Breaking through a brand ceiling

It’s not a brand jugalbandi you’d easily conjure up even in one of your magic mushroom moments when you mash up Haldiram’s and Gucci to come up with top-end snack packs. Turns out that Marvel — of the superhero franchise fame, not the Tardeo Road, Mumbai-headquartered manufacturer of stainless steel kitchen products — and DC have teamed up with Swarovski, the Austrian jewellery and glassware company, to bring a range of luxury crystal action hero figures.

Our favourite? The 12.2 cm Hulk, his green bulk and blue, undersized jeans made of green and blue-tinted glass.

Serbian master-cutters have crafted the angriest of superheroes out of 578 cutting-edge facets. Hulk comes for `53,000. Spider-Man, in his trademark red ’n’ blue, is frozen in crystals while shooting his wrist-web through 955 glass facets. Your friendly neighbourhood figure comes at `40,000.

Other marvellous characters who have been frozen include DC ka Jodi No. 1 — Batman and Superman — Gotham’s finest, carved from jet black and grey Swarovski crystals (barring his yellow glass belt and bat symbol), while Clark Kent’s fluid better-half comes in cape red and sharp blue crystals. And, no, Swarovski does not use kryptonite.

Both caped crusaders come at `38,000. When brands like Marvel and DC clash with one like Swarovski, sparks will fly. The crystals only stun.