Inspired by He-Man.org’s Roast Gooble Dinner podcast, welcome to PGPoA’s latest MOTUC Bio Discussion!
Man-At-Arms
Real Name: Duncan
For two centuries, the Eternian weapons master and combat instructor to the royal family has been called the “Man-At-Arms®.” Trained by the renowned tactician Dekker™ and a veteran of the Great Unrest, Duncan™ was asked by King Randor™ to step into this position and fortify his guard with an elite strike force, which he named The Masters of the Universe®. In addition to his skills in combat, Duncan™ is also a great inventor and helped construct an electronic version of the Power Sword® for Adam to use until he could unite both halves of the sword of King Grayskull™. Man-At-Arms® and his adopted daughter Teela® often scout the borders of Eternia® for signs of lurking evil.
Portrait art source: Original card back art
Let’s start with the “real name.” They give first and last names to characters who don’t even need them, like Hordak or Zodac. But for decades fans have wondered whether Man-At-Arms has a last name, since it might actually make sense for him to have one. And yet, rather than offering an answer to this mystery (which fans are, of course, welcome to ignore), they just leave him as Duncan! I’m sure plenty of you will be perfectly happy with this, but I wouldn’t have minded a last name, perhaps one that would have been shared by Teela. (Just so long as it wasn’t Idaho.)
As Val Staples mentioned in the discussion of this bio in the Roast Gooble podcast, the “two centuries” remark regarding how long the royal family has had a Man-At-Arms position does seem both random and oddly specific. We know King Grayskull died five hundred years earlier, so that wouldn’t have seemed odd, but why two? Why not just say “for centuries”? I suppose this might be explained later.
The mention of Dekker, Man-At-Arms’s mentor in the Millennium series, is welcome, and I wouldn’t mind a Dekker figure down the road. However, as we all know, I hate that MAA named his “elite strike force” the Masters of the Universe. Pretty damned arrogant of him, really. They’re the Heroic Warriors, Mattel. Let’s phase out this “Masters” stuff.
Finally, this is the first mention of Adam having the techno-sword before getting the real Power Sword. Mattel’s ToyGuru recently clarified this controversial idea:
He didn’t run around fighting evil with the techno sword. He used it on a quest to unite the halves of the sword of He.
Which sounds pretty interesting, actually. Sounds like a great idea for a graphic novel.
Overall, I like this bio. I have no problem incorporating most of it into my personal MOTU canon–except, of course, for the part where Duncan calls his team the Masters of the Universe. It’s okay to leave that as an abstract title, Mattel. People can handle it.
Next time: He-Ro!
FakeEyes22
You know what bugged me about this guy as a kid? He very clearly had green skin and a caucasian face, like a wierd equivalent to Skeletor's wacky blue body/skull head combo. He just looked like an accident to me and I couldn't perceive it as spandex or anything, he was nude, green, and lacked explanation.
I just noticed that the Classics figure features hands without fingernails, which helps. Nipples and belly button still there, but I don't care at all. I'm too amazed at how a figure I hated has been reborn as one of my favorites.
PrfktTear
Perhaps the quest to unite the power sword was a secret mission that only Orko, Man-At-Arms, and the Sorceress knew about…
I hope I'm not repeating myself here, but I always interpreted it as the fight between He-Man and the heroic warriors and Skeletor and his evil henchmen in a struggle between good and evil and the victors would become the Masters of the Universe.
Snarf! Snarf!
My thoughts on Duncan "Can't afford a last name when everybody and their grandmothers have one":
-Lack of last name sucks, unless it means that only the Nobles have a last name.
-The MOTU… not too fond of it as a title for the good guys. Probably its the OTU part that bothers me… Makes it sound like the Herouc Warriors RULE THE UNIVERSE.
-"Anime Hyper Detailed" Techno Sword:
Why is it here since "anime Hyper detailed Stuff is not supposed to be in MOTUC? If He-Man has his Anime Hyper Detailed Sword, (also other characters get their AHD weapons) Skeletor should get his for the sake of consistency. (This is not about liking or hating the Skeletor 200X weapons) With that out of the way lets move on.
Why does Adam need a Sword that can tap into the Power of Grayskull for this quest to obtain The Power of Grayskull?
Even if he's not actively fighting evil; people would hear about Adam's exploits. Wouldn't this clash with Adam's Lazy facade?
FakeEyes22
@Damien
Ha! Thanks!
That's a good point about the need to explain the sword. I was glad to see in a Q&A that its more of a tool and not an equivalent to the real sword, but its not like Tri-Klop's ring got its own paragraph.
"Enchanted glowing shackle of greed, a trap designed to cut off circulation to the chubby fingers of Earth's colossal Man-Children who plan on capturing the Masters of the Universe!"
Nope, its just a fun ring that's a nod to the vintage stuff. A successful nod too, since the damn thing probably didn't fit me back either.
It is pretty odd that Duncan has no last name, or at least a title, considering we've known his first name forever. Mine's last name is Donuts.
Damien
'Evil-Lynn's reckless zookeeper routine' is probably one of my favourite lines ever spoken in toy fandom.
MAA's bio is pretty cool. I like the gist of it, you know? Duncan not having a last name doesn't bother me at all, except in how inconsistent it is.
I do, I'll admit, strongly dislike the 200x power sword's inclusion. While it's done decently well, I find it totally unnecessary. It's a cool bonus accessory in toy form, but I don't feel it needs to be explained within the cannon.
It should have JUST been a bonus accessory for those that prefer it (probably due to severe brain trauma) over the classic Power Sword. But I truly do not want it in my MOTUC 'story.' So it isn't.
'Course, since I can easily ignore that little snippet about the electronic power sword (which, even if I didn't hate it, opens up such a gigantic logic-hole that we should stop even trying to discuss it), I find the bio pretty cool. Not a lot of 'big' stuff there, but the nod to Dekker is nice, as well as mentioning Teela.
For what it's worth, I prefer to NOT think of Duncan as any kind of inventor or technician. He's a soldier, through and through. Fighting -IS- his profession. I like to think of Mekaneck as the scientist/technician/inventor character.
FakeEyes22
I like that we learned that the Techno sword can't turn Adam to He-Man. I don't even dislike the design, it was just a bit much when used as the official Power Sword and it looks nicer in MOTUC with the circuitry removed.
Viewing it now with its crazy hilt prongs, I can see it more as an antenna for receiving vague knowledge or slight power from Grayskull or as a tuning fork or compass for locating the real swords.
Still, when you lay all the bios out, its pretty clear that Duncan and Sorceress should shack up and rule over every dimension with their tag-team superpowers!! The only major challenge would be Evil-Lynn's reckless zookeeper routine.
toyman2581
@Dead Man Walking:
Lol Nice Resident Evil reference. Remember when Barry holds up the gun and says "I have THIS!"? Classic.
Anywho, this bio is mostly fine aside from the "Masters" garbage. As pointed out above, they're all Masters of something, both good guys and bad. It's a shame Mattel can't even remember their original take on this property.
dayraven
@Mysterious Stranger: well, to skip forward a bit, we already know the gameplan is to put the good guys on the run after skeletor knocks off the horde, so they won't be "masters" of much for very long. besides, the evil horde is the evil horde, a specific sect like the snakemen… what's the name of skeletor's crew again? right, if we aren't calling everyone w/ a skill a master, then his crew, the largest and most diverse villain crew of the line, has no name. that's not cool.
i too don't like the idea that duncan can just run around making alternaswords to tap into the might of grayskull. for starters, what makes the sword of he special then? secondly, if he-man can still be he-man after skeletor wins the castle, what's the point of having defended the castle? this kind of makes it seem like the sword is the literal key to the power, rather than the castle. in other words, skeletor wins finally by getting both halves of the sword of he and the goodies yell "psych!" and run off to make a new sword that bypasses the real sword… and should skeletor gets the mechasword, then what? man at arms makes the PSP of grayskull so adam can still become he-man? "by the power of the golden PSP *sniffs marker* i have the power!"?
Dead Man Walking
@Harlan Rosen: Thanks for the refresh on "the master of…" I think Jill Valentine should be worked into the MOTUverse, as she is "the master of unlocking."
As far as the whole "who are The Masters of the Universe" question, I personally disagree with the notion that the heroic warriors are angling to be Masters of the Universe. I mean do people really think Ram Man aspires to be a Master of the Universe? Or Mekaneck? Or Roboto? Or even He-Man–the only herioc warrior who could realistically attain such a lofty position–for that matter?
PrfktTear
duncan macleod? duncan hines? duncan shiek?
since every other character has a last name (see: Squiddish Rex), it definitely seems like a glaring omission that Duncan doesn't have one.
I know the name of the Filmation show was He-Man and the Masters of the Unierse but I still believe it refers to both the heroic warriors and the evil henchmen. The name of the toy line however is simply Masters of the Universe and as much of a Filmation fam as I am, I think that supercedes that.
I've been watching me some 200x MYP MOTU and happened upon the episode, "The Island" where Duncan, Teela, and Adam are on a vacation of sorts to visit Dekker. It wasn't a particularly inspired episode, the main plot is that Clawful's cousin learns they're on their way to Dekker, and informs Clawful about this to tell Skeletor. The rest of the episode is basically our heroic trio joined by Dekker fighting crab people and giant jellyfish. Still, it did give us a small glimpse into MAA's past.
Mysterious Stranger
The full title of the original cartoon is "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe", clearly referencing the other heroes on the show. There were no other cartoons at the time that referenced the villains in the title so it makes sense that the Masters are the good guys. I can live with this in the new MOTUC canon. The baddies are called the "Evil Horde" or whatever, so why can't the good guys be the "Masters of the Universe"?
Harlan Rosen
@Dead Man Walking: It actually is.. for some of them.
In the original line, all of the characters had a short tagline describing what their function is. He-Man is the Most Powerful Man in the Universe, for instance. At one point, certain characters were a 'Master.' Clamp Champ was the Heroic Master of.. well, Clamps. Jitsu was the Evil Master of Martial Arts, so on and so forth.
"Master of the Universe," seems to depend on which canon you're following. The original series, everyone was a Master of the Universe because they were super-good at something. The movie, which was mostly based off the original toy canon, determines that Master of the Universe is whomever wields the power s of Castle Grayskull.
misterbigbo
Maybe I'm missing something, but wasn't there a discussion not long ago about all of the characters in this IP being the "Masters of the Universe", both good and bad, and were duking it out for mastery of said universe? That's how I always looked at it.
And Poe, your comment about the question of chronology:
I'm not so sure it would be explained later, but rather fixed. This bio just reinforces to me that the writers aren't really coordinating out well their overall plan and story arc.
Dead Man Walking
I like the idea of the good guys being called simply "The Masters." It makes them seem like they are the most proficient warriors, and it seems like an actual title.
Nicholai
I'm fine with everything except the "Masters of the Universe" part which is ridiculous.
Thrawn
I'm fine with most of the bio. It's pretty basic. What I don't like is the idea that Man at Arms can just create an "electronic" power sword to tap into Castle Greyskull's power. What the heck?
Even if the Sorceress helped him by infusing it with magics, creating a new powersword seems like something that should have just been left up to the Sorceress to create magically within the walls of Greyskull by herself. Why does Man at Arms factor into the equation at all? He's like an Eternian Reed Richards.
I thought including the 200x sword was one of the best accessories they have included yet. I really like the silver on it. I gave it to my Faker and he looks awesome with it.
While I'm happy they included the 200x powersword, I don't think it needed an explanation. It's a cool accessory leave it at that. Same with the Keldor dual blades they should have (and still should) given us. I don't need an explanation.
How about giving us some back story on Skeletor's havoc staff instead? That could be neat.
Heli
Mystery finally solved: his last name is "Donuts."