Inspired by He-Man.org’s Roast Gooble Dinner podcast, welcome to PGPoA’s latest MOTUC Bio Discussion!
Grizzlor® Bio
Real Name: Gur’rull Gu’Rrooowarrrk™Originally a peaceful creature from the planet Jungulia™, at the young age of 428 Gur’rull was kidnapped by the Horde Empire who erased his memories so he would serve loyally in their armies. Renamed “Grizzlor®†he traveled with Hec-Tor Kur™ to Eternia® in search of He-Ro™. His ferocious attacks were so frightening that even after being banished to Despondos™ along with his master, Grizzlor’s legend lived on, becoming a myth told to young Eternian children. Prison Guard for the Horde, Grizzlor is ready to unleash his fierce claws to attack the forces of Eternia®!
Portrait Art Source: Original Card Back
First off, much of this bio is borrowed from issue #62 of the British Masters of the Universe magazine.
Here’s the synopsis from the He-Man.org page for the issue:
Feature Story 3: “Secret Files of Scrollos: Grizzlor”
The origin of Grizzlor. It explains that Grizzlor comes from a jungle world named Jungulia, on the outer edge of the spiral arm of the N24 galaxy. By the age of 428, Grizzlor had developed a savage anger that shocked his family. One day in a cave he found a box which contained incredibly powerful weapons. Grizzlor saw them as toys, and played with them that way, but they terrified his family and friends! When in orbit over Jungulia, Horde Prime’s Sata-Spies detected Grizzlor and mistook him for a powerful evil warrior, and reported him to Horde Prime, who decided the warrior should be recruited into Hordak’s Horde. He contacts Hordak and orders him to go to Jungulia. He does so, and when orbiting above, he beams aboard Grizzlor and wipes away all memories of Jungulia from his mind. He was impressed by the weapons Grizzlor had, and believed that Grizzlor had a huge mental genius! Of course, he was later to find that Grizzlor was a totally useless warrior!
As you can see a lot of the elements of the bio come from this: Jungulia, Grizzlor’s age of 428, and the idea that he was kidnapped and brainwashed by the Horde.
But here’s the interesting thing: I think the UK bio is better than the MOTUC one, and here’s why.
1.) The MOTUC bio describes Grizzlor as having originally been a “peaceful creature” who’s then brainwashed and turned into a monster by the Horde. So this is yet another example of softening a villain and casting him as a victim. It also opens up the possibility that were Grizzlor’s memories simply to be restored, he would become good again. So he’s a good guy being made to do bad things against his will–kind of a depressing view of the character, really.
Now, the UK bio says that Grizzlor “developed a savage anger that shocked his family” and later “terrified his friends and family.” Now that sounds like a bad guy, and it makes a lot more sense that Hordak would kidnap him, erase his memories and immediately have a loyal new member for his brute squad.
2.) The UK bio also states that Grizzlor found a cache of weapons. Now, why would that be relevant? Because MOTUC Grizzlor comes with a cache of weapons.
It’s like the Bio Writers took the least interesting/important parts of the bio–the goofy name Jungulia, the extremely Wookie-like long lifespan, the idea that most members of Grizzlor’s species were generally peaceful, the brainwashing–and ditched the parts that actually would have been useful for the bio.
On a side note, both bios don’t really hide the fact that Grizzlor was a Wookie rip-off, do they?
As for the rest of the bio, it seems Grizzlor was around prior to Hordak’s banishment to Etheria. This makes sense and matches what we saw in the 200X cartoon. After that, the bio works in the depiction of Grizzlor from his vintage mini-comic, where he was a sort of legend (I won’t say urban legend, because that doesn’t make sense for a fantasy world) among Eternians. I like this idea, so no problems there.
Overall, the Grizzlor bio seems like a missed opportunity to me. MOTUC Grizzlor’s bevy of weapons is neat, and explaining them would have been a nice touch, especially since it was right there for them in the vintage bio they were using. It’s just odd.
PrfktTear
Maybe there really are no bad guys on Eternia or the MOTU'verse. Maybe they're all just victims of circumstance and really aren't culpable for any of their actions!
The Secret Files of Scrollos bio is like ten times better than the Classics version, and I think you're right, its like they kept all the really mediocre parts and discarded all the elements that could have made him more compelling. The Filmation PoP series didn’t really give us much, he was essentially Hordak’s Beastman, but this is just slightly better.
I realize they have to keep space constraints in mind here, or else they’d have to print the bios in font-size 2, so these are in essence like bio-"tweets".
Snarf! Snarf!
I see they keep trying to make Hek-Tor-Kur stick… It's HORDAK!!
The Scrollos file seems way better than the crappy bio.
dayraven
and don't forget, in ireland, jungulia is slang for balls… so he's from balls. he's like old, hairy wookie jizz. neither bio really paints as a guy you'd WANT hanging around your hizzie.
Dark Angel
I was gradually growing to hate the bios, but in the case of Orko's and Grizzlor's, I hated them instantly and thoroughly, and have decided to just disregard all the bios henceforth. I won't bore you all with details, but I have two major issues:
-Not EVERY character needs to somehow secretly be SUPER FUCKING IMPORTANT AND INTEGRAL to the overall story.
-Not EVERY bad guy needs some excuse or tale of victimization behind him. I swear the Mattel people would try to make excuses for Hitler or Charles Manson given the opportunity. Some people are just plain damn EVIL and/or FUCKED UP IN THE HEAD. That's how it is. Deal with it.
misterbigbo
My British friend tells me balls are just called "ghoolies", so Mattel didn't make a complete a$$ out of itself with this one. "Jungulia" is foolish all on its own. When will we get a hero from the milktoast comfort of his quiet homeworld of Sub' Ur' Bia?
As for every other bad guy having some sob backstory instead of being just plain bad, I'm actually ok with that and think it imparts a more realistic feel. They definitely took it too far with Keldor/Skeletor, though.
RocketPunch
@Dayraven: FYI, Goolies is the UK slang word for balls; Jungulia just sounds a lot like it.
PrfktTear
@Dark Angel: I agree with you, I think? It just occured to me that with other toylines, I don't even usually pay too much attention to bios. With DC Universe Classics I might read it once, twice maybe if I'm not familiar with the character, but if thats the case then I'll usually just head to Wikipedia. Yet with MOTUC the bios are getting picked apart word-by-word. I suppose it comes down to the fact that we're all passionate about it, and basically we're relying on the bios to tell us a story.
But yeah, not every guy needs to be pivotal to the entire timeline. There have been some nice simple no fill bios.
80's Cartoons good and evil was always very black & white, there was never much gray area. Its nice to add some depth to some characters, to maybe explain WHY they're evil as in it was a choice and for whatever reason, greed, corruption, lust, power, etc. they CHOSE the dark side or that they're just derranged. But making your villain sympathetic and setting them up for redemption really only worked once, and that was called Star Wars.
I can live with a Grizzlor who maybe liked to kill frogs and rabbits, and then graduated to larger animals, not just killing them but stalking them, wearing them down, and finally killing them. Maybe one day Grizzlor killed one of his own kind? Whatever it was he could have just been messed up.
MldMnrdReporter
@Dark Angel: To be honest, some victimization does help to put depth into a character. People don't necessary start out evil and hell bent on taking over the universe. Their life influences make them who they are, and some are just inclined to go one way or the other.
Also, nothing in that bio states anything about the general nature of Grizzlor's race.
The planet could have been "peaceful" because his species was dominant but not advanced more than the primate stage. He's a simple creature, most likely docile in a familiar group setting but ferocious when it comes to defending the tribe or pack.
Look at a dog. Especially one that's been around people and is loyal to its master. That dog will let you pull its ears. Tug it's tale and dress it up in stupid costumes for the holidays.
But if someone breaks into that house and the dog feels threatened it'll rip the person's throat out.
Another point, knowing the way the Horde operates (look at what they did to Adora)it isn't unbelievable that they would conscript creatures from across the Universe to fight in their armies against their will.
The Nazis did it. The Soviets did it and numerous African war lords do it every day. What's to say Hordak didn't just pull Grizzlor out of his tree one day, activated the most savage part of his brain and then said "kill those people over there."
Grizzlor would be automatically wired to do it through the basic survival skills developed by evolution and being exploited by the Horde.
Thrawn
I hate this bio. It's the brain-washing that I hate. I like to think Grizzlor was a savage, evil, blood thirsty beast that Hordak found was a natural fit for the Horde. That's all his bio needed to be.