A reader recently told me he really enjoyed the MOTUC bio discussions, and I realized I hadn’t done one in ages. And so…here you go, Poester!
Snake Warriors Bio
Real Name: Varies
A hybrid of three cold-blooded alien races, the Snake Men™ were spliced together and bred by the Unnamed One to serve as loyal foot soldiers in his ever-growing army. Several battalions of Snake Men™ were assigned to the Viper Lord King Hssss™ and traveled with him to Eternia® to plunder its hidden magic for their formless master. Unprepared for an attack by invading Horde armies, the Snake Army was driven into hibernation and eventually trapped in the Void by the warrior Zodak™. Five millennia later, Hssss and his reptile army escaped their imprisonment and once again took up the fight to claim Eternia®. Snake Men™ fight loyally in the armies of King Hssss™ against the heroic Masters of the Universe®.
So, right off the bat we’ve got something weird here – the Snake Men are apparently aliens spliced together from three different races by the Unnamed One. This seems totally unnecessary to me. Why do they have to be alien mutants? Did Michael Bay write this bio? I suppose it could be some sort of oblique reference to Sauron spawning Orcs from Elves in The Lord of the Rings, but the connection is tenuous at best.
King Hsss gets an Adventures of Young Hssss-style title of “Viper Lord.” He and his troops head to Eternia and are attacked by the Horde (so the Unnamed One evidently isn’t Horde Prime), and yet it’s Zodak who traps them into the Void (has the Void been explained in the bio canon? Can’t recall). Later they escape, presumably matching most of the events of the Millennium cartoon series.
No big revelations here aside from the weird detail that the Snake Men are apparently tripartite alien hybrids. What do you think? Do you think it’s interesting or opens up potential storylines, or just unnecessarily complicated?
Ebon
It all makes sense, now they can sell you the three separate races figure packs
Peter
Makes no sense at all when they just appear to be humanoid snakes! My God sometimes the best part of a meal is trying.not to add extra flavoring! The should’ve just stayed Snake! Sometimes the best things are totally unexplained!
ridureyu
Making them weird artificially-bred hybrids instead of a natural race is a way to make them the Orcs/Stormtroopers, so you don't feel guilty when the hero slaughters them by the hundred.
dayraven
i figured that the "three aliens" thing is a rhetorical escape hatch to explain why rattlor looks like a snake, tung lashor looks a frog, and hiss looks like a dude/snake… it allows them a means to explain some of the disparate looks of the snake men, rather than continue the as-is of not explaining why they look so different.
i think it's weak sauce, but i don't think it's a sin or anything. i think the bigger issue is, in using terms like "several battalions of snake men were assigned" you basically set up the snake men as a parallel horde, w/ tyhe unnamed one as parallel horde prime… nothing says "uh, houston, we have a problem" like repeating yourself in writing.
and of course, neither of things take into account that we have two factions controlling large, interplanetary armies and when the story actually moves to space, neither faction is represented in that chunk of the mythos. none of the "space mutants" are snakes, and they don't look like horde either.
lastly, not a problem w/ this bio per se, but boo hiss to including non-horror themed characters in the horde… the vintage horde, we have a vampire, we have a werewolf, we have a swamp monster, we have 3 bug monsters, and we have an anthropomorphic "christine" evil car guy… what horror monster is cy-chop? what creature from beyond are the foe men? answer: they're not. FAIL. at least w/ the snake men, in taking this "they're a hybrid of three species" thing, they don't violate the core principal of the faction: lizard dudes… and one timebomb guy.
The_Fun_has_been_Doubled
Well, if we Stretch the "Horror" theme like Reed Richards' suit, we could Fit Cy-Suck as the "Serial Killer"
The sharp pointy claws a nod to Freddy, the Emotionless Mask to Mike Myers, the organnic innards trapped in a plastic shell a nod to Chucky, but I'm pulling this out of my sleeve.
I guess that the writers are Making the Snakemen the Burger King to the Horde's McD's
dayraven
that is stretchier than a latex hammock under chaz bono… but i suppose.
Cythagen
Couldn't Cy-Chop be the equvalent of Frankenstein's monster? A dead/dying creature resurrected through arcane science?
And one could make the argument that the Fighting Foe Men don't belong because they're not monsters, but neither are Entrapta or Horde defectors Adora and General Sunder.
The_Fun_has_been_Doubled
I thought that the good ol' Frankenstein Monster was covered by either Modulok or Multibot.
Cythagen
I'd have figured Modulok for filling the role of mad scientist (perhaps DOCTOR Frankenstein versus The Monster). But I suppose Multi-Bot is also a good stand-in.
Juggo
I was with you that the hybrid nature of the Snake-Men seemed unnecessarily complicated until I read the latest mini-comic. SPOILERS for the Mini-Comic #3
So Orko casts the Spell of Separation, which makes all of the Snake men die. But the spell name and the art suggested to me that they were being separated into their pre-hybridized original forms, the three "cold-blooded alien races." So making the Snake Men hybrids allows for an existing idea (the SoS from the 2002 series) to be used in a new way.
Poe Ghostal
I really need to read and review those mini-comics…
@happymonkeyshoe
I usually take the bios with a pinch of salt. Sometimes they add cool things. In this case, its needless and overly complicated.
SNAKE Men.
Clue is in the name. Why start combining three cold blooded aliens. The argument that this is Eternia and their snakes are different or what not is a poor man's get out clause. I mention that only because I know someone will use that as a rebuttle.
I always liked the fact that they were snakes, simple. I imagined that there were many clans/ breeds, such as Gorgons, constrictors etc, which united under one King (I considered Hsss to be like some god like child, born with multiple heads as a sign of status) much like Angels with multiple wings or Hindu gods with arms. Making them science experiments takes away what is special about them. All personal feelings, I'm sure many feel differently.
Pollex Christi
“Five millennia later” all of them are still alive (including Zodak)? It seems to be a needlessly long stretch of time. So they’re as old as the pyramids?