Inspired by He-Man.org’s Roast Gooble Dinner podcast, welcome to PGPoA’s latest MOTUC Bio Discussion!
Trap Jaw Bio
Real Name: Kronis
An insane criminal from the dimension of Infinita, Kronis was one of several evil warriors freed from an intergalactic prison by Keldor to bolster his ranks during the start of the Great Unrest. After serving Keldor for years, Kronis grew ambitious and raised an army of his own to challenge his master. Now a powerful Overlord of Evil, Skeletor defeated Kronis — breaking his jaw and arm, and leaving him for dead. Found and rebuilt by Tri-Klops, Kronis was transformed by him into Trap Jaw, a man armed with combat weapons and an “iron jaw!â€
Portrait Art Source: He-Man and the Memory Stone
We’ve never had a real origin story for Trap Jaw. In his first minicomic appearance, he was a criminal from another dimension who stumbled into our own when Skeletor created a portal to that dimension in hopes of side-stepping the gates of Grayskull. Instead, Trap Jaw ended up in Grayskull, and used its power to whale on both Skeletor and He-Man, who had to combine their might to beat him (after which Skeletor took the unconscious TJ as his new servant).
In the Filmation cartoon, Trap Jaw had no origin; he was just another of Skeletor’s bumbling servants. In the Millennium cartoon we learned he was once Kronis, a member of Keldor’s crew who was seen with both jaw and both arms intact. The MV Creations “Icons of Evil: Trap Jaw” comic developed Kronis a bit further; after Keldor’s transformation into Skeletor, Trap Jaw rebelled against what he saw as his master’s increasingly erratic behavior, even mounting an army to try and take Snake Mountain. Skeletor defeated Kronis’s army, blasted off his arm and punched off his jaw in one of the most brutal moments in MOTU history. After, Tri-Klops rebuilt Kronis into Trap Jaw. When asked by Evil-lyn why he would stay and fight for Skeletor after what had been done to him, he answered, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” Yeah, whatever, Kronis.
This bio rather nicely incorporates aspects of both the minicomic and Millennium stories: Trap Jaw hails from another dimension (Infinita), but still mounts an army and is defeated by Skeletor.
The fact that he’s rebuilt by Tri-Klops annoys me, of course; I hate Go-Go-Gadget Tri-Klops. And besides, wouldn’t it be more interesting if Trap Jaw built his prosthetic limbs himself? There’s a certain aspect of pathos in that idea. Here’s a scenario: captured by Skeletor and left for dead, Trap Jaw rebuilds his arm from spare parts. He then goes to Skeletor and begs forgiveness, showing the prosthetics as proof he can be useful (and perhaps keeping that “keep your enemies closer” notion in the back of his head).
It’s certainly a lot better than Tri-Klops pulling an OSI. (That’s the organization that rebuilt the Six Million Dollar Man. It’s a reference I actually had to look up, since that show was before my time.)
Barbecue17
I'm not sure where I heard this, but I read somewhere that Kronis is a Gar, like Keldor. Can anyone back that up, verify it, or debunk it?
And why did his face become green? I like to think that with his jaw being ripped off, his face began to rot and putrify, and after the surgical fix it just stayed that color.
Snarf! Snarf!
On Triklops being the dumpster diving MacGyver/Evil MAA… I blame the lack of Spikor on that… I dunno where I read that Spikor was like Skelly's Weaponsmith?
This is one of the few bios that I'm cool with.
dayraven
see, i prefer the trap jaw more from the original comic, which portrated him as an escaped criminal… part of that is, it leaves a lot of mystery in his background.
personally, i play him like a bad ass, he was a criminal w/ a penchant for murdering everything in his vicinity, and during a particularly harsh capture, he had his jaw broken and an arm battered beyond repair. so he gets put in this exotic maximum security penitentiary named the Black Labyrinth, and he sets to work crafting himself some replacement parts. once he's got himself patched up, and improved even, he escapes into eternia. he doesn't so much work for skeletor as he does work around skeletor. even skellie isn't inc control, he just knows how to make suggestions to set TJ in a particular direction. sort of a cross between riddick and the angel family from "judge dredd."
dayraven
@Snarf! Snarf!: Good memeory man!! the mini comic "the terror claws strike" does indeed have spikor appearing as a blacksmith forging skeletor's terror claws and the pincher thing no one played with.
interestingly, as someone pointed out in the BA he-man bio discussion, this mini comic also makes direct mention of skeletor putting up traps to gets he-man to "use up" his flying fists power, implying that the power upgrades he received may indeed be temporary in nature.
Dead Man Walking
@dayraven: I like your take on Trapjaw better. But face it, the average MOTU fan doesn't want dark and forboding, they want Orko dropping eggs on MaA's head, Prince Adam's "Clark Kent" disguise, and talking Cringer. Basically, they want Filmation.
PrfktTear
There are two incarnations of the MOTU’verse inside my head. There is the epic LOTR-epic/Star-Wars space opera-esque tale, and then there’s FILMATION.
There is a part of me deep down inside that hates the whole concept of Keldor and just about everything surrounding the “pre-Skeletor” narrative and part of that includes Kronis. Obviously Trap Jaw wasn’t born with the jaw and arm prosthetics, so they had to have come from somewhere, so how did he get them?
I think it would be more interesting if Kronis (I guess he’s got to have a real name) was into body modification. Maybe body mods were a norm for his race, “upgrading” themselves for battle; or maybe he’s just that twisted. Even his “normal” arms I always thought had some sort of cybernetic upgrade, they weren’t just armor (think Cyborg or Jax). At some point he must have had his right arm severely damaged enough that it had to be replaced, or was he just twisted enough that he opted to have it surgically removed to have the prosthetic weapon arm attached. This still could fit in with the story of Kronis’ uprising against Skeletor though, and it does make more of a compelling story; Skeletor broke him (literally) and now Trap Jaw serves him.
Mose
I like the bio. Fits perfectly.
Personally, I like to think that Trap Jaw’s insanity became much worse after he was rebuilt. He just doesn’t sound like he would be mentally stable after something like that. Back when he was Kronis, I could easily see him capable of a lot of things, including fixing stuff he used. After being rebuilt, his mind degraded further. He probably knows how to do minor fixes, but if there was any major damage, I’d like to think he would need help. Also to me it would make sense to find a way to limit his intelligence. This guy did, after all, raise an army to defeat Skeletor. This just makes sense to me. Why rebuild a guy who rebelled against you without making a fail safe?
Why are people against Tri-Klops being tech-smart? If he is supposed to be the bounty hunter from the mini comics, then it would make sense that he would know how to repair some tech, including his own visor. What kind of competent bounty hunter would not know how to fix something he is dependant on? I think Tri-Klops being tech-smart fits him perfectly and makes him even more dangerous.
I like to think that Trap Jaws’ armaments were collaboration, with Tri-Klops helping Trap Jaw designing them (I like to think they were Infinita designs with Enternia components added) while Spikor forged the parts.
JediCreeper
see, I love the Icons of Evil comic.. it really fleshed out the character to me… and he was one always one of my favorites. (by the way, in the comic, trappy's face turned green because the punch that literally atomized his jaw, was also powered up and magically "burnt" his face (if I'm remembering correctly))
I really have no feelings one way or the other regarding tri-klops-does-machines… it gives him more purpose, I suppose. But I realize it's a new thing, and not everyone likes the new things. like I said, I don't really care.
americanhyena
The bio I'm really curious to see is Clawful's. Mainly to see if they have him retain the stupidity that was his defining characteristic in MYP.
dayraven
personally, my only aversion to triklops as tech guy lie in two things: prior to MO2K, skellie didn't have tech really, and he already had a blacksmith in spikor AND what about triklops reads tech guy? he's a barbarian bounty hunter, so aside from some basic stuff, he's not technologically inclined… a tech guy requires space to work in and time w/ which to do his work… being an in the field guy affords neither. dog chapman doesn't brew his own bear mace people.
i'm not opposed to "new," i'm opposed to meaningless retcon. if someone else can fill the niche better, or already was, leave well enough alone.
remember too, vintage triklops didn't have any tech, the eyes were very much biological in nature, as in his mini-comic, each moved and had expression as his face did. tubes and eye patches and all that didn't come till MO2K, and really, aside from justifying the shift in character direction, weren't necessary to the character… skeletor got a redesign too, they didn't re-craft his character into someone else.
Reilly
I too am not keen of Tri-Klops being the tech guy. But since Toyguru is said to be a huge 200X fan, I'm not surprised that went with that canon's depiction of Trike.
I dig the Kronis origin from the comics, and I like this bio. One of the better bios IMO.
From what I know, Kronis never was supposed to be a Gar. In the 200X comics, he was planned to actually be a time-travelling Mutant from Denebria, sent to Eternia so one day he could stop He-Man from travelling to the Tri-Solar System. An idea that the old NA fan in me really likes.
Damien
I really don't like this bio. Which is weird, because I love TJ and I figured I'd like his bio too. But nope. It's a lot of little things that irk me.
1.) I don't like the Infinitia thing. He works perfectly fine as a Gar. I like the idea that the Gar might be a slightly unstable race – sort of predisposed to mental instability. Skeletor and TJ reinforce that. I like 'Interdimensional' stuff to be a bit more rare and special.
2.) Skeletor 'broke' TJ's jaw and arm? That is SO weak and far, far less impressive than the Icons version of what happened. He burned his face off, broke his jaw, and blew his arm clear off his body. THAT is not only way more badass, but it explains why he'd need a whole new prosthetic arm and jaw. Broken bones can be set, they generally don't need to be replaced.
Nor does a broken jaw explain the change in his face colour (having his face burned off by a magical blast sure does, however). Lame, less-violent cop-out bio.
3.) Tri-Klops 'finding and rebuilding' TJ implies two things. The first is that Skeletor lost him in the first place. So TK went behind Skelly's back, came upon the guy that had raised an army against him, and then FIXED him? That's idiotic.
Then, he -rebuilt-. Rebuilt? TJ isn't a freakin' '79 Charger. He's a person.
4.) Tri-Klops is not and will never be, in my MOTU, the tech guy. I haven't decided who -will- be yet, but I know it's not him. He's a badass swordsman. Not a swordsman-scientist-physician.
Part of that, for me, is trying to explain the sword part of sword-and-sorcery in MOTU. I mean, if guys that can just CREATE brand new technology from scratch all the time are so easy to come by, then why isn't the entire setting more technologically advanced in every way?
I prefer the idea that most technology is ancient and at best -very few- people can fix it up a bit. Thus, TJ's arm would be part of an ancient robot or something similar, grafted to Kronis. But I digress.
So yeah, it's not a -bad- bio, it just doesn't jive at all with my version of MOTU.
Fakeeyes22
The mini comic is cool, it reminds me of how it often seemed back then that many evil characters weren't simply Skeletor's peons, but full fledged feature characters on their own. Sometimes their figures even starred in their own TV commercials! Before seeing the cartoon, I knew Skeletor was the most evil, but I didn't assume every other villain was on his team. Someone as deluxe and special as Trap Jaw? He seemed like a loner with his own evil agenda, with his threatening weapons and a Fett-esque appeal.
So that makes me like the bio and comic story of rebellion. Since he's been established as a henchman at this point, I love that he's the one who challenged Skeletor. It also makes Skeletor seem way more menacing and powerful, wrecking Kronis like that.
I don't even have the comic, and I can't find the image online again, but the panel of the jaw being PUNCHED OFF is the most ludicrously epic comic page I may have ever seem.
Poe
I think the most disappointing thing about this bio is the lame storybook pic they used. Why not just recolor one of the images from "The Menace of Trap Jaw"?
PrfktTear
I’ve already disclosed my inexplicable deep-seeded dislike for the concept of Keldor. I guess it’s like being raised believing the sky is fuchsia, but then being told the sky is blue.
So Kronis as Gar? I don’t like it. Do we know the Gar is its own race, or is it just a birth defect? We still don’t know a lot about them except that they’re mistrusted. For all we know they may have ridges on their foreheads or webbed feet. After all, Keldor is half human/half Gar. Unless of course “Gar” is a birth defect that maybe affects 10% of the population or something.
I like the whole inter-dimensional criminal aspect; him being summoned by Skeletor (like the cartoon) or freed from prison by Keldor. As far as his arm, I can imagine him either having lost it in a horrific way (Icons of Evil which I have not read) or choosing to amputate it in order to “upgrade” himself.
Regarding Technology and MOTU in general… one thing that I’ve always liked about MOTU was that it struck a nice balance between sword and sorcery and sci-fi. I liked how they had barbarians and robots, dragons and rocket ships, etc. Perhaps as a society they have struck that same balance, they have this powerful advanced technology, but they don’t let it run their lives. Or maybe it could be that some societies are more advanced than others, like in Avatar: The Last Airbender: the Fire Nation was building tanks, steam engines, and airships, while the Water Tribes were still living in igloos.
As far as Skeletor using technology: In the Filmation series, Skeletor used it fairly frequently. In Diamond Ray he had robot cannon fodder, and he had plenty of vehicles that were just as badass as anything Man-At-Arms could cook up. In “Day of the Machines” Skeletor creates (for lack of a better term) a virus called “Byte” and sends him via an energy beam to wreack havoc on the Eternian computers. Also, I thought the viewing globe at his table was more tech and not magic.
Thrawn
Lots of stuff to comment on here.
I don't really like the dimension of Infinita stuff. I'd be fine with that for Scareglow, but not Trapjaw. His character is pretty much set for me. He's a bully, a competent fighter and criminal, but he is not a leader or an overly intelligent character. He's basically the Eternian equivalent of a pirate.
That's why I can't see him as the tech guy for Skeletor. Despite having robot parts, he is not that smart.
The rest of the bio I'm fine with because it just copies they Icons of Evil story, which is the definitive version of his origin to me.
Barbeque17 wrote:
It's never been officially confirmed. I think he is just a blue freak like Tuvrah (Two Bad's blue half).
Mose wrote:
That needs to be put into the proper context though. Skeletor had just become Skeletor and he didn't fully have control of the dark hemisphere.
Kronis rallied a bunch of starving, violent, brutish thugs essentially. Kronis was easily the smartest and toughest of all of them, so it was easy for him to take over and rally them.
Kronis was foolish to underestimated Skeletor's power though. Despite conquering a lot of territory in the dark hemisphere he was never a match for Skeletor, and his army was roundly defeated.
It was still impressive enough that Skeletor took him back, and felt confidant enough that Trapjaw learned his place (he did).
What Kronis did was impressive, but he was never a threat to Skeletor, and despite his skills, Trapjaw just wasn't smart enough to grasp that.
That is a very cool idea. You mind if I steal it for my own personal mythos? 🙂
I like the idea that Trapjaw, Spikor, and Triklops all work under Skeletor's direction to create WMDs for Skeletor.
I personally like it myself. I mean Darth Vader is a swordsman, but he still designs his own Tie Fighter for the Empire because he's a gearhead too.
Dayraven wrote:
Filmation Skelly was very tech savvy. He had the collector and was always creating new weapons and vehicles. That's what makes him the ultimate villain in my opinion.
King Hsss is pretty much exclusively
magic, and Hordak is all about Horde science in Filmation. Skelly favors magic, but he is equally adept at both, especially when combining magic and science. He's the perfect blend of Hordak and King Hsss.
PrfktTear wrote:
Never officially confirmed. Thank goodness. I don't like that idea.
Agreed. I've never seen a property combine sword/sorcery and technology as well as motu. I don't know. I just think they nailed it perfectly.
Diego Zubrycky
@Thrawn: The universe of Thundarr the barbarian is a great example of sword/sorcery mixed with technology.
Mose
@Thrawn: Sure! I'm honored that someone likes it! 🙂
Also glad someone else likes the idea of Tri-Klops being a gearhead.
Thrawn
@ Diego Zubrycky
I never watched much Thundarr the Barbarian. That's good to know though. Masters certainly isn't the only one to incorporate sci-fi and fantasy.
@ Mose
Thank you sir. Much appreciated. Yeah, I understand people not liking him being the tech guy, but ultimately I don't see it taking away from him being a bad-ass swordsmen, so it doesn't bother me. And he's clearly smarter than Trapjaw.