Mandar’s Predecessors: He-Mander, Woenan, Sundarr and Bill – He-Man, Conan the Barbarian, Thundarr the Barbarian, & ???
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/Creature:Mandar_the_Barbarian_(Standard)
https://vulcanstev.blog/2022/06/20/pop-culture-references-of-wizard101-lemuria-mandar/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundarr_the_Barbarian
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/k/virgil-knightley/heights-of-dread.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_County
According to Mandar’s Monstrology Tome description, he is “Heir to the great warriors: He-Mander, Woenan, Sundarr and Bill. Actually, Bill’s not that great.”
Of these four predecessors, three are direct references to pop culture barbarians.
He-Mander is inspired by the He-Man cartoon and toy line. Woenan is another reference to Conan the Barbarian. I cover He-Man and Conan in the original Mandar article.
Sundarr is a reference to early 80s Saturday morning cartoon, Thundarr the Barbarian.
Thundarr the Barbarian is an American Saturday morning animated series, created by Steve Gerber (of Howard the Duck fame) and produced by Ruby-Spears Productions. The series ran for two seasons on ABC from October 4, 1980, to October 31, 1981, and was rerun on NBC in 1983.
Thundarr the Barbarian is set in a future (c. 3994) post-apocalyptic wasteland of Earth divided into kingdoms and territories, the majority of which are ruled by wizards, and whose ruins typically feature recognizable geographical features from the United States, such as New York City, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Denver, Atlanta, Boston, San Antonio and its Alamo, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Cape Canaveral, and the Grand Canyon. Other episodes with recognizable settings are set outside the United States, and include Mexico and London. Another notable feature of this future Earth is that the Moon was broken in two pieces. The shattered moon and the ruins of the former human civilization were caused by the passage of a runaway planet between the Earth and the Moon in 1994 (thirteen years in the future from the time the cartoon was produced), which, from scenes shown in the opening sequence, caused radical changes in the Earth’s climate and geography. However, by the time period in which the series is set, the Earth and Moon seem to have settled into a new physical balance. Earth is reborn with a world of “savagery, super-science, and sorcery” far more chaotic than “Old Earth” (the show’s name for the pre-apocalyptic world).
Thundarr (voiced by Robert Ridgely) – The main protagonist of the series. He is a barbarian who was once a slave to Sabian until he was freed by Princess Ariel and given the Sunsword which he uses as a weapon in his fight against evil wizards and other villains. Thundarr was known for frequently uttering such pronouncements as “Demon dogs!”, “Lords of Light!”, and his war-cry “Aaaaa-HEE!”. Thundarr, along with his friend Ookla, are largely unknowledgeable about the world so they rely on Ariel’s guidance, but Thundarr is respectful of knowledge which is gained.
Thundarr’s weapon is the Sunsword that projects a blade-like beam of energy when activated, and can be deactivated so that it is only a hilt. The Sunsword’s energy blade can deflect other energy attacks as well as magical ones, can cut through nearly anything, and can disrupt magical spells and effects. The Sunsword is magically linked to Thundarr and as such, only he can use it; however, this link can be disrupted.
It was suggested that the Not-So-Great Bill is a reference to the Billy the Barbarian an Isekai adventure story about a normal man from our Earth whose destiny changes when he gets snatched up by the gods of a magical world. However since the first book in the series was published the same year that Lemuria was released, I find it questionable that this was the inspiration. What always pops into my head when I read ‘Actually, Bill’s not that great’ is Bill the Cat from Bloom County.
Bloom County is an American comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which originally ran from December 8, 1980, until August 6, 1989, a revival of the strip began in 2015 on Facebook. It examines events in politics and culture through the viewpoint of a fanciful small town in Middle America, where children often have adult personalities and vocabularies and where animals can talk.
Bloom County originated from a comic strip known as The Academia Waltz, which Breathed produced for The Daily Texan, the student newspaper of the University of Texas. The comic strip attracted the notice of the editors of The Washington Post, who recruited him to do a nationally syndicated strip. On December 8, 1980, Bloom County, syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group, made its debut and featured some of the characters from Academia Waltz, including former frat-boy Steve Dallas and the paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Cutter John.
Breathed set Bloom County in a small town. Breathed said he made the choice because he had followed a girlfriend to Iowa City, Iowa; Breathed commented, “You draw—literally—from your life if you’re going to write anything with some juice to it. I did just that.”
Bill the Cat is a filthy, scraggly, flea-bitten, orange tabby cat, introduced in June 1982 as a parody of the comic character Garfield. The humor of the character was the antithesis of Garfield: whereas the famous fat-cat was a marketing bonanza, Bloom County humorously tried desperately to present Bill in the same manner, despite his disgusting and unappealing appearance. After serving over a year as a relatively minor character largely existing ‘outside’ of the strip’s main continuity and cast of characters (beyond sporadic appearances and background references to his merchandise), Breathed temporarily retired the character via alluding to his ‘offscreen’ death in September 1983 (allegedly from acne); following his resurrection in July of the following year, Bill rapidly increased in prominence to the point of assuming an ironically central role in numerous major storylines, thus solidifying him as one of the strip’s most widely-known figures (alongside Opus). Following his resurrection, Bill’s low intelligence and inability to articulate himself beyond his trademark responses, “Ack” and “Pbthhh” led to him becoming something of a blank slate around which various increasingly-absurd plots revolved. He has been a cult member (“Bhagwan Bill”), televangelist (“Fundamentally Oral Bill”), perennial Presidential candidate (for the National Radical Meadow Party), heavy metal rock star (“Wild Bill Catt”), nuclear power plant operator at Chernobyl, and, in the last months of the series, had his brain surgically replaced with Donald Trump’s, alongside allegedly conducting affairs with Jeane Kirkpatrick, Princess Diana and Socks the cat. He has been known to speak on occasion, most notably during the Communist witch-hunt trials of which he has been a subject, when he remarked, “Say, you don’t suppose the ‘Jury Box’ is anything like a litter box, do you?”. Numerous strips indicated that his persistent near-catatonic state was the result of drug use or brain damage resulting from once being legally dead and then revived after too long a period. In the Christmas special A Wish for Wings That Work, implicitly set in a differing continuity from the strip, Opus alternately recounts having rescued Bill from a university science lab where they had replaced his brains with Tater Tots.
Text has been borrowed from the listed urls
The current list of all the Lemuria references can be found here.
Mandar image is from Wizard101, and is (c) KingsIsle Entertainment,it is being used in a way that qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
Thundarr the Barbarian images are copyright Ruby-Spears Productions
Billy the Barbarian cover art is borrowed from fantasticficition.com and is copyright Virgil Knightley
All Bloom County artwork is copyright Berkley Breathed
Vulcan Stev's Database 