MOTUC Bio Discussion > Mekaneck

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

Mekaneck

Real Name: Orius

Injured in the Battle of the Avion during the Great Unrest, Orius was brought by Duncan to Castle Grayskull where he was healed by the Sorceress. The magic spell replaced his neck with an ever-expanding mechanical construction made of microscopic nanites. By increasing or decreasing the number of nanites in his body, Orius gained the ability to grow his neck to almost unlimited length. Taking the code name Mekaneck, he served the royal household as a loyal member of the Masters of the Universe, using his amazing periscope neck to spy on the evil enemy.

I lost track of the numbering on these bio discussions. I’m trying to do right by you all and re-educate myself on the MOTUC story, but it’s pretty complicated by this point, and some of the later bios seem to contradict stuff from earlier ones. Anyway, let’s get to it!

First off is his real name, Orius. I didn’t do a lot of research on it, but this seems to be its first appearance. The character’s name in the series bible wasn’t even Mekaneck, it was “Spy Man.”* A more fitting name might have been “Oculus,” the Latin word for eyes, but that was taken. As for “Orius,” that’s just a Latin suffix for “having to do with.” So barring any new information, I guess it’s just a random name? Which is totally fine with me – I’ll take “Orius” over half of these names any day of the week.

This new origin for Mekaneck’s powers confuse me a little. It’s not as humorously opaque as his Millennium origin (from a n0w-lost bio on the Cartoon Network website), but it’s still weird. Once again we get a “magic” spell that somehow involves technology. I would assume this is somehow related to Cable’s He-Ro’s techno-organic virus, and this seems like a good place to pick up that thread, but it’s glossed over in favor of a handwaving nanorobots-related explanation of his neck’s powers, which seems kind of redundant when you’re already talking about a magic spell.

Other tidbits are that we learn Mekaneck was present at the Battle of Avion, where he presumably fought for the Eternians. Evidently this is the first we’ve heard of this battle, one of several during Keldor’s rebellious years before his face got burned off.

*Which, apropos of nothing, reminds me of the pseudonym I used prior to Poe Ghostal, “Spy Dude” – itself a nickname I made up for the main character in the old PC game Midnight Rescue!

 

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8 Comments

  1. dayraven

    wasn't it arthur c clarke that said " Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?" skeletor seems locked in old fashioned magic, but take hordak… that's a technomancer is ever there was one. he literally blends the two together seemlessly, so it stands to reason that other folks might be able to do the same, or close to it.

    as for meckanek… it might sound weird, but i don't care about his bio. it seems like a stange thing to say, why wouldn't we want to know about our favorite characters, right? but in mek's case, i kind of don't want an explanation, i just want my guy in the line… some guys are better w/ a little mystery, and in mek's case, he all know he has a mechanical neck and i've never, in all my years of motu fandom, seen fans break into furious speculation over the source of his mechanical neck… it's kind of silly, given the minutia we focus on, but mek does not inspire controversy.

    in this case, i wish he had something new or different, like he got his head stucked into the techronomicon after he opened the book but did not say the magic words "klaato barada nikto" and when he pulled the head back in, his neck had been stretched into a towering mechanical construct.

    or he was hang-gliding and stratos flew too close to him, catching his glider on fire. as he fell from the sky, granamyr saw his falling and caught him by the head, which stretched his neck to unbelievable proportions. however, his new lengthy neck wasn't strong enough to hold his head up, so man at arms fabricating an armored latice overlay to help strengthen his neck.

    or one day in his past, when mek was a loyal horde eunuch, he was going down on hordette prime, and he displeased her because his technique was lacking, so she cast him out of the horde and doomed him w/ a mechanical appendage that grows longer when he's aroused, but it's not the appendage he lost as a eunuch…

    anything at all to add some drama or some goof or gravitas to an otherwise intrigueless character.

    • Or "His neck isn't made of nanites, it's really that stretchy rubber from those sticky hands you get in vending machines."

    • Bigbot

      Now I have a visual of Mekaneck spending hours trying to get all the dirt and lint out of his neck. He would probably never want to actually use his stretching ability.

  2. The_Fun_has_been_Doubled

    Magical nanites!? They did not use the name Perry Scope for him… I mean come on! If my last name was scope I'd call my kids Perry, Tell S, Original Mint… you get the idea.
    Aside that this is a pretty vanilla bio. No mention of his self-esteem problems, lost kids or animosity towards Marzo.

  3. I guess no one's excited about the bios anymore…?

    • I think it's just that there's nothing special about this one. Stratos doesn't die, or anything.

    • Dead Man Walking

      I thought you were going to start discussing these as they came out, so that they would be more timely.

    • I was, but it bothered my OCD too much not to have my Photoshopped graphics of the bios. So now I wait to have them in hand.

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