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In the original MotU series bible, Evil-Lyn was an Earth astronaut named Evelyn Powers. It was a terrible idea and thankfully ignored in all media - until MotU Classics printed it on her official bio. It seemed like they were doing away with all the cool stuff from the 2002 cartoon, but no, they were keeping it: they were just making it slightly stupid. A planet full of people named Torrant Krazut and Kreann'ot n'Horosh, and yet she's "Evelyn Powers?" It's too mundane to be appropriate.
As the ruler of Zalesia, Nikolas Powers
was entrusted by King Grayskull to guard the city's great magical objects - the Havoc Staff and the mystical Ram Stone. Powers was a core member of Grayskull's Council Of Elders, great mages from across Eternia who had the wisdom to tap into the planet's hidden magical secrets. But by marrying and having a daughter, he broke the Elder's treaty with King Hssss to not produce any heirs. Powers was stripped of his humanity, condemned to never leave Zalesia and forced to watch his beloved city destroyed by Serpos. Now called "The Faceless One," he asked the wizard-warrior He-Ro to use the power of Central Tower to send his daughter Evelyn into the future. There, with his immortality, he hoped to raise her away from the terror of the Great Wars.
Now that's interesting - the Faceless One was created for the 2002 cartoon, and only appeared in two episodes: "Lessons" and
"The Price of Deceit." All we learned about him in those episodes was that he was Evil-Lyn's father, and that he was disappointed in her life choices. That stuff about him being on the Council of Elders and fighting King Hiss? That comes from volume three of the MVC comicbooks, which sadly has never been collected. The story is set between episodes of the cartoon, and provides a complete backstory for the Faceless One and Evil-Lyn - an origin that this bio has tweaked slightly, adding He-Ro to the mix.
The Faceless One shares much of his body with Count Marzo: bare torso, Skeletor's shins, etc. The gloves are the rarely used "smooth" versions, and he even gets Marzo's "clutching" hand. The head, of course, is a new piece, which isn't so much "Faceless" as "Face Deficient" - it's there, there's just not much of it. More than there was in the art, surely.
The cape and skirt are new, naturally, and based
more on the cartoon than the comics. The rear of the cape rises up behind the head, helping create the illusion of the white head floating in shadow. There are bony structures on the chest and riveted armor beneath. The belt gets a new design, with an emblem in the center that looks like the Quake logo. The pale, spiky bits hanging down the front of the skirt are similar in design to ones on Evil-Lyn's belt. Given the colorscheme and the stylistic similarities, it's easy to see that Evil-Lyn and the Faceless One are connected somehow, even if you don't know they're blood relatives.
The cape is made from three pieces: the center, and each of the shoulder pads, all glued together. His other accessories include the Havoc Staff, which is more recognizable as Skeletor's weapon, and the Ram Stone.
The head of the staff is cast from translucent magenta plastic, with purple paint on the face to make it more solid. The Ram Stone is the Faceless One's trademark energy-shooting MacGuffin. As Evil-Lyn says, "It's an ancient artifact. They say it can pierce any barrier, manmade of mystical. I think it's just a legend." Way to cover, Lyn. Anyway, since the Faceless One has Marzo's hand, he can actually wield it well.
The Faceless One is what the hardcore fanboys love to call a "200X" character, but that's a stupid name: the Four Horsemen have said they like the name "Millennium," but we much prefer the term Poe invented, "Mo2K." More of those characters are getting Classics representation all the time, and since the Faceless One usually looked to be slightly larger than all the other characters, this one can even integrate with your Mo2K collection without looking too out-of-place.
-- 07/11/11
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