Since not everyone is on facebook, or for those that are but are not in the GI JOE Discussion group, I'll post this here.

About a week before Joe Con in Dallas, while finishing up the prep for the Joe Declassified panel, we decided to do some last minute digging for anything that might enhance our panel beyond what we already had to show and discuss at said panel.

An anonymous source (to our absolutely massive surprise) provided us with images of a carded, full production-level Breaker and a carded, full production-level (meaning plastic, NOT hand painted or anything) Zap. Except both had completely different head sculpts. The Breaker had no facial hair. The Zap had a mustache. Thus, both of these amazing samples matched their card art and comic book essence unlike their 1982 released action figure incarnations.

Our immediate theory, having seen these images, was that in 1981, all of the original 13 GI JOE figures were supposed to have their own unique head sculpts. So nothing reused. Thirteen individual sculpts.

So we had this theory. And we were able to confirm our theory via multiple former Hasbro employees who worked on the line in 1980, '81, '82 etc. As it turns out, we were right. All 13 figures were going to have their own unique heads.

Okay so we did the panel and we had the images of the Breaker and Zap and we said at our panel that we still didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle and we'd keep on digging (and we have been). Well, a few days ago, I was contacted by a collector named Jonathan Robinson who sent me some images of something he had found and asked me if I knew what it was. It seems Mr. Robinson had stumbled upon a carded Breaker sample with the unreleased head which is now in his possession. I told him what it was and we are going to do a podcast with him in a few weeks about the Breaker and this subject. But for now, for those of you that haven't seen it yet, here are images of Jonathan's Breaker.

Photos courtesy of and from the collection of: Jonathan Robinson.

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The sample is a 1983 version, though. If they were to have unique heads, wouldn't that have been planned for 1982 before being changed. Or was the idea to give them individual heads when they retrofitted the 13 with swivel arm battle grip, etc?

I'm glad you asked. I was going to mention this in my first post but it's more fun when someone asks heheh.

Okay so as 1983-'84 was coming around, they were deviating from the green-uniform-look. But these heads were already sculpted. So from what we can gather, they put the heads into production so that they could put the unused heads out in the 1983/1984 line. The assumption is that either marketing thought it would be too confusing after the initial success of the 1982 line OR possibly they just decided against the sculpts a second time for any number of reasons.

Now, the rest of this part of the story takes place a few years ago. Just before the convention in New Orleans, I had stumbled upon 3 2up heads. The 2up head for the bearded Breaker/Rock'N'Roll sculpt. An unknown 2up head. And the 2up head for Thunder. Except all of these were sculpted in 1981. Meaning that Thunder (a 1984 release) was sculpted in 1981 for the 1982 line. After showing the Thunder sculpt around, another collector came forward with a Thunder 2up head with a molded on helmet that he had found along with some other 1981 and 1982 heads.

So, Thunder made it into the 1984 line and so the Zap and Breaker heads were also lined up for later release it seems in 1983 etc.

We haven't found out why they didn't come to pass. But we have confirmed that they are earlier sculpts despite being on newer bodies and in newer packaging.

So it could be assumed that some other '83-'84 heads are actually heads from 1981 intended for the 1982 line.
For example we think Doc is Short-Fuze.

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This is beyond amazing. Thanks to everyone for sharing this info.

It's amazing that after all these years there are still secrets lurking in the shadows of memory about our favorite toy line.

I would love to see the other sculpts.

They could have used that head with a couple of hair color variations very easily.

Hopefully someone will be inspired to actually produce this head for casters.

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Amazing... thanks for sharing this, it's really fun to learn about.

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Gyre you have a pic of that Zap you could throw up here as well please?

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The conditions of permission to use the Zap image for our panel was that we not share it anywhere on line. But that doesn't mean we won't eventually be able to.

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kewl.. no prob.. never hurts to ask..

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Amazing that something like this can emerge after all these years. Pretty cool sculpt too. Wish we could see the Zap one. Never understood why people who have these ultra rare items are always so secretive about them.

Thank you for sharing Gyre and Mr. Robinson.

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This is really cool. Thanks for sharing all of this info.

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I have my fingers crossed that this can possibly be done.

I'd also love it if we could get some sort of list on who was intended to be whom. Like who Thunder was supposed to be.

Short Fuze as Doc is a good guess. Heck, maybe Duke really was supposed to be Hawk.

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One theory is Thunder is Clutch (since they are both vehicle drivers). Another is that he is Grand Slam (since they are both listed as artillery).

Duke is NOT part of the equation. I found (but don't own) the original 2up wax head for Duke and it was done after 1982. But that sort of info helps us deduce etc.

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I see Thunder as Steeler more then Clutch. Maybe Grand Slam, though his head fits him not Grunt. I could see Grunt having an alt. head

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