The Somewhat Short Saga of Crystar

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In the early eighties, Marvel Comics teamed up with Remco (a division of Azrak Hamway) to create the Saga of Crystar. After years of success with comics based on toy lines (such as Micronauts and Shogun Warriors) Marvel sought to reverse the situation and create a toyline they would themselves license.



I can't help but think this would have gone to Mego if they were more of solvent company seeing as they had such a great relationship. Anyway, the result were some very nice looking toys with great graphics, Marvel produced a comic (although the toys somehow made it to the shelves first) using top talent like Michael Golden and it really should have been a big hit.



Pic above is the 1983 Remco Toy Fair Show Room
Despite all the things going for it, Crystar likely failed for two reasons, one EVERYBODY was getting on the sword and sorcery bandwagon at that time but more importantly, the rules changed in the early eighties, in fact the whole toy game did. While Crystar had a great comic book, thanks to Ronald Regan repealing an FCC law, He Man had a cartoon!
Crystar eventually gave up his battle like many others during this time, Marvel would go onto to produce successful comics licensed from toy properties and Remco spent a lot of time producing toys that aped either Masters of the Universe (Mattel sent lawyers) or G.I. Joe.

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[johnnystorm]

Two things surprise me about Crystar:

one- There were spinoff items other than the action figures. I had a dart gun-target set recently of the series.

two- To the best of my knowledge, Marvel has never revived the character (have they?). I would think they would have done so somewhere, but I don't recall it happening.

Always thought the wizard guy with the hat/eyepatch combo was pretty goofy looking. I see him at the flea market from time to time...but I never pick him up and say hello. Sad.

I also used to wonder if Crystar ate something, say a plate of spaghetti & meatballs, could you watch it digest since he was see through?

[Captain]

I am not ashamed to admit I loved this line at the time. It was fresh, and looked different from everything else out there. The comic back story on the back of the packaging was more than enough to get kids clued in to the history of the characters.
I found the Marvel comic months later, and while the first issue or two were ok, the book got kind of broody afterwards. Much like He-Man, the short version of the story on the backer cards was official to me (or the story booklet with the early He-Man characters), while I ignored the comic.

Great line. I was unaware Marvel actually owned the character.....wonder why they didnt revive it through Toy Biz, or Marvel toys?

[vulcan2074]

I Had those when I was a Kid. I thought they were really Cool
Sammy

[toys2cool]

I loved those,I remember I use to poke my brother with the pointy fingered ones

[jwyblejr]

Was hasn't Marvel relaunched this? My guess would be that they wouldn't really do that well. You don't hear about fans getting worked up about this, asking for the line to be brought back.

[ctc]

>the book got kind of broody afterwards

It DID; but right near the end it got kinda silly. Probably right around the time they figgered nobody was reading it. Which is a shame; 'cos the somewhat comedic one was really entertaining. They ended the story, too.

The toys were sort of a mix. They were really neat, but it always bothered me that the two main guys were a head taller than everyone else; especially since there were supporting characters TALLER than the two of them in the comic. (I guess Bow wasn't eating his Wheaties....)

>Was hasn't Marvel relaunched this? My guess would be that they wouldn't really do that well.

I bet they've forgotten it alltogether. After the 90's anything that wasn't a superhero seems to have disappeared. Although I'd be kinda nervous if they DID bring it back.

Don C.

[Drain]

I remember Marvel gave it the fancy bright color first issue like they did for G.I. Joe #1. At least when the comic ended, they tie it up with the evil brother redeming himself.

[TEXASFETT]

When I first saw the crystar figures,I thought they where cool looking for its time. Same here I see them at shows and at flea markets but never picked them up.

[ctc]

>At least when the comic ended, they tie it up with the evil brother redeming himself.

It had kind of a weird ending 'cos this whole war between chaos and order just sort of fizzled. Which I didn't think was bad; to the contrary, I really enjoyed it. It was like NOTHING I'd seen before. (I hadn't read Terry Pratchett yet.) Everybody just sort of came to terms with each other and that was that. Cosmic evil was defeated 'cos two brothers (and a few other folks) resolved their differences peaceable-like.

Although the book started as a fairly standard sword and sorcery book, about halfway through they REALLY got caught up in the charcatres, and it became entirely driven by them. I wish more stuff was like that.

I could have done without Nightcrawler, and Alpha Flight though.

Don C.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I remember thinking Crystar was cool, but I was already deep into MOTU at that point, and couldn't be distracted by these. Never had the comic, although the ads had nice moody cover paintings.

Nice to see the lava guy still gets work doing kids shows:


Chris

[GaryPlaysWithDolls]

I loved Crystar! Of course, I was a sucker as a kid for anything made out of clear plastic. The Lava dude was cool too.