident left him blind and he was forced to wear a tri-optic visor which granted him expanded tracking abilities including Gammavision, the ability to see around objects, Distavision, a form of Far Vision, Night Vision, and the ability to generate optic blasts. Tri-Klops® uses his three different eyes to spy for Skeletor®!

Portrait art source: Original card back

My favorite Tri-Klops depiction wasn’t in the Filmation cartoon, where he was just another bumbling warrior, and it wasn’t the Millennium franchise, where for some reason he became Skeletor’s gadget guy instead of Trap Jaw. It was his very first media appearance, the minicomic “The Terror of Tri-Klops.”

In “Terror,” Skeletor is yet again seeking a way to defeat He-Man (even at this early stage in the franchise, he laments, “Always it’s the same–I devise a plan to conquer Castle Grayskull, and then the cursed He-Man foils my plot!”). Beast Man asks the boss if he’s heard of Tri-Klops–apparently one of Beast Man’s duties is to serve as Skeletor’s minion talent scout. When Skeletor first finds TK, he’s in the middle of slaughtering some demons.

Skeletor summons Tri-Klops and hires him to defeat He-Man. After easily taking down Battle Cat, Ram Man and Teela, Tri-Klops duels He-Man and nearly bests him before He-Man wins with his patented One Big Punch.™ Upon being defeated, Tri-Klops admits defeat, and even saves He-Man from a cheap shot fired by Skeletor. So here we have Tri-Klops as a badass mercenary with a code of honor–lawful neutral, you might say. He’s a master swordsman and capable of taking on some of the most powerful heroes.

For the most part, the MOTUC bio follows this depiction of Tri-Klops. While it doesn’t incorporate the minicomic story, it does state that he was a bounty hunter and that Skeletor recruited him. Unfortunately, the idea of Tri-Klops being Skeletor’s Q is still canon in the MOTUC universe, as Faker’s bio shows.

The “real name” is drawn from the MOTU Bible, where Tri-Klops was originally an Earth astronaut named “Dr. T.E. Scope” who crashed on “Infinitia” (Skeletor’s home planet in the Bible) and mutated. It’s goofy, but I think it’s less egregious than other real names.

The bio also ditches the idea that Tri-Klops was a decent enough fellow who was duped into being a bad guy by Keldor (which was the plot of the TK Icons of Evil comic). That’s good, because these bios already have too many relatively “good” people who were tricked/brainwashed/merged-with-evil-demons to turn them bad.

All in all, I like this bio.

Next time: Webstor!

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20 Comments

  1. misterbigbo

    I haven't any issues with the bio, per se, just the stupid name. It's a bit fortuitous that this fellow would have references to the number three and lenses in his name, assumingly long before he was struck blind. As a self-fulfilling prophesy it's pretty ham-fisted.

    It would be like Lyndsey Lohan's birthname was Marlboro McDrunky.

    I know the folks at Matty were saddled with this, so maybe the decent bio is to help make up for that.

  2. Thrawn

    Tri-Klops was never a character I really cared for until the MYP show. I loved Tri-Klops in that show. I pretty much look at him as Skeletor's most competent and powerful warrior after Evil Lyn.

    I liked the idea of him being the tech guy as well as one of the most feared warriors on Eternia. Trap Jaw was always too dumb to be the tech guy in my opinion. I see him as exactly what Filmation and 200x portrayed him as: A vicious thug who was cunning in battle but not too bright otherwise.

    I've always loved the fact that Skelly used both science and magic equally in his plans. It makes sense to me that he has a tech guy working for him as well. He can't do everything himself can he?

    I didn't care for the MVC version of him very much, except for his loyalty to Skeletor. That was intriguing that both him and Beastman were the most loyal warriors to Skeletor.

    The actual bios fine. I don't have any specific issues with it. AS someone mentioned above, if they lost the "Scope" part of his name it probably would be pretty good.

  3. FakeEyes22

    @Damien

    You're right!
    And when Tri-Klops showed up again with his fancy headpiece, Vikor simply grew a third thumb and got to business once again.

    Those strange real names that the more montrous villains have? Not real names. They're just the last sounds they made as Vikor murdered them. Vikor just figured his victims were introducing themselves, so he put them as names in the bios. That's right – Vikor wrote all the bios. When all was said and done, he was the only survivor to keep record of Eternia's history.

  4. Damien

    @FakeEyes22: They forgot to add that Tri-Klops went blind because Vikor was in a pissy mood and thumbed Trike's eyes out.

  5. FakeEyes22

    They should probably retcon all the bios to read "So and so arrived on Eternia, then Vikor kicked his ass and added his teeth to his death necklace."

    Good bio, though. It tells you who he is and what he can do. I think some of the others may sound awkward because elements of the overall story that covers multiple times and dimensions are in there.

    On an unrelated note, how about the actual Weapons rack proto and awesome Panthor helmet that Mattel tossed into their display?

  6. toyman2581

    Nice bio, I find no problems with it. The "real" name is atrocious, like most of them have been.

  7. Damien

    He-Man sometimes reminds me of Hercules in the Kevin Sorbo TV show. Herc would struggle to break the hold of two goons in black leather armour, but in the same episode he'd use an entire tree as a club.

    In my MOTU – He-Man is about as strong as you'd expect from a guy with massive, rippling muscles. Stronger than anyone else, but not Superman strong. His 'most powerful' tag comes as much from his durability, fortitude, toughness, speed — basically it comes from the combination of being the pinnacle Eternian, and not just from being really physically strong.

    Of course, he can always call on the Power of Grayskull if he -really- needs a boost in any particular attribute.

    As for Trike — his bio is pretty cool. Straight-forward and gets the point across. I'd knock the last word off his 'real name' and it actually sounds better. Beyond that, there's nothing really to dislike here. I'm glad he's not the 'tech guy' in his bio, at least.

    I also definitely prefer the 'honourable warrior' version of him from the mini-comics over the subverted good guy of MYP or the bumbling idiot of Filmation.

  8. AFOS

    @Dead Man Walking: Well in Mad Love they sort of justified it by having the Joker be intrigued by the similarity of Harleen's name to harlequin, and her costumed identity followed from that.

    I don't think there's anything wrong with "T.E. Scope". At least they didn't use "Biff Beastman".

  9. dayraven

    i in general treat trik as a badass swordsman and not the monkey wrencher for skellie's side. i'm not sure skellie needs one, he has way more magic working for him than the goodies do, so to me, it makes sense that they are using tech as a means of fighting back.

    anyways, the power creep issues w/ he-man always bug me, but then again, some day, i want an in depth discussion of eternian physics… in the early mini-comics, we have he-man falling out of aircraft and being knocked out, but in no way done real bodily harm. in the filmation cartoon, a guy who could push moons and toss castles hits these monkey nuts' in the face and they live to run away. in the MYP cartoon, all of the characters are hitting each other, swatting each other dozens of yards away, they're tossing vehicles and globs of rock the size of small homes, and while he-man is definitely stronger than anyone else, he can punch triklops through brick wall and trik gets up, dusts off, and runs away. so clearly, things work differently there than they do here.

  10. PrfktTear

    A nice straightforward bio. It doesn't seek to retcon the character or make him a sympathetic villain. I honestly don't mind the whole "Tech Guy" aspect for Tri-Klops, though I think MYP over did it a bit, making him essentially Skeletor's Man-At-Arms, but I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too. I just never pictured Trap Jaw as being a smart enough character (hah!) to really be into the tech thing, so Tri-Klops is probably the best choice. I think it can co-exist just fine with the mercenary/bounty hunter aspect.

    I need to go back and re-read the minicomics. I went through all of them at He-Man.org years ago, but its been quite a while. I guess I've been holding out for Mattel to publish a trade, but its not something I should hold my breath for.

    As much of a fan of the Filmation series as I am, I still have to admit its pretty damn goofy. Granted, the line was already full of guys named "Ram Man" and "Fisto" but one episode He-Man is moving the moon… in another he's playing toss with CASTLE GRAYSKULL…

    As a side note, even though I knew it wasn't appropraite in the context it was used, but when I read "Q" for whatever reason I automatically thought ofQ as in Star Trek.

  11. Barbecue17

    Yeah, I definitely don't like the overpowered He-Man either. It makes him rather boring character wise.

    I prefer He-Man to be closer to Conan than to Chuck Norris.

  12. Poe

    @Dead Man Walking: Well, it's the same problem Superman's had since forever.

    I prefer the He-Man of the minicomics and DC miniseries, who's depicted as an incredibly capable warrior with the strength of maybe half a dozen strong men, not 10,000.

    To be fair too, in "Terror" Tri-Klops cheated a bit by using his visor to blind He-Man temporarily.

  13. Dead Man Walking

    @Poe: Yeah, it was a legit question. To your point, that's what always bothers me about He-Man being so strong; it negates his ability to really be threatened by villains who aren't of the Skeletor/Hordak/King Hisss power level. It just makes no sense to me that Triklops could battle him unless he too could move mountains, which we know that he can't. (I'm not just referring to isntances where he battled him in the mini-comics, but in the MYP toon, and MVC comics as well).

    @Barbecue17: Ok, Harleen Quinzel. Yuck. You get my point.

  14. Mountain-man

    One of the best bios , keeping all the good stuff from the original mini comic that made Tri–Klops so badass; and leaving out all scientist stuff from 200x.

  15. Snarf! Snarf!

    Nothing to complain about here… (except not having the fig…) At least he's not releasing an even bigger baddie every month like some people.

  16. Barbecue17

    @Dead Man Walking:

    I think Edward Nigma is a made up name the Riddler uses. Isn't his real name Edward Nashton or Nash?

    Anyways, I don't mind the silly names on most Masters figures. As much as I love it, Masters is pretty silly in and of itself. It is a property I enjoy for more when I'm not taking it too seriously.

  17. Poe

    @Dead Man Walking: Assuming you're actually asking this question and not being facetious, in the early minicomics, He-Man wasn't nearly as strong as he was depicted later on in the cartoons.

    And even in the cartoons, He-Man was always as strong as the story dictated–he'd punch a moon to atoms in one story, then struggle to get out of Beast Man's bear hug the next.

  18. Dead Man Walking

    Oh, an I also like the idea of Tryke being a badass swordsman, and eschew the Filmation idiot and MVC duped warrior. But here's a question: If He-Man is strong enough to lift a mountain, how is possible that Triclops can clash swords with him? Isn't that like an ant clashing swords with a human? Shouldn't Triclops's arm fly off or explode when his sword hits He-Man's?

  19. Dead Man Walking

    Ugh. I HATE when characters have real names that conveniently reference (and predict!) their powers or circumstance. Edward Nigma, anyone?

  20. Barbecue17

    I like the idea that Tri-Klops didn't become the "tech guy" until after he went blind. Skeletor hired him to fight for him, but once he was blinded, Tri-Klops was pretty much abandoned by the evil warriors. Knowing that he had to adapt to survive, Tri-Klops found his solace in fiddling with various pieces of broken technology (kind of like in Happy Days when the Fonz goes blind and puts his motorcycle back together.) Eventually, Tri-Klops grew to possess a technical mastery and was able to construct a rudimentary device allowing him to see, which paved the way for his visor, leading him to gain the nickname Tri-Klops.

    After this is when he began to use his skills to build devices such as the Doomseeker, allowing himself to truly have every advantage in combat. I see Tri-Klops as perhaps Skeletor's most competent warrior, perhaps even more so than Evil-Lyn.

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