The toys were things of beauty, produced in translucent plastic, and the Crystal Warriors stood out on the toy shelves. Remco produced a bunch of good Crystal Warriors and an array of evil Magma people. The toy company also produced two dragons, one magma and one crystal (which is a sight to behold), a castle, and some accessories.

The story of Crystar was pretty simple: the good agents of order, the crystal warriors, faced off against the agents of chaos, the Magma people, led by Crystar’s brother, Moltar (because what else would you named the leader of the Magma people?). The world of the comic was well built and functioned within the parameters of the toys and still holds up pretty well today. Marvel must have wanted the book and toy line to succeed because there were frequent Marvel Universe guest stars in the Crystar comic including Dr. Strange, Nightcrawler (from X-Men), and Alpha Flight.

It seems that Marvel still holds the right to Crystar as the character made a cameo appearance in one of the six million Marvel Zombies series. The property might be obscure, but as far as toy/comic tie ins go, Crystar was a (I shouldn’t) diamond in the rough (I did).

Shogun Warriors

Is there anything cooler than giant Mechs? How about giant Mechs based on an ultra-popular Japanese toy line stomping around the Marvel Universe? For two years, Marvel fans got to experience Shogun Warriors as a legitimate part of the Marvel Universe proper.

Shogun Warriors was a Mattel property that united a bunch of robot toys from Japan under the same banner. There were tons of toys and vehicles produced by Mattel, in many different sizes, but Marvel only had the license for three of the robots, Raydeen, Combattra, and Dangard Ace, piloted by an American stuntman, a Japanese test pilot, and an oceanographer from Madagascar, respectively. The humans and their Mechs had many adventures written by the great Doug Moench with pitch perfect artwork by Hulk legend Herb Trimpe.