sometimes he actually shows the illustration of the manticore from the gatefold of the album I’m talking about, like in the middle picture of imgflip.com/i/aagrp3
Manticore’s whole persona is based on Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s 1971 album “Tarkus”, where the story is that the armadillo-tank hybrid (Tarkus) fights the lion-scorpion hybrid (Manticore) and Tarkus gets severely wounded by the Manticore, and goes out to sea.