Writer – Mary Jo Duffy
Artist – Ricardo Villamonte
Inker – Dave Simons
Colours – Andy Yanchus
Letters – Janice Chiang

The fifth issue of this series is a bit of a strange beast as it came out during Assistant Editor’s Month, that famous Marvel non-event where pretty much anything went in most of the books released at the time. Of course it was to be expected then, that the editors would appear in this book and have interactions with Crystar. For at least the first third of the book, it is sheer ridiculousness until the story finally gets going and becomes a little more serious. It is not completely as such, as it still retains a bit of humour but at least the book does manage to further the main plot of the series a bit. The story finds Ika, the daughter of Ogeode, trying to do a good thing for Crystar and company by trying to get rid of Moltar and his subjects. She does not mean to kill them, only to remove them from anywhere near where Crystar might be so that he can stop worrying about his brother and instead, focus on more important things. Ika’s good intentions backfire though as she does not possess enough magic to do what she wants and so Moltar’s kingdom does not go as far away as planned, but is transported right outside the door of the Crystal Palace. It causes the peace talks between Moltar and Crystar that are taking place to become a little complicated to say the least. Things are soon put right and overall, it turned out to be a pretty interesting story, if a little silly at times. Thankfully, Assistant Editor’s Month was only a one-time thing.

3 out of 5