Toy Review: ‘G.I. Joe’ Classified Crystal Ball Is *Almost* The Toy Of The Year

One of the best things about G.I. Joe as a franchise is that it’s never afraid to get weird. Enter Crystal Ball.

The story goes (and is mostly confirmed) that legendary author Stephen King and his son, Owen King, were big fans of G.I. Joe. Well, the mid-1980s were the height of King’s popularity and the perfect time for a franchise to bring the author in to create a horror themed character. Where the story gets murky is which of the Kings did the heaviest lifting in helping Hasbro create Richard “Crystal Ball” King.

Read his original filecard, though, and it’s clear that there’s not just the influence of a horror writer — King was the seventh son of a seventh son, one of the most common evil portents in fiction. Not only that, Crystal Ball’s mother was from — you guessed it — Bangor, Maine (I guess Derry or Castle Rock was a little on the nose). The filecard is coy at to whether Crystal Ball actually possesses supernatural powers or not.

The G.I. Joe Classified figure, however, throws that out the window. Crystal Ball of 2025 is 110% an eldritch menace, and I love it.

Now, before I get into it, if you read my last two G.I. Joe reviews, you noticed I complained about stands. Well, look at what’s in those pictures. I got fed up, found, and 3D printed a batch of stands. So, now you don’t have to listen to me complain about them again. You’re welcome.

And I’m going to say it. There’s only two things that hold this figure back from being my toy of the year.

I love the design of the figure here. There’s a ton of nods to the character’s history. The clothing lines up with the original ’87 figure, but adds a trench coat, which ties it together. His eyes match Dreadnok leader Zartan, nodding to his role as the Dreadnok’s spiritual leader in the IDW Joe continuity. And it includes a shield that’s not an exact copy of his original hypno shield accessory, but firmly nods to it, lenticular sticker and all. But it is a good thing that I printed those stands, because it’s not the most stable figure out there, unless you pose him very neutrally.

But the rest of the figure shifts the character from “technically he’s a hypnotist but he might be more” to “this guy is a cult leader and sorcerer that Cobra is going to regret recruiting.” His tattoos look like magical symbols. His accessories are the tools you’d expect from a demon’s acolyte — a flaming green sword and a muzzle-loading pistol with gold accents. And that eldritch demon alternate head is amazing.

The accessories are almost all fantastic at that. This is the first Hasbro figure with a cape or coat that I’ve ever liked. It has just the right amount of flexibility to not get in the way. The sword and pistol look amazing and are easily usable, and the shield is mostly great, though a little difficult to get the figure to hold. The one negative in the accessories: none of the hands can actually hold his misty, glowing crystal ball.

All of those things are pretty minor, though, and don’t actually bring the figure down. What does?

This is a Wal-Mart exclusive.

That means it’s going to be hard for fans to get their hands on him until suddenly he’s not, and you’ll be able to get him on clearance on WalMart.com for years to come (that’s just how it goes with Wal-Mart). Hell, search for Crystal Ball on r/GIJoeClassified and you’re going to see at least a dozen posts about Wal-Mart cancelling the preorders on the figure (I was one of the fortunate few to get my preorder). And while it looks like this is the first figure in an unofficial eldritch ops Cobra team, it looks like any future companion figures (like the recently released Ghost Viper) are also going to be exclusive to Wal-Mart.

For a figure that’s so good, it’s a huge bummer that it’s not easy to get your hands on it. If you see him though, trust me, pick him up immediately.