The Good: Great sculpt, Decent accessories, Great articulation, Collectible value
The Bad: Balance/articulation issue makes it so one must pose the figure in a pretty limited way, Accessory coloring
The Basics: Kryb is one of the most frightening and original characters from the Sinestro Corps and her presence in The Sinestro Corps War led to the creation of one of the best figures in the Blackest Night toy line!
When it comes to action figures based upon the DC Comics characters, there are few that are more clearly geared for adult collectors than those from the Sinestro Corps. Say what you will about the rage that comes from the Red Lanterns, the members of Sinestro’s Yellow Corps based on fear were drawn to look terrifying and ugly in ways that are likely to give children nightmares. Arguably the most valuable toy based upon Sinestro Corps members, outside Sinestro himself from the Blackest Night toy line is Kryb. Kryb might be an obscure character to most people, but fans of The Sinestro Corps War (volume 1 is reviewed here and volume 2 is reviewed here!), she is a distinctive and awesome character. Given how much DC Direct caters to the hard-core fans, it is somewhat unsurprising that Kryb preceded even Sinestro to action figure status for the Blackest Night toy line!
For those unfamiliar with her, Kryb is a nightmarish woman who steals babies from alien planets and keeps them “safe” by caging them in her skeleton cage that grows out of her back! With her four arms, she scoops up children and at the outset of the Blackest Night, she was serving the Sinestro Corps by hunting the children of Green Lanterns across the universe!
It is Kryb, her four arms at the ready and with an opening back cage, that is the subject of DC Direct’s Blackest Night action figure!
Basics
The Kryb figure is amazingly well-detailed and one of the bigger DC Direct figures from the Blackest Night line. The sculpt and detailing of Kryb is exceptional. The frightful mother stands 7" tall when she is flatfooted and hunched over as the character is want to do. The Kryb figure is available only from DC Direct.
This toy is an exceptional sculpt, especially for a character that has only had two-dimensional references, Kryb looks amazing in all three dimensions. DC Direct gave the figure a distinctive head that is like an alien desiccating in front of the collector! Cast with her mouth in a creepy rictus grin, Kryb has finely detailed teeth, neck veins, face muscles (as if the skin was super-thin on her cheeks!) and recessed eyes. In his mouth, there are tiny teeth that make Kryb look like a piranha! The figure also features amazing muscle definition under his Sinestro Corps uniform for the muscles of her chest, ribs, stomach and legs. Kryb also features nasty looking claws with nails that appear entirely lethal. This is sculpted to be a creature one is afraid of and Kryb works for that!
Kryb's costume is all tightly molded to her body and lends the fearsome monster her awesome coloring. The yellows of the Sinestro Corps uniform are pearlescent and the shine offsets the black, silver (a band around his waist) and white accents (for the Corps symbol on his chest and the dots on her gauntlets) wonderfully. The color is a great contrast to the blue of Kryb’s skin and DC Direct accented that perfectly with things like the light blue fingernails that look like they could rip someone in two! The coloring details are also awesome for the way the mouth and hands are not simply monochromatically blue and black. Kryb’s teeth are also not simply white, which makes them look rotten and gory, which makes for a very realistic looking toy for a comic book character!
Accessories
Kryb, powerful member of the Sinestro Corps that she is, comes with only two accessories. She has her stand and two captured babies. Interestingly, Kryb does not come with a power battery to recharge her Sinestro Corps Ring with! The stand is a translucent yellow and white disk with the Sinestro Corps logo. It is 3 3/4" in diameter and 1/4” tall and it has a single peg which plugs into the hole in Kryb's right foot. She is very stable on her base, though she only truly stands in flatfooted poses.
Kryb also comes two little baby figures. The babies are recasts of one another (the blue one has horns the pink one does not, but otherwise, the sculpts are identical!). The two 1 5/8” tall PVC mini-figures are only designed to be held in Kryb’s clawed hands (they fit all but the left hand that has the power ring molded on it) or in her back cage. These accessory baby figures do not have anywhere near the same depth and shading as Kryb does, making them less wonderful accent pieces than they could have been.
Playability
The DC Direct figures were designed more for display than play. Kryb is cool for play (though it’s hard to imagine anyone where this would be age-appropriate to play with) and she looks great as a display piece, provided she is in the right pose. Unfortunately, because Kryb has a hinge joint in her groin socket, she can only stand flatfooted in a very specific foot and hunched over top-half pose. While that fits the character, the arm articulation (which is pretty good) is somewhat compromised because the wilder the arm poses, the more the figure tips!
Kryb comes with eleven points of articulation, which is fairly good, even by today's standards. Kryb has joints at the groin socket, shoulders and wrists (all four of each!) and head. The shoulders and head are proper ball and socket joints, while the groin socket is a hinge joint and the wrists are simple swivel joints.
Additionally, Kryb features the menacing back cage to hold children! The baby mini-figures fit (at least one at a time) into the back cage, which may be easily popped off the figure. The back cage is made of a slightly softer plastic, so it easily fits on and off the figure.
Collectibility
Kryb is part of the DC Direct Blackest Night Series 2 line which was fairly rare and usually only distributed through comic book shops. Kryb is one of two colorful characters in the assortment, which is dominated by obscure characters. Kryb sold out fast and has never been so prevalent in the market as to devalue. The Kryb figure is unique to this series and is of the same stature of characters like the Orange Lantern Larfleeze or the Red Lantern Atrocitus and has consistently drawn some of the highest prices of the toy line. Kryb is likely to, at the very least, maintain its collector’s price for years to come.
Overview
Kryb is one of the best DC Universe figures and for anyone who loves the Green Lantern section of the DC Universe, she is essential for balancing out one’s collection of heroes and villains!
For other Blackest Night figures, please check out my reviews of:
Limited Edition Boxed Set
Wave 8 Black Lantern Black Flash
Wave 8 Indigo Tribe The Atom
Wave 8 Orange Lantern Lex Luthor
Wave 7 Arkillo
Wave 7 Red Lantern Mera
Wave 6 Blue Lantern The Flash
Wave 6 Star Sapphire Wonder Woman
Wave 5 Black Lantern Deadman
Wave 5 Nekron
Wave 3 Star Sapphire
Wave 2 Indigo-1
Wave 1 Boodikka
Wave 1 Saint Walker
Wave 1 Atrocitus
8.5/10
For other toy reviews, please check out my Toy Review Index Page!
© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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