Hey, it’s the jerk from Bionicle Heroes who takes the Piraka mask every time you kill one, leading to the same brief boss fight where you simply shoot Fenrakk’s face repeatedly every time! So shocking and innovative every time!

Not my thing. But, that has to be one of the sweetest Bi-non-lego-cle sets, ever!

Can't wait to hear the lore on this one.

Ah yes. Vezon. Toa of Anarchy.

If you want the short version of this guy’s story, he is half the essence of the Piraka Vezok (set 8902). After being split from Vezok by the Spear of Fusion (which he’s actually wielding in this set), he then tried to steal the Kanohi Ignika and subsequently became fused to a giant spider (also seen here). He got caught up in various different shenanigans since then, including but not limited to putting his giant spider in lava and turning it into a dragon, being placed on the Bionicle suicide squad, having a large variety of people make attempts to kill him and travelling across various alternate dimensions.

He also has some of the best quotes in the series.

“You haven't truly lived until you have seen the world through the eyes of madness. Why, half the time I don't know if what I see is what's really there, or what I wish was there... or what I pray, I beg, I plead is not.”

Yes, when the mood takes me, I often put on a cape, grab my trusty scythe, and ride my four-legged giant spider in need of a good orthodontist around town, as well.

"Sea turtles?"

"Nah. Land crabs, mate."

This was primary bionicle lore writer Greg Farshtey's favorite character to write, gave him excuse to have fun with an insane character.

Indeed much fun was had.

@StyleCounselor said:
"Not my thing. But, that has to be one of the sweetest Bi-non-lego-cle sets, ever!

Can't wait to hear the lore on this one. "

Bi-non-lego-cle! I love it! Permission to use it?

@StyleCounselor said:
"Not my thing. But, that has to be one of the sweetest Bi-non-lego-cle sets, ever!"

Right, you only like actual-so-unprofitable-they-almost-drove-the-company-into-the-ground-and-inspired-Mattel-to-make-a-serious-buyout-offer-LEGO.

Yee haw!

Vezon & Fenrakk was one of those sets that I just had to have in 2006. Even though it was a riff on whole "figure and a creature" thing that started in earnest in 2004 with Toa Lhikan and Kikanalo (the Boxor from 2002 wasn't a creature, though maybe its popularity kickstarted the whole 2-for-1 deal that became very prevalent not just with creatures, but vehicles in BIONICLE's later years), but deliciously and obviously evil. I don't think I knew he was coming out until I saw him in some Toa Inika instruction manuals. But those toothy grins, sharp spikes, and the fact that he had the Mask of Life fused to the back of his face, made this set a must-have, so I bought him before any other large, boxed set in 2006. I was not disappointed! The cloth cape made him stand out from the more rubbery-spine Piraka. Fenrakk was very poseable. And I had tons of fun just stomping the two of them around the Toa Inika.

While I liked his insanity, his popping up again in the BIONICLE story after 2006 was a little too much for me, though I know a lot of people enjoyed it, including writer Greg Farshtey. For an enemy created from a hit from the Spear of Fusion, the enmity between Vezon and his "brother" Vezok was played up too much. He just went full insane, having Fenrakk become the Kardas Dragon with the mask's power, and trying to kill basically everyone. Of course, this suited the old Kanohi Ignika just fine, and when he had played his part, the mask fled to Mahri Nui. It is interesting to note that the finished design of the Ignika seen in 2007 onwards looks nothing like the thing stuck on Vezon's head, since the design was quite different for the full mask in 2006. I remember it well from the online Voya Nui game, so look up pictures if you are uncertain.

Sadly, the toy Vezon & Fenrakk met a quick demise in my collection. As I was preparing to head out of state for college in 2007, I disassembled the set after only a few months and put it back in its original bags and box. I have yet to rebuild it, but I have my eye on it since I recently built Brutaka and Vezon would be a nice tribute set to display in 2026 when the whole "Ignition" storyline of BIONICLE turns 20 years old. Geez. Time flies!

Looks like something could 'occur' in "DreamZzz"....w/the 'nightmare' side that is...:)

One of my favourite figures in my collection, not everyone is cool enough to ride a giant critter

A Droideka and General Grievous with a Bionicle twist!!

Just look at this thing, how menacing to ride a beast with chain in one hand and a battle axe in other while sporting a cool cape. This is the definition of bada$$.

@Lego_Lord_Mayorca:
Or 2003 with 8594 and 8595.

So this is the largest Bionicle set I own and one of the nine (out of 35) that isn't an air/green scheme dominant. It's also one of my favorites. Fenrakk is such a cool design and menacing looking. Vezon is cool and a nice change of pace from the other Piraka (the only other one I own is Zaktan which I finally bought this year) even if the changes are minor. And his lore is pretty cool.

Oh hey it's Greg Farshety's favourite character.
By that I mean Vezon, the humanoid, not Fenrakk, the spider. Though that would have made several of the online serials a lot different...

Now, this is cool.

@PurpleDave said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
"Not my thing. But, that has to be one of the sweetest Bi-non-lego-cle sets, ever!"

Right, you only like actual-so-unprofitable-they-almost-drove-the-company-into-the-ground-and-inspired-Mattel-to-make-a-serious-buyout-offer-LEGO."

Do you mean... STAR WARS?!!!!!!

@StyleCounselor said:
Bi-non-lego-cle

Lego Technic is Lego, and it's become an extremely important part of the brick system. I understand people don't like it sometimes, (and some people even seem a bit afraid of it) but I personally prefer it because the math is simpler in all 3 dimensions. the brick plate math is kind of crazy. 5 plates tall == 2 studs long. so if you want 1 stud tall, you need 2.5 plates, which isn't normally possible, without a bracket or a baseplate. so the numbers can sometimes run away from you, and sometimes you end up with weird gaps that ya just can't fill properly. Technic is always on the stud grid or offset by half, and they're more friendly to the idea of angles because the ends of the beams are always rounded. there aren't a lot of rounded bricks (although they're making more rounded plates recently)

but if Technic is one step away from bricks, then Bionicle is just one step away from that. I quite prefer Bionicle to bricks, and wish Lego would continue to make both. Bionicle were nice and smaller, more affordable than the big Technic cars and such, and looked good despite this.

but I'd definitely just call them "non-brick" rather than "non-Lego". the parts are fully compatible (although they usually look odd together), so they're all Lego.

Boy I sure do enjoy reading the same tired argument about BIONICLE being/not being "real" LEGO on every goddamn mention of the theme

@StyleCounselor said:
"Lego = bricks (only Lego's IP lawyers disagree);"
And, y'know, people who saw the Lego logo on the box.

@StyleCounselor said:
"Do you mean... STAR WARS?!!!!!!"

Do you mean the theme that was profitable in 1999, 2002, and 2005, but kinda left treading water in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007 because there were no movies or TV shows to drive sales? Absofrckenlutely!

Anyone else here heard artist Stuart Sayger's favourite story about this set...?

For context, he was the Bionicle comic artist for 2006 - 2007. For the fifth comic of 2006, he needed to show these guys in their full glory, as the first view of them in the official storyline: the only problem was, he didn't have the reference model for it because not only was the set not out at that point, it wasn't even in production yet. There was only one model of it, a completed prototype, in existence anywhere in the world. After finishing the rest of the comic apart from that panel, the deadline was looming and he still didn't have the reference: practically the last week before he had to turn in the art for the comic, Lego boxed up the prototype and sent it to him from Denmark via priority overnight shipping. He had to drive to the airport to collect it really early in the morning, signing a non-disclosure contract and everything since the model had barely been seen by anyone at that point (not even the Lego USA office who he was in contact with knew what it looked like), before he was allowed to take it to his studio and draw it.

On the way back, he stopped at a restaurant to get breakfast since he'd been up all night collecting that, and noticed that across the way from him were a couple of kids there with their parents, and the kids were clearly bored out of their minds. Apparently he didn't say anything, but just opened up the box, stood these guys on his table, and waited to see how long it would take the kids to notice it. As soon as they saw it, the two boys were fascinated, they recognised that it was Bionicle but of course had never seen this one before. He left it just long enough for them to get a good look at it, then picked it up and put it back in the box, turned to the kids, and just said "not even in the stores yet," and went on with his meal.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab1ZYE-0BbE, 56.08 onwards.

Look, I was going to ignore this. But can we please stop this endless back-and-forth every time there's a Bionicle RSorD. Let's just agree to disagree. If you like Bionicle, that's great! If you don't, just go to any other page on this huge site and enjoy what you enjoy.

@StyleCounselor, I'm going to only say this once.

You actually have fun and insightful things to say. If it's replies you want, you could easily get those in a constructive way. In many other threads you've had great points relevant to the discussion and you are actually knowledgeable about the stuff you care about. Keep that up!

Just... please stop resurrecting the same discussion over and over. We get it. You are strongly of the opinion that Bionicle is 'not' a 'lego' theme. No matter how much people will tell you otherwise, no matter how many points people will raise, your opinion will not change. You will also most likely not convince other people about this. It's more of a feeling, an opinion. You can have that opinion. Nobody will take it away from you.

People are getting tired of it. It's not entertaining except maybe for you, I don't know. If I were to take at face value what you said about people getting too smug... why care? It's only brought up when bring people Bionicle's place in Lego's history into question... which is what you constantly do.
Bionicle ended 13 years ago. Constraction died 5 years ago. It's only alive in the hearts of fans. How does that in any way still affect you beyond seeing the occasional comment or set on the RSotD pass by on this site?

I'm only writing this because I'd like this fan site to be welcoming to people. From experience I can tell you it's more fun to just focus on the stuff you're here for instead of commenting on threads you aren't enjoying.

Be better, man. I've seen you post fun, insightful stuff elsewhere, so I hope to read more of that instead of this dead-horse argument.

For my own experiences... I'm definitely among the crowd who thought this set was one of the best of Bionicle. I recall I got them from the Bluewater Lego store (which was the first time I'd visited an official Lego shop outside of Legoland), when we were on holiday in Kent that summer: the set was really new, I want to say it was only a matter of days after it was released over here, and WOW I was impressed. I spent the afternoon sprawled on the floor of the holiday cottage we were staying in as I built them, while my parents were out visiting family who lived in that part of the country, and I did not regret that decision in the slightest! Vezon was a neat design with a slick black-and-silver colour scheme, and no awkward rubber spine restricting his movement like the other Piraka had, while Fenrakk was a monstrously intimidating mount for him. He remained one of my favourites for a long time.

Of course, once I finally got around to disassembling him, Brutaka and Axonn in order to build the combiner Kardas - who, in story, was Fenrakk reborn after he fell into lava during their fight with the Toa Inika - this set rather paled in comparison to just how huge that dragon was! If Fenrakk was impressive, Kardas was even more so: by far the biggest Bionicle model I ever got to lay my hands on!

@Binnekamp said:
"Look, I was going to ignore this. But can we please stop this endless back-and-forth every time there's a Bionicle RSorD. Let's just agree to disagree. If you like Bionicle, that's great! If you don't, just go to any other page on this huge site and enjoy what you enjoy."
Agreed 100%. I don't care for the Bionicle design or story line. But I don't stomp my feet about it not being "true LEGO" based on a 1980-1999 era definition. Can't we all just get along? =-)

My middle son got this set for his 9th birthday and I still have it in a big tote full of Bionicle sets. It's crazy to me now to think that a theme had 47 sets released in the same calendar year. I thought that has to be more than every other them in production now. For comparison, I went to https://brickset.com/browse/sets and see that City has 56 sets so far, Gear has 95 and CMF has 54 but that can be discounted since they are not traditional Lego sets, Friends has 46, Star Wars has 40, and Ninjago has 39. So, I guess 47 is not absurd compared to other tent pole themes.

@ThatBionicleGuy:
That’s a pretty cool story. The best part is that nobody even had to explain to them that it was a Bionicle set. The theme was so popular that even those kids who didn’t collect it at all (all both of them) would have seen enough to know exactly what it was without asking.

@graymattr:
“Gear” isn’t a theme so much as a category, like “sets”. Gear totals are spread across a range of unrelated themes. For the rest, this gets into something that I touch on a lot when people get a little too whingy about how individual LEGO sets have become too expensive. It’s really easy to not pay attention to just how many sets get released in a single year vs how few there were back in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Bionicle numbers got bloated in large part because a lot of sets got released in groups of six. Ninjago gets it in part because they also have to make sure they get each of a group of characters into every wave, often with new, exclusive outfits. Star Wars and Ninjago also have multiple subthemes, and multiple release windows throughout the year, so you never see the full onslaught at any time. Both themes also have a large January 1st wave, which is usually possible to find in the waning days of December. As such, it’s even easier to look at the upcoming wave and recognize that it’s “next year’s” wave, while simultaneously looking back at the previous January 1st wave and misremembering it as “last year’s” wave, effectively shrinking the perceived size of the annual production range.

The Piraka were a gang of six Skakdi thugs who once worked for the Dark Hunters. Hearing rumors of Makuta’s “death” at the lands of Takanuva, they traveled north to Makuta’s lair to try and steal his powerful weapons and break free of the organization as their own force of destruction.

Among their ranks were Vezok and Hakann, who had a longstanding rivalry. While in Makuta’s lair the thugs discovered a mysterious object known as the Spear of Fusion. Hakann planned on using it to cut their number from six to five in order to split profits less, and aimed it at his rival Vezok.

But Hakann had accidentally set the spear to reverse, and instead of fusing Vezok with someone it split him in two. The actual Vezok retained his bulk and muscle-mass, but his world-renown cunning and smarts were split off into a smaller, scrawny, and boney Skakdi. This Half-Skakdi quickly adopted the name Vezon for himself, a Matoran word that meant “double” and felt similar to his old self. Vezok wanted the two to refuse, while Vezon wanted to remain separate.

The Piraka were then given telepathic suggestions by Makuta to seek out the Mask of Life in Voya Nui. Vezon stole the Spear of Fusion and the Piraka’s boat and set off on his own, while the remaining six originals headed to the island of Mata Nui above to steal some Toa Canisters.

Vezon arrived on Voya Nui first. Strangely, he managed to discover the secret entrance to the Chamber of Life almost immediately. Stranger still, the staircase’s many traps and guards were completely hidden or disabled as Vezon headed down. When he reached the chamber and grabbed the Mask of Life, the Mask revealed why his trip had been so easy. It had chosen him as a new guardian.

Vezon was cursed by the Mask, which fused itself to the back of his head. Fenrakk spiders were common on Voya Nui, famous for their aggression and acidic spit, and so a Fenrakk was enlarged to giant size and Vezon was fused onto its back. The two had a curse placed upon them that if they were ever slain in battle they would be brought back stronger. The two were also capable of absorbing kinetic energy to become more powerful, making physical attacks strengthen instead of harm them.

Fast forward through the 2006 story and both the Piraka and Toa Inika managed to discover the Chamber of Life, and traveled through its many tests and trials. The Piraka reached Vezon first, who used his Spear of Fusion to temporarily fuse two of them into a mindless monster. When the Toa arrived, they quickly drove Vezon to the back of the chamber. To their surprise, he willingly urged Fenrankk to dive into the lava below them. This triggered one of the Mask of Life’s curses, and transformed the dying Fenrankk into the powerful Kardas Dragon. This also unintentionally defused the two.

Eventually Kongu used his Mask of Telepathy to transmit the Mask of Life’s thoughts to Vezon. Turns out the Mask of Life thought Matoro was more worthy of its power than Vezon and wished to be removed. This fueled Vezon with jealousy and gave the Toa an opening. They used a stasis Zamor to freeze him for a few seconds while Matoro snagged the mask.

Without his Mask and free from his giant mount, Vezon was able to leave the Chamber of Life and give chase. The Spear of Fusion was destroyed, Vezon was captured by Zyglak, and the Order of Mata Nui “rescued” Vezon to take him prisoner.

The Order of Mata Nui were essentially the secret service of the BIONICLE world. They recruited Vezon, alongside various other villains, to create an expendable team to try and find/free the former leader of the Makuta, Miserix, who had been dethroned by Terdiax many years ago. Vezon and this “Federation of Fear” were successful in freeing and recruiting Miserix to the Order’s side.

Soon after Vezon was sent on another mission by the Order. He was to infiltrate the Brotherhood of Makuta’s headquarters on Destral and convince the Makuta Tridax that he was betraying the Order, in order to give them a backdoor into the fortress. Tridax was in possession of an Olmak, one of two Masks of

Tridax was in possession of an Olmak, one of two Masks of Dimensional Gates, and was using it to build an army of Shadow Toa stolen from other realities. Vezon realized that *actually* betraying the Order may be more beneficial, and so a complicated string of back stabbings occurred.

This ultimately resulted in Tridax being killed by the Order and Vezon stole his Olmak.

Elsewhere in the universe Helyrx (leader of the Order) and Keetongu (a legendary Rahi healer) were on a quest to destroy pools of Energized Protodermis across the universe. EP was a substance that could mutate and transform beings, and the Makuta used it to build their army of Rahkshi. If all EP could be destroyed, the Makuta would have no way to expand their armies.

Unbeknownst to almost everyone, EP was actually a sentient and borderline eldritch entity who didn’t take kindly to Helryx and Keetongu’s threats. As it prepared a tidal wave to kill the two, Vezon accidentally opened a dimensional gate to the same chamber. Helryx and Keetongu escaped, while Vezon was hit with the EP and had the Olmak permanently fused to his face.

This caused the Olmak’s powers to go haywire, and Vezon began opening portals at random and being sent to alternate realities without his consent. These random portals even effected the Brothers In Arms, Mazeka and Vultraz.

Eventually Vezon was reached out to and rescued by the Cursed Great Being of his prime reality. The CGB had been sealed away on Bota Magna long ago to deal with his own curse from the Mask of Life, but he still had the technology and skill to warp Vezon to his location and disable his Mask of Dimensional Gates.

The CGB used Vezon and his Olmak to open one more portal, rescuing a handful of powerful warriors from BIONICLE’s history that had just been nearly killed by Teridax. He hoped these powerful warriors would free him.
Unbeknownst to this crew, the fortress they were in was rigged to explode. The Story Serials ended on a cliffhanger before we found out what would happen.

While Vezon was highly intelligent, he was also completely insane. The being was known for mad ramblings, a lack of self preservation, and a lack of focus at the task at hand. He served as a large amount of BIONICLE’s comic relief in the the last half of the story, with many fans comparing him to the Marvel character Deadpool, though Greg Farsthey denied any intentional similarities.

While Skakdi cannot normally use Kanohi Mask powers, the Ignika granted him this ability to better harness its own powers. Most of his other powers while wearing the Ignika, like limited future vision and unkillability, were lost when the mask left him.

Also some things I’m learning just now from BS01. Apparently his cape just magically manifested upon his creation. Maybe Vezok used to wear a cape? If not that’s kinda wacky. Also when Vezon and the Olmak fused, he absorbed the mask into his body, meaning he still looks the same. .

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Vezon quotes:

"Where are we going? Why are we going? Are we going at all, or just sailing in a big circle? Or is it a spiral? I went down a spiral once: a big stone tunnel that went down and down and down, and ended in Zyglak. Whoever built it had no decorating sense at all. And you still haven't answered any of my one-hundred ten questions, or my follow ups."

@GSR_MataNui said:
"I completely forgot to tune in last night, and I got to go to work in an hour, but this guy is one of my favorites! I'll try to get his lore done before the next RoSTD triggers, if not I'll just post it there. "

*looks at timestamps*

Did you get fired?

@Trigger_:
Oh, even towards the end of G1 Bionicle, things had slowed down. There’s a reason why TLG is willing to give Ninjago the recognition that they largely deny Bionicle. Star Wars didn’t really hit its stride until the main Clone Wars series launched and they had a multi-season series that could help drive sales (note that, even when there have been multi-year gaps between feature films, they always seem to have at least one series to keep the fire going), and they finally figured out that kids weren’t interested in acquiring that tenth copy of the same named character wearing the same standard outfit.

7959 got a lot of complaints at the time for costing a whopping $0.193/pc, but it was something of a harbinger for the theme. Ani-Luki-Wan is nowhere to be seen, the only Jedi required a custom sculpt that had zero potential for reuse outside the theme (and very little even within the theme), and the other two minifigs were characters that have still historically been underused. From that point forward, many sets came with exclusive minifigs. If you wanted all the characters, you had to buy _everything_. Meanwhile, Harry Potter foundered as the films really grew too dark for what was then the target market for LEGO sets based on the IP, so that once-powerhouse dwindled to nothing before releasing the equivalent of a Greatest Hits album.

One constant in this game is that every theme faces its own challenges, and nothing gets a free pass at every turn. They probably have to periodically cycle set designers between themes just to make sure they don’t start handing in set designs that look conspicuously same-y, as they run out of ways to innovate, or material to explore. For Bionicle, part of the problem was just the number of times they released a set of six characters that had exactly the same build except for one piece being a different shape. One pattern I’ve noted in the comments is that kids at the time all wanted every Toa, or Toa Nuva, but there was less interest when it came to Rahkshi, or Visorak. Bohrok got a lot of forgiveness for being both the first such instance (and second, to be fair), as well as exhibiting a purpose to that same-ness since they could all roll up into balls like Droideka. It’s hard to get pissed at Christmas ornaments for all being the same shape.

@Trigger_:
Just to touch on this with one final note, the point is, Bionicle was able to keep the company afloat at a crucial time when most of the lineup was failing outright, and the rest was not succeeding well enough to compensate. By the time Bionicle started to decline, the company had been given enough time to restructure and get back on solid ground. Ten years earlier or ten years later, and Bionicle would have just been another success story (well, ten years later and the company might have been out of business or under new ownership), but it was the combination with the timing that enabled it to save the company.