Faker - Evil Robot of Skeletor

Officially, Faker is my first MOTUC figure, although it was not the one that I opened first it will always be classed as my first owned. I sometimes wonder to myself if in 30 years will I look back with nostalgia and remember that this was my very first MOTUC figure like so many of us are doing now with our early childhood toys.



I remember first seeing the Faker from the original MOTU toy line while in school. I didn’t know what the figure was about because I hadn’t seen him in any media but it was quite obvious by his name and his look that he was meant to be an impostor of He-Man. In my child’s mind, I always thought that Faker was built by Skeletor to be a robot equivalent of He-Man, with almost the same power set. This was the first time I had seen an antithesis of a main hero before and I thought it was such a novel idea, even as a child. This was way before I started reading comics which revealed that nearly every hero has their own direct opposite.

The MOTUC bio does not make Faker out to be as cool as my young imagination made him out to be. I haven’t really spoken much about the bios in the reviews and, although I am a big fan of them, I just don’t think this one works for this character. Instead of being a robot built by Skeletor to be a He-Man impostor it is a robot built by Man-At-Arms to impersonate He-Man to lower suspicions about Prince Adam being He-Man. This didn’t work out so Man-At-Arms threw the robot into the Royal Palace junk yard where it was found by Tri-Klops and brought to Skeletor.

As convoluted as the bio story for Faker is, a major plot device has been revealed in the bio for Thunder Punch He-Man. As it turns out, Faker was used by Skeletor to turn the Eternian people against the heroes by impersonating He-Man and revealing himself to be a Gar, which I think is a brilliant way to finally use Faker.

The Eternian/Gar relationship has always been very tumultuous so when the Planet's saviour basically turns heel and reveals himself to be one of the disliked Gar (even though it was really Faker) the planet erupts in opposition to the Kingdom of Randor and the Heroic Warriors, making them renegades. This is such a better way to finally give Faker some use and I am satisfied with his portrayal.

I may have spent a little too long on the information for the bios but as I said, I am a big fan of them and they have taken the pretty crappy story of Faker and made it into something exciting.

Now as for the figure itself, the bizarre thing about Faker is he is one of my top favourite figures. For all intents and purposes, he is a simple repaint that shares He-Man’s body and Skeletor’s armour harness, yet there is something about the figure that just appeals to me. I personally like Faker more than I like He-Man and Skeletor.

The colours could almost be described as flamboyant. I am by no means an expert on the subject but I never thought light blue, orange and purple would be a good fashion choice but because we are so used to seeing it, it just works for this character.

Faker is one of the very few figures in the line which does not get a different head sculpt. This is the exact same head sculpt as He-Man. As much as I admire the figure, I do hope to one day see a different head sculpt, perhaps one that has battle damage?

There is one thing that does separate Faker from being an all out repaint and that is the control panel on his chest. Whereas the vintage one was done as a sticker, this one has been tampographed on to the chest.

The accessories have been seen before. They are the full and half Power Swords, this time in orange and the Skeletor armour harness which is also orange. The armour harness does have a very nice black wash which almost makes it look a bit rustic. I also like to add the orange He-Man Battle Ax and Shield from the Weapons Pak. This is just to give Faker a few more display options.

I almost feel sorry for Stratos. He actually has more new parts than Faker but I wasn’t as kind to him in his review as I am for Faker. You would think a basic repaint would not elicit so much positivity from me but I just like this figure.

If there is ever another animated show or some other media I can only hope that Faker does get given his time to shine, or he is at least featured in some capacity because, even though there is only so much that can be done with him, he has earned his place.