In episode 5 of Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Teela and friends visit Preternia a.k.a. Eternia’s equivalent of Valhalla, where fallen heroes and heroines spend eternity riding dinosaurs, going on pretend hunts and telling stories by the side of a campfire in the shadow of one of the most awesome playsets ever produced. As afterlives go, this one is incredibly charming, because it’s basically a six-year-old’s idea of heaven.
Among the fallen heroes inhabiting Preternia is a fellow who basically looks like post-1960s depictions of Conan of Cimmeria to the point that I initially referred to the character as “Conan” in my review. However, this guy’s name is Vikor and he is a Masters of the Universe character, though a rather obscure one. He also had a figure in the Masters of the Universe Classics collector toyline, which I recently got for a good price. Now I have all the Preternian heroes in seven inch scale except for Wun-Dar and I’ll get him eventually, too.
Conan? No, Vikor.
Vikor was based on some very early concept art for what would eventually become Masters of the Universe. You can see the original drawing by Mark Taylor here. In 2011, an action figure based on this concept design was released in the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline. The character was named Vikor, because a) Early Concept Art He-Man is a rather dull and stupid name, and b) to turn him into a unique character who could (and did) show up in future Masters of the Universe comics, cartoons, etc…, as Scott Neitlich, Mattel brand manager in charge of the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline explains in this video.
Now Scott Neitlich is somewhat controversial in Masters of the Universe fandom – not without reason, because he tends to be very grumpy and sour grapes about the Masters of the Universe toylines and cartoons that came after his tenure. I think he has been predicting the imminent death of the Masterverse and Origins toylines for two years now and he keeps dissing Masters of the Universe Revelation and Revolution. He’s also got problematic views on gender, though sadly that sort of thing is common in the toy industry – see the aggressive gendering of toys.
That said, the Classics toyline not only kept interest in Masters of the Universe alive, when there were neither cartoons nor comics around, many characters also only ever appeared as toys in the Classics line. That’s why I have been buying Classics figures of late, because that’s the only way to get some of the lesser known characters who will likely never be made again. Besides, they’re really great action figures which would have deserved wider distribution.
Furthermore, a lot of the character, species and place names originate with Scott Neitlich’s character bios and mini-comics for the Classics line and have since been used by the various comics and cartoons that came after. Because whenever you look up what the real name of e.g. Ram-Man, Clamp Champ or Beast-Man is (since they were obviously not born with those names), the Classics bios come up, so later writers used those names. This is also how Vikor, who was recast as “the He-Man of the North”, a former champion of Grayskull, ended up in Masters of the Universe: Revelation, because the writers looked for dead heroes and champions to populate Preternia and came upon Vikor and Wun-Dar, another character who owes his name and backstory to Scott Neitlich.
However, it later turned out that the drawing of the character who would become known as Vikor had nothing to do with Masters of the Universe, after all. According to artist Mark Taylor, who should know, it was instead intended for a never produced Conan toyline and ended up in the Masters of the Universe file by accident. So Vikor doesn’t just happen to look like Conan, he actually is Conan by another name.
But it gets even weirder. Because a later, semi-official Masters of the Universe bio actually borrowed the plot of the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie for Vikor’s backstory. According to this, Vikor’s father was a blacksmith named Vulkar who forged the Sword of Gaz. However, the Great Black Wizard, another never produced concept figure with a cool look and a rather disappointing name (I mean, honestly, they couldn’t do better than Great Black Wizard?), attacked the village, murdered Vikor’s parents and stole the sword. Just like Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian, the Great Black Wizard is also associated with the villainous Snake People of Eternia, who are of course borrowed wholesale from Robert E. Howard’s 1929 novelette “The Shadow Kingdom”, which introduced Kull of Atlantis and the Valusian Serpent Men and is widely considered the first sword and sorcery story.
When I looked up the Great Black Wizard, I found lots of custom figures, so he apparently is popular, though I have to admit that I’d never heard of this guy before today. And if you think that the Great Black Wizard looks a little familiar, that’s because he’s either a time-displaced Skeletor or Keldor according to those semi-official bios.
Vikor, who is described as “an axe-wielding mercenary from the North” here (to quote the Ninth Doctor, “Lots of planets have a North”) goes after the Great Black Wizard to get the sword back. He obviously doesn’t kill the Great Black Wizard, because – duh – Skeletor never stays dead for long. Vikor does get his sword back, though, and goes on to become champion of Grayskull, battling the likes of Draego-Man (a character created for the Classics toyline, who is a very cool but pricy action figure), the Crimson Countess – not the character from The Boys, but a vampiric Masters of the Universe villainess who never had a figure, and Queen Tyrantula, a spider woman villainess who never had a figure either.
Now Masters of the Universe came along at the tail end of the second sword and sorcery boom and borrows heavily from the sword and sorcery genre both visually and with regard to ideas, with some Lovecraft, Tolkien, silver age superhero comic and pulp science fiction influences added. In my review of Masters of the Universe: Revelation, part 1, I wrote:
He-Man is basically a Frank Frazetta Conan cover come to animated life and given a dye job (or John Jakes’ Brak the Barbarian with a haircut), while Teela is C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry (a parallel that Masters of the Universe: Revelation makes very clear) with Red Sonja mixed in. Orko is the less capable relative of Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes from Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories. Mer-Man and his mer-people are Lovecraft’s Deep Ones by another name, the Snake Men literally are the Serpent Men from Robert E. Howard’s Kull stories. There are also various Cthulhu inspired things with tentacles. Skeletor is certainly influenced by Howard villains such as Thoth-Amon and Thulsa Doom, who also affects the skull face look. Scareglow, a glow-in-the-dark Skeletor variant which does appear in Masters of the Universe: Revelation, is borrowed from the Floating Skull, a villain in the Conan story “Red Nails”. Though Eternia also borrows a lot from the related sword and planet genre, since the Eternians do have energy weapons and all sorts of impractical but cool vehicles.
There are more pulp SFF influences throughout Masters of the Universe, e.g. He-Man and his friends frequently battled Lovecraftian monsters in the Filmation cartoon, while the Evil Horde are basically horror movie reimagined.
However, Vikor isn’t just obviously influenced by Conan, he basically is Conan by another name. In fact, I now imagine that Conan fell through a portal to Eternia one day – Castle Grayskull is full of portals to other universes and dimensions or maybe he met Gwildor and his cosmic key – possibly pursuing Thoth Amon Thulsa Doom The Great Black Wizard Skeletor, and stayed for a while, battling monsters, bedding maidens and becoming champion of Grayskull, before he returned to the Hyborian Age. And he called himself Vikor for reasons best known to himself. After all, Conan has taken other names such as Amra before. As for why he wound up in Preternia after death, apparently Preternia is for heroic beings from all over the universe. After all, Stonedar is briefly glimpsed in Preternia at the end of Masters of the Universe: Revolution and he never even set foot on Eternia in that version of the story.
But whether he’s Vikor or Conan, he is a cool figure and I’m glad that I got him. Also, expect a new toy photo story about how Conan came to Eternia and became Vikor soon.
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