by James K-Brak
Well, this week I thought I would change it up a bit. One thing I have always found fun about horror and action figures is when mainstream toy lines decide to dip into the world of Horror. Toy companies have been doing it for decades and have done it with lots of toy lines you wouldn’t think it would fit. One example of this is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line when they did the turtles dressed up as Universal Monsters (a basic mash-up). Another great example of this is with the G.I. Joe line from the 80’s. One particular figure that fits this story well is Crystal Ball from the G.I. Joe line.
Crystal Ball was released in the 3 ¾ G.I. Joe line in 1987 as a Cobra agent. This figure was one of the oddball figures in the series that year for a few reasons. One of the first things you notice about this figure is he is not a military type figure in any way. He is dressed more like a gypsy and his specialty is being a hypnotist. The art work on the card and the figures head sculpt really resemble Vincent Price and give the figure a real old school horror feel. The figure also comes with a disc to hypnotize people with, which also is a bit of a nod to the aforementioned actor.
The part of the figure that I believe is the biggest nod to horror is his bio card and who developed the character. How the story goes was back in the 80’s Stephen King’s son Owen was very interested in G.I. Joes and this lead to Stephen King writing the biography and designing the figure. This is the only figure that King wrote the biography for in any toy line I can think of. Which in itself is pretty extraordinary since how many toys have something written on the packaging by one of the greats in the realm of horror? There are little tidbits in the bio that Mr. King incorporated that reflect directly on the world of horror he creates in his novels. One of these is the mention of where Crystal Ball's mother hails from. In the bio it states that she comes from Bangor, Maine. If you are familiar with any of Stephen King’s novels, many of them are set in this fairly quaint Maine town or close to it. King also had a hand in designing the character’s looks as well as the character’s abilities. All of these things add to making this a truly unique horror collectable figure. There are very few toys out there that belong to such an iconic non-horror type toy line that are really rooted squarely in horror lore like the Crystal Ball figure. One other interesting fact that helps to support King’s connection with G.I. Joe is that the G.I. Joe figure Sneak Peek’s real name is Owen S. King, Stephen King’s son.
I hope you enjoyed this article and although the toy itself is from a non-horror line you are able to see that it is firmly connected n many ways. If you would like more information on Crystal Ball or any other G.I. Joe figure a great place to research is here. Well tune in next week for another review on one of the 80’s biggest slashers, Jason Voorhees, in his updated 8bit form courtesy of NECA.