King Hssss: Master or Servant?

[Captain Atkin]

In the recent Q&A session with Scott "Toyguru" Neitlich, the following was revealed about King Hssss and his role in Masters of the Universe Classics:

Toyguru (on the creation of Lady Slithor in the mini-comic "The Fall of Eternia":

"I specifically put in Lady Slithor to 1: establish that the UNO had multiple Lieutenants (i.e. like King Hssss) on different worlds, each with their own set of cronies, as well as to provide a long demanded female Snake Man, err, Woman!"

In the vintage mini-comic King of the Snakemen, King Hiss tells He-Man that he ruled several planets throughout the universe, and that he and his repulsive snakemen held the galaxies in an iron grip. In the mini-comic The Powers of Grayskull: The Legend Begins!, King Hiss wonders to himself if a time-travelling Skeletor is an emissary from the Unnamed One that the Snakemen serve. In the 2002 cartoon series, the basic storyline remains the same, with only slight differences. King Hssss and the Snakemen worship an ancient deity called Serpos; a snake god that was trapped by the Elders in the form of Snake Mountain.

In the new MOTUC canon, Scott Neitlich has turned King Hssss into a "Lieutenant" who serves the Unnamed One. After 25 years of mystery, the Unnamed One is revealed to be an evil trollan named Gorpo. Rather than being King of all the Snakemen in the universe, he is now a subservient Lieutenant in command of a group of "cronies" on Eternia. He is no longer the big-bad. Scott Neitlich has taken a strong character who was established in the vintage toy line as the "next big bad" after Skeletor and Hordak, and waters him down to the role of a glorified mob boss. In many ways, this is similar to how the Filmation cartoon took Hordak and made him Leader of the Evil Horde on Etheria, while the more powerful Horde Prime ruled the entire Horde Empire. It takes a strong established character and makes them subservient to a greater evil.

How do you feel to these changes made to King Hssss in the MOTUC canon? Do you like these changes to the character?

[Mechanizor]

King Hssss:
"I shall devour this Total-Garbage imbecile to his doom and discharge his filthy soul out of my slithery rectum like no other, bring him to me..."

Seriously, I won't be surprised if TG keeps playing this turning tables game and reintroduce his dumbass Spector character as the Ultimate God Supreme of the universe!

[GREP-A-TOR]

Word, I bet it will happen.

[Draego-Man]

Anything Scott touches turns to crap... and this UNO BS is just that, BS.

[Guest]

I disregarded all the 'new canon' from Scoot Productions. That's really all I have to say about that. MOTU is whatever you want it to be.

[Cocoasmooth]

Scott fiction sadly seems to put uno as the center piece of his twisted cannon. I don't like it at all. I hate that king hsss has become some chump.

[D.M.]

If he's to be a servant, then he's the servant of Serpos.

[Kumkani]

[YAKOV SMIRNOFF VOICE] On Trolla, King means Lieutenant![/YAKOV SMIRNOFF VOICE]
good God this idiot can't write. and he TRULY thinks that his ideas are worth reading?? what a tool.

[MegaGearMax]

To be fair, Vintage mini-comic canon established that King Hsss served the Unnamed One, not Toyguru. TG was using what was already written and brought it to the forefront.

I prefer the King Hsss from MYP, who wasn't the Skeletor ally from the Vintage line, but his own threat. Heck, I don't like Flogg and the Mutants being Skeletor flunkies either.

[Captain Atkin]

To be fair, Vintage mini-comic canon established that King Hsss served the Unnamed One, not Toyguru. TG was using what was already written and brought it to the forefront.

The Unnamed One mentioned in the vintage mini-comic could be interpreted many ways. As a child, I always assumed that King Hiss was referring to a god, and not an actual person. I highly doubt the writer of that vintage mini-comic, or the people in charge of the vintage line at Mattel, ever planned on having an evil trollan character revealed as the Unnamed One. Scott Neitlich appropriated a familiar name from established canon, and turned it into something new.

[Draego-Man]

So UNO is a god then. Pretty cool huh?

[MegaGearMax]

Yeah, making The Unnamed One a Trollan is all Toyguru.

[Shawn]

"I always assumed that King Hiss was referring to a god"

Exactly. The interviews from 1999 further this POV the "cosmic evil force" that was "like palpatine" that "somehow transformed keldor into skeletor"...

[Nemisythe]

Maybe this can help some if they want to keep Gorpo as the Unnamed One...

King Hsss served the Unnmaed One until he 'found' Serpos (which was the basis for UNO creating Snake-Men) and his own identity, which led him to ruling the several planets and becoming a force of his own! With UNO unable to reestablish control over the Snake Men he eventually creates Lady Slither to one day regain his army back from this evil renegade force. Question is with the nature of a snake being so volatile will she help or eventually lead them herself???

Done and way better than what Scott offered.

[Barezz]

There are a lot of plot holes with King Hiss being a lieutenant. First of all, the Unnamed One was supposedly cast into the Unnamed Dimension. The mini comic suggests that he remains there, until whatever Horde Prime did allowed a portal to open and his "Revenge Squad" to invade Trolla. So how exactly does he create and unleash the Snake men if he is trapped in another dimension?

I also certainly don't get the idea that King Hiss knows much about the Unnamed One at all. And I don't think he is in direct contact with him either, because why else would the Unnamed One leave Hiss and the Snake Men trapped for like 5000 years? You mean to tell me that he couldn't open the portal to the void?

In my story, the Unnamed One creates the Snake Men and lets the lose as a way to create chaos and distract others while he works on his plans.

[MegaGearMax]

Hordak was able to change Keldor to Skeletor from Despondos, so maybe Gorpo was able to create Snake Men from his prison? Maybe he couldn't physically leave, but his magic could still work if directed elsewhere through agents on the outside?

[Barezz]

Yea I imagine that is what we would be told.

[MegaGearMax]

I would have liked it better if Lady Slithor was a consort of Hsss. Maybe past MYP season three, King Hsss opened a new portal to the void and freed some additional Snake Men generals and his queen. See, it wasn't that hard to explain the new Snake Men without getting all convoluted...

[Mechanizor]

I would've liked this scenario, it makes a lot more sense than what Neitlich is trying to achieve here.

[Jyrki]

I don't like King Hssss being made into a servant.

In my own version of MotU mythos: Skeletor, Hordak and King Hsss are the main three evil leaders of their own factions. Skeletor for Evil Warriors, Hordak for Evil Horde, even though Horde Prime commanded Horde Empire outside of Eternia, and King Hsss for the Snake Men.

[MIDOR]

I'm ok with it. I'm ok with there being a puppet master pulling the strings. I'm ok with king hsssssssssssssssssssssss answering. Why? well, the main reason is helps me understand how and why King H knows about the power.

[Kumkani]

In my version of MOTU Scott Neitlich doesn't have a huge ego problem, doesn't shoehorn in his bad story ideas and doesn't think he is a great writer. Instead he does his job to get management to approve his budgets and he caters to the pulse of the fandom. The previous proves that my imagination is WAAAAY better than Scott's.

[Matthew L. Martin]

Classics Canon? That Unnamed One doesn't exist for me.

200X? King Hssss is his own master; he may do homage to Serpos, but he uses him as well.

Vintage? I go back and forth on whether the Unnamed One is Hordak or a mysterious entity, akin to the Spirit of Evil, that fills the niche Demo-Man does in Classics canon. In the former, Hiss is a puppet who eventually turns on his master once he realizes that this mysterious benefactor does not have the best interests of the Snake Men at heart. If the latter, then Hiss serves the Unnamed One by serving himself.

[Snake Man]

"...The Unnamed One Who We Serve." does NOT equate "...The Unnamed One who created us all from whole cloth by splicing the DNA of several reptilian creatures." The bad taste in my mouth from this appalling diminishment of King Hiss' relevance, as well as the haphazard total destruction of him and his army at the hands of Orko (!?!) will NEVER go away. The Snake Men are COOLER than that, and they deserve far better than such poor story treatment..!

[GREP-A-TOR]

When is King Hsss going to turn into Galvatron? Or maybe Scott could have him be part of the Yellow Lanterns.

[Y2Greg]

King Hiss is the "KING" of the Snake Men. Period. I would only rank a god or goddess above a king.

[Wintor]

Regarding the vintage Powers of Grayskull mini-comic, I always took the Unnamed One as being some kind of Preternian resident to begin with. So King Hiss serving the Unnamed One was nothing more than a farce of an alliance in my eyes. Much like the fragile alliance between Skeletor and King Hiss in modern times where eventually, the end game of the alliance was betrayal.

Personally I've never seen King Hiss as really bowing down to anyone, which is why I've never been a fan of the whole Serpos angle. I prefer King Hiss being the leader of an intergalactic force that gladly conquers and enslaves new planets while taking on some lovely concubines along the way.

[zombihamma]

See, the thing is, Scott is just basically a fan, not a super know everything fan like say Emiliano or many others, but just a fan,...but a fan that is now in charge of the property we grew up with and love, no one as ever heard of the great comic writer Scott Neitlich,.... He is just writing his own fanfic!!!! except it's sanctified and is now official cannon, As a kid when I read some of the mini comics I just shook my head in disbelief at the lacklustre 'getting a pay check' type writing, and I was just a kid! Scott has a much harder time of it, as he is trying (badly) to write for a mature audience, and not just any old audience, but one that has many amazing talented Professionals who could wipe the floor with him both on visuals and story telling, were he went wrong, was not just not being a cool guy in the first place, most of us would have 'given' art work and story just to be part of the motuc love. And I'm not talking about just fans (no offence fans) but professional artists/writers, But as he said, he is just trying to sell more toys,... The same as the brand mangers we grew up with (except I dought the BM was writing the mini comics back then and MarySue-ing the crap out of them) I just simply disregard the official story and make up my own ,Hell! my He-man hasn't worn is power harness since the 80s... He's just a bad ass barbarian that appears when he's needed (a bit like dark wolf from ' fire and ice' the rotoscoped cartoon from back in the day ) just my two cents,...........thanks for reading ! (I'm off to play green warrior solider guy vs barbarian guy who's trying to rescue yellow skinned princess, who he then bangs! Only to find out it's really neon green demon guy...battle continues as skull face guy watches on from the eye socket of his skull faced Castle Of Power !!!! Zing!)