Faker
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Faker is a character in the popular toy line Masters of the Universe. He is reminiscent of the Bizarro concept used in Superman comics.
He is an evil duplicate of the lead character, He-Man, in service to the villain Skeletor. Different mediums have presented differing interpretations of his character. The original toy line presented him as a blue-skinned robot replica of He-Man built to serve Skeletor (packaged as 'Evil robot of Skeletor') and this is the way he is generally viewed by fans, but other mediums have showcased him as a magical creation rather than a robot, or as an exact physical replica of He-Man intended to fool the people of Eternia.
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[edit] Character history
[edit] Original Action Figure
Faker was one of the earliest characters to be produced for the Masters of the Universe toy line, released onto the shelves in early1982. His toy was a blue-skinned, red-haired repaint of the He-Man figure, wearing armor identical to Skeletor's in orange, with a sticker showing inner robotic working units over his chest. His skin color and armor were intended to make him appear as a cross between He-Man and Skeletor. Strangely, no mini-comics of the period featured the character, though the suggestion was that he was an evil robot built to duplicate He-Man's power and use it to serve the forces of evil.
[edit] Cartoon
When Faker appeared in one single episode of the MOTU animated series by Filmation, the cartoon presented a radically different interpretation of him which was to greatly confuse toy buyers. Appearing in the early episode "The Shaping Staff", Faker appeared as an exact physical replica of He-Man with the same skin tone and armor as the real He-Man, the only physical differences being glowing eyes and a hollow-sounding voice. This was primarily due to the artists at Filmation being able to cut costs by reusing He-Man's character model rather than drawing up a new one for Faker (who wore Skeletor's armor).
He was presented as a magical creation rather than a robot, created by Skeletor out of thin air in a surprisingly easy manner, leading one to wonder why Skeletor did not use his magic to create a whole army of evil He-Men if such an act was this easy. His role in the episode is minor, appearing only in a five-minute sequence in which he is created to lure The Sorceress out of Castle Grayskull by pretending to be the real He-Man in pain from an injury. After a quick fight with the real He-Man, Faker was knocked down the bottomless abyss of Grayskull, never to return for the rest of the series, despite Skeletor's claims about recovering him. (Though it was never really confirmed or denied in the story, Faker's fate can be taken as the only time that a villain was effectively killed in the series. The fact that Faker was only a magical creation and not a “living” being is probably the reason that the violence-cautious producers allowed this fate to occur.)
[edit] Other mediums
Other mediums producing MOTU stories throughout the 80s gave their own individual interpretations of Faker. In the early UK annuals he was a psychotic mass murderer who was Skeletor's most trusted assistant and an escapee from the intergalactic Prison Star. Later annuals stated that he was the result of a spell by Skeletor that did not quite work out (it was often stated that it was Beast Man's fault), and although intended as an exact replica of He-Man had turned out blue-skinned and deformed, and therefore was unable to fool the Eternians in the way Skeletor had planned. In the UK comics, meanwhile, he was once again shown as a magical creation, although this time he was able to temporarily change from his regular blue-skinned form to the exact same form as the real He-Man, but the change would only ever last a short period of time. The comics also clearly showed that he was not equal in strength to the real He-Man, and despite having the same appearance possessed only the strength of an average warrior. The comics added extra depth to his character by giving him a bitter grudge against the real He-Man after his original loss to him in battle, and a sense of competition, hoping to overcome the man in whose image he had been created.
[edit] Faker II
The Faker figure was reissued in the late stages of the toy line, in 1986, with a slightly different paint job. At this late stage, he finally appeared in a mini-comic, in "The Search for Keldor" in which he is used by Skeletor to impersonate He-Man in order to detract King Randor from uncovering the great secret of Keldor. Randor is not fooled by this attempt and Faker suffers a quick defeat, impaled on Randor's spear.
[edit] Trivia
- Cartoon writer Paul Dini's original notes for "The Shaping Staff" indicate that Faker was originally intended to appear like the action figure, but Filmation chose instead to depict him as identical to the real He-Man in order to cut down on costs, by avoiding having to produce extra cels for different characters.
- A character very similar to the Faker idea appeared in the The New Adventures of He-Man episode "The Nemesis Within". The character was a clone of He-Man, called "slave" by Skeletor. At the end of the episode, the slave betrays Skeletor and is destroyed trying to kill him.
- Although Faker was excluded from the 2002 relaunch of the Masters of the Universe toy line and series (aside from an exclusive figure presented at a convention), he had been intended to play a major role in the unproduced third season of the cartoon, tricking the Eternians into turning against He-Man and enabling Skeletor to conquer the planet. Although the cartoon was cancelled before this storyline could be produced, the episode "The Courage of Adam" features a brief glimpse of Faker. As a holographic He-Man robot built by Man-At-Arms is deactivated, it briefly flashes the Faker colors before collapsing, intended by the director as a subtle hint that the robot would be resurrected in the show's later stages as Faker.
