Tag Archives: Faker

#3314: Faker

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

FAKER

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE MASTERVERSE (MATTEL)

“Of all the deadly minions at Skeletor’s disposal, Faker’s mastery of deception and destruction makes him among the most dangerous.  The cybernetic doppelgänger of He-Man takes on the appearance of Eternia’s most powerful protector, fooling many heroes, including the Sorceress of Greyskull herself.  By the time the heroes discover Faker’s true nature, it may be too late.”

You gotta have the evil clone, right?  It’s, like, a staple of crazy, action-oriented fiction.  Even more so if there are toys involved.  I mean, it’s an easy repaint.  That’s the whole basis of today’s focus, Faker, who, as the above bio outlines fairly thoroughly, is a robotic duplicate of He-Man.  Faker’s been a fixture of the Masters of the Universe toy lines, though not so much the other media associated.  The cartoons have all featured a duplicate of some sort of He-Man, but it wasn’t until Revelation that one was officially dubbed “Faker”, thereby tying toy and show together fully.  So, Masterverse got to be the very first show accurate Faker figure.  Noice.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Faker is a deluxe offering for the Masters of the Universe: Masterverse line.  He was the second deluxe offering, and began as a Target exclusive (though he wasn’t officially billed as such), before moving to a wider release.  The figure stands a little over 7 inches tall and he has 31 points of articulation.  His movement is more or less the same as the standard He-Man, though he doesn’t seem to have the same issue with the sticky hips, at least on my copy.  The sculpt shares a lot of its parts with the standard He-Man, as expected, although it’s actually a lot less parts than you might expect, given how Faker’s previous figures haven’t gotten any new parts in the past.  To properly differentiate him from standard He-Man, Faker is based on his look after his deception is revealed by the Sorceress, so he’s got a lot of his robotic parts revealed.  As such, he only actually shares the lower half of his body, plus his hands, bracers, and chest harness with He-Man.  All of the other parts are adjusted to feature the skin pealing back, which is actually pretty impressively handled.  What remains of the skin is consistent with regular He-Man, and the whole look adds a bit of menace to him.  His paint work is again pretty consistent with the standard He-Man, adjusting of course for the parts with the exposed silver.  He’s also got a slightly more metallic finish to the gold parts of his armor, and his eyes have red irises, so he’s got that proper “evil” feel.  Faker’s standard head has a split face, with have robot and half He-Man, but he also gets two extras, which go the opposite directions, so there’s the standard He-Man head (with the adjusted red irises), and a fully-revealed robot head.  He also gets the two sets of hands that He-Man had, as well as a tweaked Power Sword with Faker’s usual orange coloring, and Skeletor’s chest harness, also in orange, so that you can do a bit of a classic Faker throwback.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Faker’s been sitting on my shelf waiting to be reviewed for a very long stretch of time.  I wound up grabbing him when Target put him on sale back at the end of 2021.  He was cheap enough that I felt it was worth it, but I just kind of kept forgetting to review him, for one reason or another.  He’s honestly a pretty fun figure.  Not a classic Faker, but a fun refresh on the concept.  I’d love to see a more straight update of his classic design as well, but I can definitely dig trying something new, especially when it turns out as well as this.

#2157: Faker

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

FAKER

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE CLASSICS (MATTEL)

“Originally built by Man-At-Arms to cover for He-Man when Prince Adam is needed, Faker was abandoned in the royal junkyard after his first mission and salvaged by the evil warrior Tri-Klops. At the request of Skeletor, Faker was reprogrammed to replace He-Man and convince the people of Eternia that He-Man had betrayed King Randor and turned evil.”

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I guess someone should be flattered by the existence of Faker.  Maybe it could be He-Man, whom Faker is based upon, or maybe it could be Bizarro, whose schtick Faker totally stole.  Of course, it’s not like “evil-clone of the main hero” is a wholly unique concept, having made its way into all sorts of super hero fiction over the years.  It’s even more sensible in the world of toys where it’s quite the suitable excuse to do a recolor of a prexisting mold, which is exactly where Faker really hits his stride.   Additionally, Faker continually falls into that odd niche of characters who are nothing more than cheap repaints, who still for some reason have a ton of fan demand.  I guess we’re an easily amused lot.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Faker was an early offering from the Master of the Universe Classics line, available as an NYCC-exclusive in 2009, and then briefly on Matty Collector a month later.  As with the vast majority of the line, he’s designed to closely emulate Faker’s vintage toy.  The figure stands 7 inches tall and he has 23 points of articulation.  This Faker figure follows the tried and true construction of all Faker figures.  He’s the line’s standard He-Man body with Skeletor’s armor atop it.  It’s not anything revolutionary, but it’s not like you can say it’s not true to the character.  The base body for MotUC wasn’t a bad one, but I have to admit I was never a huge fan of the standard He-Man head.  By extension, I’m not a huge fan of this figure’s head.  It’s not awful, but something about it just never seemed quite as imposing as prior takes on the character.  He just looks a bit slack-jawed.  Faker’s main selling point is, of course, his paint.  He’s got that distinctive orange and blue combo, which is…well, it’s certainly something.  The paintwork on the figure is actually pretty solid.  At this point in the line, Mattel was still splurging for things like accenting, which shows most nicely on his boots, loincloth, and armor piece.  The nature of the details on the bracers and belt are actually quite striking, especially when compared to the same details on the He-Man figure.  He also keeps the robotic detailing on the torso, which is not quite hiding under his armor, just like on his vintage figure.  Faker was packed with his version of the Power Sword, as well as his half of the split sword, which is the same as the standard, but with the back half missing.  It’s a slightly light pack-out, given that He-Man got a shield and axe as well, but hey, it’s Mattel, right?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve always liked Faker as a concept, but the price points on his figures have always been too high for me.  For whatever reason, the price on this particular figure dropped to a reasonable range for a hot minute back in 2012, and my parents managed to get me one as a birthday present in that time.  My relationship with MotUC was always something of a love-hate one, and Faker fits right into that.  There are nice aspects of this figure, and there are annoying aspects of this figure, which is kind of the classic Mattel bit, isn’t it?