Action Figure Overview: Masters of the Universe - Faker (Mattel, 1983)
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| Masters of the Universe vintage Faker (Mattel, 1983) |
Mattel released the original Masters of the Universe toys in
1982. Due to their surprisingly huge
popularity, Mattel wanted to get more figures on the shelves as quickly as
possible. Although I've read numerous
conflicting accounts, from the evidence that I've seen, it looks like the
character Faker was the first figure released after the first wave of 8
figures. He was subsequently included
as part of wave 2 and is often listed as a wave 2 figure even though I believe
he was actually released between waves 1 and 2. I'm not sure how long the original Faker was available in stores,
but I do know that at some point, he was discontinued. In 1987, a slightly different version of
Faker was re-introduced as part of wave 6, the last full wave of new figures.
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| Masters of the Universe vintage Faker (Mattel, 1983) |
Faker re-used the molds for He-Man, but cast him in blue
with purple boots and fur shorts and orange hair. Faker's armor and sword were recasts of Skeletor's armor and sword, but in orange
instead of purple. He also had a
sticker on his chest underneath the orange armor. The sticker looked like an old reel-to-reel tape deck and was
supposed to indicate that he was a robot.
When Faker was re-released in 1987, his head was molded in orange
instead of blue and the blue parts were painted on. The head was also solid and hard as opposed to the original
release which was hollow and squishy.
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| Vintage Masters of the Universe Faker (Mattel, 1983) |
Faker is a bit of an enigmatic character. He doesn't appear very often in Masters of
the Universe comics, cartoons, and books, yet each time he does appear, it
seems like he has a different back story.
The original description on the package stated simply, "Evil Robot
of Skeletor" or sometimes "Evil Robot Imposer." There was a television commercial for Faker
back in the 80s in which Skeletor says, "I Skeletor created you to destroy
He-Man. You're Faker. You look like He-Man only you're
evil." His only mini-comic appearance
was in the wave 6 comic "The Search for Keldor" where he's supposed
to trick people into thinking he's He-Man, but King Randor isn't fooled and
immediately stabs him with his spear.
He only appeared in one episode of the Filmation cartoon ("The Shaping Staff") and in that
episode, he looked just like He-Man (regular color skin rather than blue, gray
He-Man armor rather than orange Skeletor armor), but he had glowing eyes and an
altered voice. It could be argued that
Faker appeared in a second episode of the cartoon. In the episode "Disappearing Act," Prince Adam has been captured by
Skeletor, so Man-At-Arms is trying to build a robotic He-Man to trick Skeletor
into believing that He-Man has shown up.
I don't really count this as an appearance of Faker because this robot
only appears for about 5 seconds and is a robotic work-in-progress lying on a
table. Plus, he wasn't created by
Skeletor in this episode.
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| Masters of the Universe - Faker vs. He-Man |
In the UK annuals, Faker had been a mass murderer who
escaped from prison and now worked with Skeletor. Later, he was supposed to be an exact duplicate of He-Man
magically created by Skeletor, but the spell was botched and he came out
wrong. In 2009, Faker was released as
part of the Masters of the Universe Classics line of figures. His biography in this line states that he
was created by Man-At-Arms to take He-Man's place when Price Adam also needed to
be around, but ended up in the junk yard where he was retrieved by Tri-Klops,
then re-programmed by Skeletor to convince the people of Eternia that He-Man had
gone bad.
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| Masters of the Universe vintage Faker (Mattel, 1983) |
My concept of Faker has always been closest to the UK
annuals version where he was created by a botched spell. That would best explain why he's an amalgam
of He-Man and Skeletor parts and colors. I had thought
of Faker as a robot built by Skeletor, not to trick anyone into thinking he was
He-Man, but just to make them feel awkward about fighting a foe that looked
like their hero. This also gave me the
option of having an army of Fakers for He-Man and his friends to fight against.
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| My small army of vintage Faker action figures |
Faker has been included in most of the different Masters of
the Universe lines. Unfortunately, for
some reason, he's often an exclusive or chase figure which makes him more
expensive than the other characters.
01. Vintage
02. Lead
03. Gumball
Machine (PVC)
04. 200x (ToyFair
Exclusive)
05. Classics
(Regular figure and Battle Armor as part of 2-Pack with DC's Bizarro)
06. Loyal
Subjects (2 different Chase: Orange armor and Pink armor)
07. Mini
08. ReAction
09. Pint Size
(Chase)
10. Pops
11. Dorbs
12. Vynl
13. Megaconstrux
14. 1/6 MONDO
15. PEZ
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| Counter Clockwise from Top Left: Gumball Faker, ReAction Faker, Mini Faker, Vintage Faker, Classics Faker |
What do you think of Faker as a kid? Is he an awesome addition to the MOTU universe or a cheap gimmick? Tell me below in the comments!
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