Marvel Legends are still sold primarily at major retailers. This includes the likes of Target, Walmart, and even Best Buy which has been adding more toys to its portfolio over the years. And since they’re made by Hasbro, a company that has been selling toys to kids for generations, they still mostly operate on the same retail model. These things are in the toy aisle because that’s where parents go to buy their kids toys. Only, action figures (and Marvel Legends especially) haven’t really been kid’s toys for awhile now. I don’t have any hard data to support my conclusion, but I go to Target weekly and I have yet to see one single child so much as gaze at the Marvel Legends toys. I do see adults picking them over and maybe some are buying for a kid, but these things have been the domain of adult collectors for awhile now. The adults buying them today grew up playing with action figures in the 80s and 90s and still have an attachment to the form.
And that is why a character like Crystar can get his own figure in Marvel Legends. The irony here is Crystar is not available in Target and never will be. This figure is part of the Void Build-A-Figure wave which is what Hasbro calls a Fan Channel release. That’s just branding for specialty retail and sometimes Amazon (and in this case, yes Amazon) as opposed to brick and mortar. Crystar is a character people under 40 probably have no experience with. And a great deal of the people who do know who Crystar is might only know of the character as a curiosity since Glenn Danzig ripped-off the cover of one of the Saga of Crystar issues for the iconic Danzig skull logo created by artist Michael Golden. Those who don’t know the character from that bit of trivia probably know it from the old Remco toyline. Following the success of Masters of the Universe, other companies were looking to create their own in-house toyline and make millions. Marvel teamed up with Remco to create Crystar and give him his own comic, The Saga of Crystar, which would release in step with the action figures. Didn’t work, but for those who did have the toys and enjoyed them seeing a new version was an unexpected jolt of nostalgia.
I am one of those who know of Crystar via the Danzig connection. I’m not quite old enough to have interacted with the property when it was at retail, though in looking at the figures as an adult there’s some familiarity. I probably saw Crystar figures at yard sales or flea markets and maybe even in comic book stores as a youth, but I never did own any of them. I have been a pretty big Danzig fan since I was a pre-teen though, so I felt like I had to get this figure when it was first revealed last year at San Diego Comic Con. I have that famous 8th issue, so I might as well add the action figure as well.
Crystar comes in the current Marvel Legends window box following a brief flirtation with plastic-free packaging. It is part of a Build-A-Figure wave, some crab-like creature called The Void, which kind of sucks since part of the money I paid for Crystar went towards a figure I’ll never assemble. I got my figure from Big Bad Toy Store where it cost me twenty-six bucks, a steep price for a Marvel Legends release, but one that is becoming normal. The box contains some vintage artwork of the character, but the toy is clearly an homage to the original action figure which was cast in translucent, blue, plastic and came with a sword and shield. This figure too is cast in translucent, blue, plastic and is a rather striking looking figure in-hand. Messing around with the transparency of a figure is certainly a little gimmicky, but hey, sometimes it works.
Crystar, as far as I know, is mostly made-up of new parts. That’s because the body had to be sculpted to resemble a crystal so there are lots of flat panels coming together to form hard edges. There’s very little in the way of paint as a result. The helmet looks to be painted on and there’s a little white for the eyes, but the rest of the figure is just translucent plastic or red plastic for gloves, trunks, and boots. Considering what they were going for, this is acceptable. If this were an Iceman figure then I’d be bemoaning the lack of a frosted paint job, but for Crystar it’s appropriate. He stands a tick over 6″ which feels like the median for Marvel Legends. I have no idea how tall he’s supposed to be, but it seems fine.
Where the visuals do take a hit is with the joints. Hasbro’s latest gimmick of the past few years is selling its customer base on the wonders of pin-less joints. For years, most Legends releases had double-jointed knees and elbows and holding those hinge joints in place were plastic pins slotted above and below the elbow. Maybe companies still use them while some don’t. In general, pins don’t bother me if they’re colored properly. They certainly create problems with a character like Spider-Man where the outside of the arm is a different color from the inside and a pin-less approach is superior. With Crystar, it sucks because the elbows and knees need to be a harder plastic apparently for the process to work. This leads to differences in color and for the elbows they’re more blue and less transparent. Blue pins would have looked pretty bad too so I guess if they couldn’t do transparent pins then it’s a pick your poison situation. It’s also an issue with the knees, but at least when they aren’t bent the boots hide them. Hasbro went with a hinged-ball joint for the head and the disc for the joint is also visible through the neck. Again, pick your poison as a double-ball peg wouldn’t have looked any better. This figure is the rare one where I’d have probably preferred the neck just end in a ball and socket joint to avoid the issue.
Aside from the eyesores related to the articulation, the figure looks pretty damn cool for what it is. It also comes with what could be considered a robust array of accessories given the usual outlay for a Legends release these days. Crystar has a right fist, an open left hand, and a set of gripping hands. The gripping hands even have the proper hinge so that’s perfect because his other accessories are a sword and shield. Both are done in the same translucent plastic (actually, the shield is fully transparent with just a hint of blue coloring) as the figure itself and are again an homage to the old action figure release. The sword is pretty neat and well-stylized. I do get a bit of a He-Man vibe from it and Crystar looks good wielding it. The shield is plain by comparison, just a plastic circle with a little bit of sculpting, but there’s an elegance to its simplicity. Lastly, are the BAF parts: two sets of giant crab legs. They’ll look good in your trashcan.
Articulation for Crystar is fairly basic by Legends standards. Given the visual issues with some of the joints, that’s probably for the best. We have that disc hinge at the head so he can rotate, look up, and down, with a little bit of tilt. The hinged-ball joints at the shoulders do what they’re supposed to, and we get a biceps swivel, double-jointed elbows, and wrists that rotate and hinge. There is an ab crunch that basically clicks forward and back one slot. The diamond on the belt will obstruct the range going forward, and while it does flex a little, I wouldn’t recommend leaving him crunched forward as that would probably warp the piece over time. There’s a waist twist below that and, once again, that diamond belt buckle will interfere with the range. The legs go out to the side for full splits and the usual thigh cut is. The double-jointed knees will bend past 90 degrees, but doing so exposes the ugly joint. The ankles hinge and the rocker is in place and works fine.
Pretty standard stuff and Crystar should be able to do enough to look interesting on your shelf. Not that he really needs to since the design of the character makes it rather interesting by itself. Two-hand swords poses are achievable though he can’t quite hit his pose from The Saga of Crystar #8. That’s all I cared about and as an oddball addition to my Danzig collection and the figure gets close enough to satisfy me there. As an action figure it’s also pretty good for what it is. This is probably the most satisfied I’ve been with a Hasbro release in quite some time as it doesn’t have any real problems and the presentation pretty much nailed it. I can do without the BAF crap, but that’s the nature of the BAF gimmick if you’re not interested in the end result. Hasbro doesn’t often do these obscure releases so I’ll give them credit for taking a shot with Crystar, especially since it’s a figure that probably required more new tooling than a lot of the stuff the company puts out. Hopefully it gives them confidence to do more and maybe they’ll finally start truly catering the line to adult collectors because that’s who is buying them.
If you want to read more about the Danzig/Crystar connection look below. And here’s some other Hasbro stuff you may or may not care about:
The Saga of Crystar – Crystal Warrior #8
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