This is one of those evil will triumph while good is in committee things.

The toys came out when I was at that stupid age where I shouldn't play with them, but I know I read Crystar during its brief run; even if I don't think I got the Nightcrawler issue until much later. (Never did get that action figure from Kickstarter, either!) It was never G.I. Joe good, but better than you'd expect. From 1984, the Saga of Crystar, Crystal Warrior #7, "Malachon" Written by Jo Duffy, art by Ricardo Villamonte. And a Michael Golden cover! He covered most of the series, in fact.

The city of Galax already has a civil war going between their two princes--several years before the Spin Doctors song "Two Princes," which was obviously inspired by this--and their respective gangs of crystal and lava guys. But they weren't the only ones with a bone to pick: there was also the barbaric People of the Green Hills, who felt Galax was soft and decadent and deserved to fall. They're dicks, but their leader Malachon, has a spectacular updo. It's straight-up Marge Simpson, he's got an extra two feet of hair going. Huh, this does predate the Simpsons as well...
The crystal side's wizard, Ogeode, has a vision of the hill folk attacking the city; which particularly motivates Kalibar: his non-crystalized wife and kids still lived there. Malachon and his men are turned back quickly, but they would soon be recruited by the Chaos wizard Zardeth and turned into Malachite men! Presumably, if the toy line had sold at all, this would've been a way to get green figures out there to fight with your mostly
white and red ones.

Meanwhile, since our heroes did not have a lot of support in their homeland (the regent, half-crystal, half-magma Lord Feldspar, seems to resent both sides equally) they take a little cruise, across the ocean to visit the Council of Order. (The main characters imply sailing was novel to them, yet not particularly interesting! I wonder how well crystal types would swim, either.) While younger than Ogeode, Crystar finds them stuffy, and they would prove to be generally useless and unhelpful. Say what you will about Chaos, it got boots on the ground.