Who is Mechakara?

*Originally published on 12/10/09



Web entertainment has become a major industry. One of the forerunners is the website, thatguywiththeglasses.com an online network of online reviewers who find the dreck of various media and lampoon it for laughs. One of the breakout "stars" of Channel Awesome (the overall company that encompasses the site to my understanding) is Lewis Lovhaug aka Linkara, an "angry" critic who finds dreadful comic books and points out the flaws by giving a run-through of each issue he reviews.

Back in June of 2009, Linkara introduced a subplot where a mysterious robotic double of him has appeared. This nefarious entity (who Linkara has dubbed "Mechakara") has popped up at the ends of various reviews. According to Lewis himself, every appearance is a clue as to what his ultimate goal is.

The arc opened in the episode where Linkara reviews Superman vs. Terminator 1. In that episode, Linkara is transported to the future as a result of Dr. Insano screwing with hypertime (an event that occurred earlier in the series). He returns and does the review as normal. At the end of the episode, Dr. Insano (a recurring character played by fellow critic Noah Antwiler, and arch-nemesis of Linkara) appears to taunt Linkara about his new device. He announces his plan only to exclaim that the person he's talking to isn't Linkara. The robotic duplicate insists that he is Linkara..more or less.

With this knowlege, we can assume that the hypertime ripples have brought this entity to our world. The easy answer would be that Dr. Insano built him to battle Linkara, but even Insano had no clue what this thing was. The fact that he appeared in a Terminator based review suggests a parallel, so he could be from the future as well.

The figure returns at the end of Linkara's first review of Countdown to Final Crisis. Here, he simply turns off the lights in Linkara's room. Linkara, fed up with the comics he's reviewing joyously says that he can't review them anymore and leaves. At this point, Mechakara lurks onscreen and says that that wasn't the reaction he was expecting.

In the Countdown finale, Mechakara brings the comics themselves to life to attack our hero. After a long struggle, and with some assistance from his trusty dragon dagger, Linkara brings the comics down and tears them to pieces.

When Linkara reviews the first issue of Cable, the character himself comes back from the future to pay Linkara back for making fun of his book. Linkara teleports him away (but manages to keep Cable's huge gun) and Cable finds himself face to face with the robotic villain. Cable is quickly overpowered and killed with Mechakara telling Cable that Linkara is "his".

There's about a month where Mechakara remains unseen, but he finally makes another appearance at the end of Linkara's review of Zero Patrol. Aptly enough, Linkara's talking about robots when his continuity alarm flashes "I know who he is! I know what he's after!" repeatedly before exploding. Linkara complains about someone messing with the alarm and wonders if he can even fix it as he leaves the room. Mechakara appears and says that it's one less electronic entity for him to abuse.

The next week, in a collaborative special, Linkara briefly battles a newly resurrected Spoony (who died in an earlier episode of The Spoony Experiment) courtesy of a black lantern ring. After a brief battle, Linkara brings him back to life with a Phoenix down, restoring him to human form. The two then review a series of comic book based video games. When Spoony discovers that Linkara cloned him and the clone is now hosting his show, he resolves to take it back. Before he can do so, Mechakara sucker punches Spoony and snaps his neck. Spoony is once again turned into a zombie black lantern, who Mechakara notes will be very useful for his plans.

While not canon, a reference is made to Mechakara in the alternate endings to Linkara's review of Silent Hill: Dying Inside. Linkara talks to his robot buddy, Pollo but is met with incoherent babbling about someone who's soul is blue, who's heart is steel and who sees nothing but red. That all fits the doppelganger, heart of steel is obvious, the robot has repeatedly displayed red eyes and a blue soul...maybe he's sad? Nah, more likely, it's referring to a cold existence.

Mechakara's latest appearance came in Linkara's review of Doom #1. Linkara loses his magic gun, which Mechakara tries to grab for himself. Before he can, Linkara finds it and reclaims it. Mechakara says that he'll get it eventually.

For a recent charity drive, Linkara aired a trailer for the upcoming year (similar to what he did the year before when they were raising money for their one year anniversary event). While the first half showcased some of the comics he was going to be reviewing, the second half focused on the subplot and showed clips from the final confrontation (which will be seen in mid-February). To put it lightly, it's epic. I was already pretty excited about this showdown, and the trailer only enhanced that feeling.

At first I thought that Mechakara wasn't going to stand a chance. Sure he had a black lantern, but Linkara had captured a Pyramid head. He also has a much bigger arsenal now, not only does he have the magic gun, but he has the dragon dagger, Cable's gun, and a mini-gun he picked up at the end of the Silent Hill reviews.

From the looks of it, Hypertime will come into play as Ensign Monroe (a character from a video game that Linkara is doing a Let's Play of) appears as does an elseworlds version of Dr. Insano, played by Lewis himself.

So, with all of this, what can we gather? For whatever reason, he wants Linkara's show to stop. Most of his appearances have been sabotage related. He did make a note of pointing out how Linkara was "abusing" electronic entities. People have been guessing for awhile (Lewis himself challenged his fans to figure it out). We know, the robot wants the magic gun, and he has been establishing a sort of power base, enlisting a black lantern, but if that were the case, why not enlist Cable as opposed to killing him?

My guess is that the other world's Dr. Insano built him as a Plan B should his plan to destablize hypertime fail. Why Mechakara is so interested in the gun (besides the fact that it's magic) is beyond me.

Whatever the end turns out to be, I'm sure the payoff will be worth it. To be honest, I'll be sad to see it go. I was rather excited about this arc. I don't know what Lewis plans afterward, there may be aftermath, there may be further story arcs he has in mind or he might just go back to basic reviews. I'm kind of rooting for some combination of the first two because this arc is one of the reasons I'm so excited to watch the show every week. The climax will be awesome, but I don't want to lose that excitement and anticipation as well.