Inspired by He-Man.org’s Roast Gooble Dinner podcast, welcome to PGPoA’s latest MOTUC Bio Discussion!
King Hssss Bio
Real Name: Hssss of the Viper House
A servant of the Unnamed One, Hssss was chosen to lead an army of Snake Men to the planet of Eternia to plunder its magical secrets. He ruled Eternia for three centuries until a rebellion formed under D’vann Grayskull. Soon afterwards, the Horde invaded and Hssss was drawn into a three-way war. All three sides agreed to a temporary truce in order to construct the Three Towers, but Hssss was betrayed by Hordak and in time was banished to the Void by the Elders and Zodak. For five thousand years he and his army waited until Evil-Lyn and a Snake Men descendant named Kobra Kahn opened the Snake Pit to free them. King Hssss often tricks foes by appearing heroic but then transforms into a seething mass of serpents and leads the Snake Men into battle!
Portrait art source: Original card art
[Note: Mattel has stated that “five centuries” should read “five thousand years.”]
Mattel packs a ton of information into this bio. Right away we get a reference to the Unnamed One, an obscure reference to a single line from the minicomic “The Powers of Grayskull – The Legend Begins!”. The identity of the “Unnamed One” is unknown; a few sources, including Emiliano Santalucia, quote MOTU minicomic writer Steven Grant as suggesting that the Unnamed One was intended to be a sort of greater evil behind Skeletor who turned Keldor into Skeletor, just as Anakin Skywalker was transformed into Darth Vader by the Emperor. Many years later, Santalucia and Val Staples would bring the Unnamed One back in a very roundabout way; he is the Balrog-like monster at the end of the 200X comic miniseries “The Shard of Darkness.”¹ I don’t know where the MOTUC bios will take the notion of the Unnamed One, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were revealed to be Horde Prime/Supreme.
Next we learn that the Unnamed One (UO) sent the Snake Men to Eternia, raising the question of what planet the Snake Men hail from (my money’s on “Ophidia”). Hssss rules until he’s overthrown by King Grayskull, then they’re attacked by the Horde (which, if you’re following the Santalucia/Staples origin for UO, gets into a really weird area as UO and Horde Supreme fight one another).
Then we get the truce regarding the building of the Three Towers, which takes its cue from another minicomic (“Enter…Buzz-Saw Hordak!”) and was also mentioned in the Tytus bio. Hordak evidently betrayed Hssss after this, and then five thousand years pass between the defeat of Hordak and the return of the Snake Men. I’m glad they connected Kobra Kahn to the Snake Men; even though he came before them and was originally one of Skeletor’s warriors, I always liked his retroactive association with the Snake Men, and the 200X cartoon found a clever way to work both aspects of that idea into the story (which is basically the same as described here).
Finally, the bio ends with the line from the packaging, citing Hssss’s penchant for surprising people with his snake-body.
On the whole, I like this particular bio. A lot of its information just verifies, validates, or simply repeats things we already knew, but it also clarifies the timeline a bit and confirms some of the suspicions fans already had. It also offers a few new tantalizing questions, like the question of who the Unnamed One is in MOTUC continuity, and where the Snake Men originally came from.
¹ And even that is an oversimplification; Nordor from the New Adventures of He-Man was also part of it. Read Emiliano’s full post for the scoop.
Barbecue17
What a surprise to see this bio already up for discussion! While fans are definitely doing a nice job of putting things together, it would be nice if next year, instead of a map, we got a nice (and accurate) illustrated timeline of some of the major events of the MOTUC universe.
Snarf! Snarf!
I have nothing to say about this Bio… Nothing sticks out like a sore thumb here… except "Why the Towers?" (answer: "Keep reading the Bios.")
I agree with Barbecue17 We need a timeline…
Sandman
The Snake Men were created in the Nameless Dimension by the Unnamed One. ToyGuru let that tidbit slip in an earlier Q&A.
They don't really have a "home planet" or such.
Poe
@Sandman: Ah. I really need to put together some sort of encyclopedia about this…
dayraven
the only real problem i have w/ this bio is that it essentially knocks "king" hsss down to the level of skeletor, making his ascendence an act of ignorance/hubris by a greater power, rather than his own personal guile/talent/might. it kinds of makes them the anti-sith, and i don't care for that. it makes the new generations feel weak.
and then, if poe's extrapolations are true, horde prime sent hordak to eternia to die… by sending the snake men to kill him? this begins to sounds like a very blofeldian method of disposing of someone, whereas i'm partial to the scott evilesque "just shoot him!" approach… like hsss just eating zodak's brother, rather than having to fight him again later.
BTW, this happy camper vintage hsss? not eating anyone. that's reserved for the shit-kicker millenium hsss.
PrfktTear
@Dayraven: Wow, I gotta say I couldn't have put it any better myself.
With this MOTUC Bioverse, it seems like behind every evil there is an even greater evil. So rather than King Hiss being a powerful evil being on his own right, he was essentially appointed to lead the Snake Men by the Unnamed One. It just takes away from his coolness and badassery.
If I had to rank the main villains in terms of sheer power, I'd put King Hiss at the top, Hordak in the middle, and just under him Skeletor. OR should all three be equally as powerful?
Poe
@dayraven:
You meant to say, "…except for King Grayskull's brother", right? I know you did.
Thrawn
There's not much that's bad about this bio.
1. I would prefer it said "Hsss of the Viper Clan" instead of house.
2. I don't like Hsss being appointed to lead the Snakemen. Unless it's later revealed there was a specific reason why he was appointed. After the MYP cartoon I sort of figured Hsss was a demi-god of sorts. He seemed very closely linked to Serpos.
3. Hsss remains the more effective than Hordak too. He actually conquered and ruled Eternia for three centuries.
Good bio all around.
PrfktTear wrote:
I'd still put Skeletor at the top followed by Hsss and then Hordak.
Skeletor- Sorcery/science 10
King Hsss- Sorcery 9.5
Hordak- Science 9.5
Skeletor evolved and continued to get more powerful taking the best from both worlds in my opinion.
lemonfreshviper22
That is a good point about the minimizing effect of a lot of the MOTU baddies threat level; to this point I guess King Hsss was the only one without a 'man behind the curtain' and now he's been given one.
Good to know that they're from another dimension I guess. Suppose that means the only 'aliens' allowed in the MOTU canon are the Space Mutants. Or were they made extra-dimensional too?
I don't have any real problems with this bio but I also always thought of Hsss as being kind of a demi-god. He's certainly got more dramatic powers than any of the other Snake Men.
That could be stemming from how little we tended to see the Snake Men outside of the mini-comics though. The fact that Hssss was trapped underneath Snake Mountain always made him seem like a Genie trapped in a lamp to me. Now that EVERYONE seems to be released from some enchanted capture I guess that's out the window!
dayraven
@Poe: no i didn't, since they confiscated that chunk from zodak's history in the MYP cartoon. i also refuse to acknowledge that Grayskull's name is d'vann down by d'river.
dayraven
@PrfktTear: dude, that's how i played mine, that when the horde came along, skeletor became number two… but when the snake men arrived, all else were number two, or lower. skeletor's most promising recruits, clawful and two-bad, went to the horde when they came out… but only kobra khan defected to the snake men.
of course, these days, history won't be repeating itself… this time, i have the horsemen releasing that incredible looking scarabus figure, and he'll be my "Unnamed One." and come on, i'm a line mixer, since the awesome vintage motu days, there have been some damned awesome figure villains released… and some cool ones on the way… that new mumm-ra might make one incredible court mage… but seriously, have you seen the scarabus figure? he will definitely rise to the top of the villain tiers… i already figured out how he topples the MU galactus. 😉
that's right, when i say i'm a toy geek, i'm mean GEEK!
FakeEyes22
I'm sure everyone's on the same page, but I'm pretty curious about what sort of power or purpose the Eternian towers hold that was worth getting all friendly for.
Presumably it's not because they all love cramped mororail rides.
PrfktTear
Skeletor always did blend both sorcery and science nicely. If you look at the pilot episode from the MYP series, he used technology to help break the mystic wall: the Corodite crystal from the sea of Rakash and the device built for him by Tri-Klops. Maybe he wasn’t as powerful with magic as King Hsss and didn’t have as much knowledge of technology as Hordak, but with his combined knowledge it made him more powerful than both?
Its all in my head but I just feel like Skeletor has been made to be third fiddle and the other two are just pawns for the man behind the curtain.
@Fakeeyes: Because, its the MOONOOOOOORAAAAILLLLL!!!!!!
Thomas B
i have to say i really like this bio and so far is one of my faves. it is a good blend of information that actually pertains to the character and interesting world building information as well.