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

Scareglowâ„¢ Bio

Real Name: Karak Nulâ„¢

In life, Nul was a shifty bounty hunter who spent years attempting to break into Castle Grayskull, obsessed with the countless legends that it contained the power to be Master of the Universe. In death, he was cursed and banished into the dimension of Infinita, forever chained to his past crimes. He was brought back to Eternia by a magical spell of light cast by Skeletor to locate the most evil warriors in the five dimensions. Provided with a Scythe of Doom, Nul agreed to join forces with Skeletor and quickly became known as Scareglowâ„¢, thanks to his ability to burst forth and freeze his enemies with fright.

Portrait Art Source: “The Search for Keldor” minicomic

In my review of Scareglow, I referred to him as the Boba Fett of the MOTU universe–the fan favorite character who has hardly any characterization or lines, and became a legend based solely on his cool look and the freedom young fans had to imagine his character however they wanted to. Therefore it’s interesting, if perhaps not surprising, that the Bio Writer (BW) had Scareglow share Boba Fett’s profession: bounty hunter.*

First off, Scareglow gets one of the better “real names”: Karak Nul. I’ve been pronouncing Nul as “Nule” in my head–probably a habit from reading a lot of Tolkien–but “null” might make more sense, what with null=zero=nothingness=ghost, and so forth. And Karak, aside from being a palindrome, also has a certain fantasy-bad-guy sound to it.

In his single minicomic appearance, “The Search for Keldor,” Skeletor cast a spell to draw “the most evil beings of time and space to Eternia.” Most fans have interpreted this to mean Scareglow was pulled from some other dimension. The MOTUC bio posits that Scareglow apparently spent at least some time on Eternia, trying to break into Castle Grayskull, before he somehow died. Which, if you think about it, is rather dark for these bios–yes, King Grayskull and He-Ro died heroically in battle, but that was ages ago and has practically passed into legend; it’s easy to imagine Scareglow’s death having been much more nasty and brutish.

So after death, his spirit is cursed and banished to Infinita, and a chain with a reliquary in the shape of Grayskull with a key inside, is attached to his arm. Lots of questions here: who banished him? Why Infinita? Why the reliquary, and what is it a key to…Grayskull? If it is a key to Grayskull, and if the reliquary can be opened as easily as the figure’s is, why wouldn’t Skeletor just nab the key and open Grayskull himself? (I suppose Scareglow could have just not explained that the key was in there, but I find it hard to believe Skeletor would be satisfied with such an explanation when faced with a mystical object shaped like Grayskull.)

Unfortunately, I doubt any future bios will answer the questions raised here. We can speculate–I suppose either the Sorceress or the mysterious “Spirit of Grayskull” could have banished him, but waiting until he was dead seems like a particularly morbid bit (unless, well, the one who cursed him was also the one who killed him). Perhaps he was cursed beforehand and it took effect after he was dead.

Despite the unanswered questions, I like this bio. It doesn’t interfere with any of the major aspects of the MOTU universe (unlike, say, Demo-Man), and it gives a mysterious character a background that still manages to retain an air of mystery.

* How many geeks would even be familiar with the concept of a “bounty hunter” without Boba Fett and his colleagues? I know when I hear those words, my first thought is of Boba, a lizard-man or a fat guy with a head bandaged like Jacob Marley, not, say, Dog-Boy or whatever his name is.