Memories of Tri-Klops

Like I posted before, I never had Tri-Klops as part of the vintage line - he was one of the figures that was either not released by Leo, or was released rather late. I first saw Tri-Klops as part of my cousin's collection when I visited the US in the early 80s. At the time I hadn't seen the Filmation cartoon - so in my storylines he was one of He-man's buddies.

Like in the case of Trap-Jaw, I liked the way his character was handled in the mini-comics, but not overly fond of his Filmation characterization. He too was reduced to a idiotic minion to the dark lord. In comic book "The Terror of Tri-Klops" he was shown to have the same strength of He-man, was a an excellent swordsman, and was able to shoot laser beams from his eyes. He also was able to change "visibility modes" enabling him to see in the dark, see through objects and see over long distances. His eyes were in different shapes (circle, triangle and square), which for some reason was different from the action figure.

Unfortunately, Tri-Klops did not play much of a role in the Filmation cartoon series - which is rather strange. Tri-Klops was designed to be symmetrical which meant that meant that his animation cells could be flipped and re-used (like in most cases, except Trap Jaw).

I liked the way they handled his character in the MYP cartoon, as well as in the 200x toy line. He was now shown to be a evil Man-at-Arms, coming up with inventions and vehicles to assist Skeletor's evil plans.  I also liked the Doomseeker which he would use to spy on the heroic warriors - the Doomseeker was also included in the 200x figure.

In the classics line, Tri-Klops was modeled after the vintage figure and I must say that the four horsemen have done a fantastic job. The only improvement I can think of would be the ability to remove the daggers attached to the back of his armor.