Those rants are BECAUSE of MY LOVE for MOTU DESPITE Mattel. No, this is not an I'm angry at Mattel or a WTH are you doing Mattel!? Rant. OK it may be a bit of the latter.
We've seen the MOTUC Bios and the Canon they form. Sadly, there's too much Green Lantern and Star Wars elements in MOTUC... Seriously, read the Horde Empire Map Bio that comes with the Unnamed One... I'll wait.
Something something Trade... Something Something Empire... Something Something Holy balls! "The Bio Team" is ShiaLaBeoufing Star Wars PREQUELS! Seriously, when you have to be influenced by Star Wars for the love of Standor, pick the ORIGINAL TRILOGY!! Or Space Balls...
I've said this before countless of times here, on forums, facebook and on Council of the First Ones:
Mattel NEEDS to step up in the Story Department if they want to keep MOTU Relevant and accomplish their main goal of selling toys. The only way I believe they can make the MOTU brand stick is by actually DEVELOPING the Universe. Make us feel invested in the characters. You can't have Mattel saying that New Adventures Characters don't sell as well as the rest of MOTUC since Mattel does NOTHING to make use WANT THEM in the first place.
I made this chart a little over a year ago to explain on a fan page how the Evil Horde worked on my Fan-Continuity.
Under Hordak he has the Vintage 4 (Grizzlor, Leech, Mantenna, and Modulok) as well as Shadow Weaver (who ranks higher than they do.) She also acts as a middlewoman to Hordak when dealing with the Femme Fatale Squad. (Catra,Scorpia, Double Trouble, Entrapta and Octavia). Adora was removed since she defected to the Rebellion.
We know that Weaver wants to overthrow Hordak, so having her conspiring with Prime is not as far-fetched. Double Trouble acts as a rebel spy thanks to her Shapeshifting powers.
Yes, there is a point beyond showing how I see my Horde working while implementing all the Horde members that are likely getting a toy. (that's why Vultak, Admiral Scurvy, Genreal Sunder, etc. are not on this chart.) This little chart gives me an idea of the Pecking Order in the Horde, which allows me an idea of what the character interactions may be like. Knowing how characters would interact with each other, CAN help develop the Universe. Sure we had the Filmation Cartoon to get an idea of the character interactions, but they had no Dragstor, Mosquitor, or New characters like Cy-Chop. The same can be said about the Heroic and Evil Warriors. We haven't seen Clamp Champ, Rio Blast, Ninjor, Draego-Man, etc. enough to get an idea of the pecking order on each faction. Yes, I'm aware some of these had comic appearances, but not everyone had access to the comics.
The thing is that small things like this, or charts explaining the character's power levels and extraordinary abilities would be VERY HELPFUL to the fans and to the people involved in adapting MOTU to OTHER MEDIA (*cough*Cartoon, videogame, movie, etc. *cough*).
I know that writing FULL Stories requires a new writing team and Mattel's rep will most likely say: "Either new stories or getting Multi-Bot."
But some character statistics and pecking order within his/her faction doesn't require writing full stories.
Let's Take Mossman as an example:
Mossman: Heroic Spy and Master of Camouflage
Real Name: Real Name: KREANN’OT N’HOROSH
Abilities: The ability to manipulate, control and summon plant life (Plantomancy?), Magically enhanced strength (due to his nature god status) perfect camouflage in jungle environments, photosynthetic regeneration.
Notable foes: Stinkor, Evil Seed, Cy-Chop.
Notable allies: Buzz-Off, Orko, Perfuma, Preternia's He-Ro, King Grayskull and Eldor.
Bio: Thought of for many centuries to be an urban legend, the creature called “moss Man” was in fact an ancient Eternian nature god and ally to King Grayskull. During the rise of Skeletor and the subsequent battles with the Snake Men and Horde invaders, Moss Man often joined forces with the Masters of the Universe helping to protect freedom for all forms of life. He was instrumental in helping them win the Second Ultimate Battleground using his powers over plant life and his "fur" of forest green to fool and frustrate his wicked foes!
5 Little lines that tells you what does he do and who does he get along better and his biggest rivals. Of course, Mattel can go into a bit more elaborate story and justify each of his allies and enemies. something like this:
Mossman's animosity towards Stinkor is related towards the acrid stench emanating from the latter. The stench is so powerful that it can wither plant life. His animosity towards Evil Seed stems from their plant elemental status. Cy-Chop's scissor hands have destroyed the plant life in multiple worlds and Mossman will not allow it on Eternia.
His affinity to Buzz-Off comes from the Andreenids worshiping the Plant god, Mossman. Orko's child-like innocence draws Mossman closer to the Trollan mage as a reminder of who is he fighting for. Perfuma's status as an Etherian Plant Elemental piques Mossman's curiosity. The Sage Eldor, his apprentice He-Ro and the King of Grayskull were great allies when battling the life force draining armies of the Horde and the Snakemen in Preternian times.
Doing this COULD HAVE Helped the New Adventures characters, since it gives them a bit of background on them to, I don't know, make them more desirable? I mean, making a rant about Flutterina made me discover how awesome she is... being the POP version of Antman (minus the science or the wife-beating... I await the Pym fans going. HE ONLY HIT HER ONCE!!) all Pym jokes aside, just look at what the Horrible Mini Comic that came with UNO did... It made me want Hans Hammer Holder. Had we gotten some NA action, MAYBE we'd had people interested in New Adventures.
