Thursday 26 July 2012

IS SCARE GLOW ACTUALLY THE GHOST OF SKELETOR?

"So, Skullface, what's the deal? Am I you or am I you? It's time we put these ghosts to rest."
"Air out the "skeletons in our closet" so to speak? Eh? Scare Glowie?"

Hello again fellow Hoard Worlders!

It's been a very busy week of sorting and preparing over here at Hoard World HQ but a very quiet week out there on The Internets from us, with barely a new ebay listing to speak of, or a new blog post here on Hoard World itself.

At best, we've done nothing more online this week than spam our loyal Hoard Worlders on Facey B with He-man and G.I. Joe YouTube clips (good ones though, you should check them out if you haven't already!) and a Moss Man Meme.

This is the calm before the storm though, with some very exciting things on the horizon, and a tonne of new ebay listings and blog posts coming soon.

To keep up online appearances however, we went and got an exclusive interview with Skeletor and Scareglow, to finally quell some long-standing rumours by actually asking the Evil Warriors involved.



Ever since the release of the vintage Scare Glow figure right towards the end of the original Masters Of The Universe line, a huge point of contention has been whether or not the character of Scare Glow is actually The Ghost Of Skeletor.

If things had been slightly different on Scare Glow's packaging this would never have been an issue; the part where it says "Evil Ghost Of Skeletor" being the origin of all theories.

I admit that, even as a young Hoardax, I too was fascinated by Scare Glow's description and had wondered the very same thing. Was Scare Glow, Skeletor's ghost?

This kind of fan speculation continued for years contrary to the fact that a character like Faker was known as the "Evil Robot Of Skeletor" but nobody had ever wondered what his deal was even though he was blue and wore an orange version of Skeletor's armour. When you think about it, despite the fact that Faker is supposed to be a He-man impersonator, he really is more of a Skeletor clone.

Except for the whole having He-man's face and head part.

If anything, he looks like He-man and Skeletor had a son together. Maybe they did.

I'm still confused and delighted by Faker. And I'm not the only one. Clearly.

Scare Glow: "We've been reunited today (and handsomely paid) for a reason Skull-for-brains. Are you going to tell 'em or shall I?"
Skeletor: "Listen buddy, I summoned you from The Future/Another Dimension/Not Sure Really, and you're gonna do as I command! Er....you tell 'em."
, I think part of what made Scare Glow SO popular is that nobody had any idea what his deal was. In the handful of incarnations we ever saw (all comics* by the way), Scare Glow is either conjured up or appears from nowhere with barely any back story.

If history has taught us ANYTHING about fan favourite characters, it's that often a character who's origin is shrouded in mystery (as well as them obviously being a little bit awesome) is more popular than Darth Vader and Boba Fett hanging out with Wolverine, Cable and Deadpool at Snuffy's house. And then The Joker pops in for a cup-o-tea. And then The Space Jockey turns up just to say, "Hi."

The less you know is often just better. I'd go so far as to say that the more you find out, the infinitely less interesting some characters have become. It's not to say that cool stories haven't come out of fleshing out popular characters but I dunno, to be honest I liked it better when I didn't know.

Now back to Scare Glow. Had he not been another MOTU Skeleton Character and had he not been right towards the end of the line for MOTU, maybe he would have been used enough to become boring. But given that a lot of He-man characters didn't have great back stories because they didn't really need them to sell cool toys, I doubt it.

If something like the success of the completely flimsy Ghost Rider character over the years in both comics and now cinema has proven anything it's is that people LOVE skeleton men.

Scare Glow was a nude glowing skeleton man with a purple cape summoned from another dimension across time and space by Skeletor and he turned up with A NINJA.

I don't think it gets any better than that.

Add to this the whole "mystery" of who he even was, he's arguably one of the coolest characters in Masters Of The Universe History.

Of course, years and years later with the advent of the Masters Of The Universe Classics toy line we received an official bio on the back of the new version of Scare Glow (to see the bio check out Poeghostal's awesome review of Scare Glow) that expressly stated that he was an "Evil Ghost Serving Skeletor" which explicitly cleared it all up. Or did it?

Today, in what is quite an Internet Coup for Hoard World, Hoardax had an exclusive chat with Skeletor and Scare Glow to finally and irrevocably  reveal to you, The Hoard Worlder Public.....Who The Hell is Scare Glow?

Scare Glow: "I don't think they're ready for this, Skelly."
Skeletor: "I don't think YOU'RE ready for this and my body's too boneylicious for ya babe."


Hoardax: Skeletor. Scare Glow. Thanks for joining us today on Hoard World. You both know why you're here. You're here to conclusively answer a question that has been around for almost 25 years. 

Skeletor: Are you sure you're Hordak? You don't look anything LIKE Hordak. And believe me, I know Hordak. Intimately. You look more like an overweight guy in his 30s who should've left all of this stuff alone years ago.

Scare Glow: A Long. Time. Ago. Pffffft.

Hoardax: I'm not Hordak guys, I'm Hoardax. You know, like Hoard....

Skeletor: And Dax Shepherd?

Scare Glow: Yeah, you're a cross between a mental illness that they cover on reality television and Dax Shepherd. Comedian Dax Shepherd. Wait, are you, in fact, actually "comedian" Dax Shepherd?

Hoardax: Uh...

Skeletor: Are you wearing a licensed t-shirt of my face from the Filmation cartoon?

Hoardax: Yeah. Do you guys like it?

Skeletor: Well, not really. I'm going to sue the shizz out of Lou Scheimer and Mattel. I didn't get ONE CENT from that t-shirt and it's my face. It's my friggin' face. I don't know how I feel about that. No. Wait. I do. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more. This interview is over!

At this point Skeletor flipped the table over and stormed ou....vanished into thin air.

Scare Glow: Sheesh. That guy. He's always had a temper. Pretty much from the moment I first met him.

Hoardax: And when was that exactly?

Scare Glow: Shortly after he summoned me. I was at home in my underpants and cape watching Phil Donahue re-runs and eating a kebab. Then, all of a sudden...BLAMMO! The next thing I know, I'm standing next to Ninjor and Skeletor's yelling at me! Barking orders at me. It was awful.

Hoardax: People have said that you were summoned from The Future. Is this true?

Scare Glow: You think they still play Phil Donahue on Television in "The Future"? Haha. I doubt it buddy.

Hoardax: So you're NOT Skeletor's ghost? You're your own person. You're not a future incarnation of Skeletor after he's "died"?

Scare Glow: No.

Hoardax: Brother from another mother?

Scare Glow: Close.

Hoardax: Really?

Scare Glow: Yes. I'm actually his mother.

Hoardax: Say what?

Scare Glow: I'm Skeletor's mom. Or mum. I'm Skeletor's mum.

Hoardax: You're Skeletor's mum?

Scare Glow: Yep. Deal with it.

Hoardax: In some continuity that makes you King Randor's mother also. You're telling me you're Skeletor's mum. You're Prince Adam's Grandma?

Scare Glow: I'm his Nanna. Yes.

Hoardax: I...I...don't know how to process this. It's come as a bit of a shock to be honest. You're telling me that you were the fourth female Masters Of The Universe character after Teela, Evil-lyn and The Sorceress?

Scare Glow: Absolutely. Look, you wanted to know. You got the exclusive. Me and Skeletor have sat on this doozy for quite some time. If you knew half the real stories behind most of the colourful characters on Eternia and Etheria your head would explode. Why do you think Mattel has started writing bios on the backs of figures to create an ongoing canon storyline? None of it makes ANY sense. It's all smoke and mirrors so you, the fans, don't find out bombshells like this.

Hoardax: Like...like what else is there?

Scare Glow: Well, for starters, Man-at-Arms moustache is fake.

Hoardax: Fake? 

Scare Glow: Totally fake. 

Hoardax: What else?

Scare Glow: Battle Cat has eczema. Clawful was on Masterchef Eternia once. (He lost). And Orko...

Hoardax: What about him?

Scare Glow: Orko is just eyeballs.

Hoardax: He's just eyeballs?

Scare Glow: He's just a floating pair of eyeballs. We put that stupid hat and dress on him so people wouldn't freak out. Imagine a character, or a race of characters that were just floating eyeballs. Yikes. It even gives ME the creeps!

Hoardax: But he has hands! Orko has blue hands! And blue ears!

Scare Glow: They're synthetic props. Made out of the same stuff as Faker is. That's why they're blue. It's the same deal for any other Trollans that turned up in the cartoon. Also Dree Elle's blonde curly hair...fake.

Hoardax: Why are you telling me all this? I don't know what to think any more. I feel like my whole life has been a lie.

Scare Glow: Hey! You wanted to know. You were just like Daniel-san in the Karate Kid, you couldn't leave well enough alone. Well, now you know. Also, I've had my figure released. I was right at the end of the vintage line and I've had my time to shine in the classics line. I doubt I'll get another one. So, I don't care if people know this stuff. I've made all my money. Skeletor, on the other hand...well, he still has a vested interest in all this because they're going to keep making figures and different versions of him. Glad he left the interview actually. Originally we were just going to tell you the company line.

Hoardax: Which is what?

Scare Glow: All that stuff from the MOTUC bios. How my real name is "Karak Nul" and I was a shifty bounty-hunter blah blah blah. 

Hoardax: Right. Well, thanks. I guess.

Scare Glow: You are VERY welcome, young man. Let's do this again some time.

Hoardax: Sure.

And that folks, is why sometimes it's just better not to know the origin of a character.
(Not that I have problem with Nannas or anything)



yr pal,

Hoardax.


*Comic book Appearances

  • Masters Of The Universe mini-comic: The Search For Keldor, 
  • Masters Of The Universe #7: Long Live The King (1987 Star/Marvel Comics) 
  • U.K.'s Masters Of The Universe Adventure Magazine #11: Enter The Ninjor 
  • Masters Of The Universe: Power Of Fear #1 (2003) 

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