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 Dekkerâ„¢ and a veteran of the Great Unrest, Duncanâ„¢ was asked by King Randorâ„¢ 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, Duncanâ„¢ 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 Grayskullâ„¢. 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!