 This show is brought to you in part by E. Thomas Joseph. His book, Winter Eternal Book One, was recently published by Prodigy Gold Books. It's a book I have read and enjoyed, and I think you would enjoy it too. The story is set in the American Revolution. The writing is smart, it's exciting, and it is rich in history. It has elements that I think would appeal to fans of G.I. Joe. Just a quick review of the book. The book comes with no accessories. It has the standard articulation for a book bound on one side with pages that turn individually. The pages all have words printed on them, even really big words. So it's very heavy. You guys know I wouldn't feature something that I didn't truly and honestly enjoy, and I really did enjoy this book. And I think you would too. You can pick up a copy on Amazon in the link in the description of this video. Hello everyone. Now that Cobra Convergence is over, it's time to move on from Cobra, but I'm not quite ready to look at G.I. Joe yet. So we're going to look at a non-Cobra enemy character from the Drug Elimination Force subset. Admittedly, I'm kind of doubling up here. One of our Cobra Convergence creators, My Side of the Laundry Room, reviewed this figure in July. I encourage you to watch their video. It was really well done, well researched, and I enjoyed it very much. I don't know that I can provide more information than they did. They did an excellent job, but I'll try to give my perspective. And we have even more than that to do in this video, so stick around. And here it's time for another Vintage G.I. Joe Toyer review, but before we start that, I get to welcome a new patron, and I need to give him a codename. Dennis Peterson, welcome to the 788 Army. Dennis specifically requested a Crimson Guard-like codename, such as Fred 7. I think I can accommodate that. After thinking about it, I've decided that Dennis's codename will be Frederick VIII. Wrote a song about it, lack to hear it, here it goes. I'm Frederick VIII, I am. Frederick VIII, I revive her next door. She's been assigned seven times before, and everyone will know. No, sir, I'm a Wraith Crimson Guard. I'm Frederick. Frederick VIII, I am. Second verse, same as the first. And stop. Thank you, Dennis, who shall forever be known as Frederick VIII. As much as I love the Crimson Guard, this video is not about the Crimson Guard, it's about Headman, from the Drug Elimination Force subset. And yes, this is from the 90s. We spent some wonderful weeks in the 80s, but it is high time we got back to the 90s. This is our first foray into DEF, so let's take a look at it. HCC788 presents Headman. This is Headman, the drug kingpin from 1992. This figure was only available in 1992. Early G.I. Joe action figures were usually available for two years, except a few that were available for longer. In the 90s, they started cycling through new product every year. This is the only version of Headman introduced in the vintage era, though there was a 2002 release that was even Pimper. I don't know if Pimper is a word. It was more Pimp. Headman was in the DEF subset. DEF stood for Drug Elimination Force. It was a sub-team within G.I. Joe tasked with fighting drug dealers. Some of the figures in DEF were actually pretty cool. There was plenty of silliness, but there were a few high points. DEF consisted mostly of new versions of old characters, Cutter, Mutt, and Shockwave. It had a new character, the leader, Bulletproof. DEF was similar to Eco Warriors, in that it addressed a social problem that was in the media at the time. The subsets of G.I. Joe were the equivalent of after-school PSAs. They were well-meaning, but naive attempts to address social issues. On principle, I don't have a problem with this kind of thing. If toys or children's entertainment can address a real-life issue, it could do a lot of good. Unfortunately, they are usually terrible and ineffective. It doesn't help that their motivation is so obvious. Nobody likes to be preached at. Of course, DEF needed a villain to fight, and that was Headman, the drug kingpin. And Headman had some minions to command the Headhunters. Hold on a minute. Look at that. That is a really cool action figure. That is just awesome. Even the accessories are pretty cool. Check out that shotgun. All that black. That's amazing. I'm sorry, we're not looking at Headhunters this time. We are looking at Headman. Nope. We're looking at Headman. Headman is unique in the pantheon of G.I. Joe villains in that he is truly independent. G.I. Joe fought a number of villains that were not directly related to Cobra, but most of them were at least connected to Cobra in some way, or they were agents of a foreign government like the October Guard. In 1988, Destro, who had been introduced as Cobra's weapons supplier, declared his independence from Cobra and formed the Iron Grenadiers. That independence was short-lived, though, since Destro eventually reunited with Cobra. Another semi-independent faction was Zartan and his motorcycle gang, the Dreadknocks, but they worked with Cobra all the time. They were treated like Cobra agents, and they even had Cobra emblems on their vehicles. Perhaps the closest equivalent would be Cesspool from the 1991 eco-warriors subset. He was a corrupt corporate executive involved in organized crime, but he was still associated with Cobra, so not completely independent. Let's take a look at Headman's accessories, and for a 1992 figure, he didn't come with very many. On the one hand, that's a relief, because those 90s figures tended to come with a lot of accessories, and I would prefer to have fewer accessories that make sense for the character. On the other hand, though, the accessories he came with didn't necessarily make sense for the character. He came with a rifle in gold plastic, and as with all these gold accessories, you do have to worry about gold plastic syndrome. This gold plastic can become extremely brittle over time. These particular accessories seem to have held up pretty well. This sort of looks like a bullpup rifle, where the action is behind the grip instead of in front of it, but it doesn't have a magazine. Also, it kind of doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There's a hole right there in the middle of the rifle there, just on the foregrip, and that seems like that's where the barrel would be, so there's like a hole in the rifle right in the middle of the barrel. You might think that this thing up here on top is supposed to be the barrel, but that's just some kind of rail or something. There's even a screw right on there, so this is supposed to be of the barrel and there's a hole in it. This rifle has a small scope, and hey, look at that. It has a little smiley face. Now we get to the big gun. This was a staple in the 90s, a spring-loaded missile launcher with a big gatling gun molded on the top. It is in red, translucent plastic. It has a fixed, non-movable bipod in the front and a fixed single foot in the back. In addition to the spring-loaded missile feature, this also has an electronic feature. If you push the trigger down, it will light up on the barrel, so you can pretend that he's firing that gatling gun and I guess the barrel sort of lights up. And that's alright, I guess. It's powered by a couple watch batteries, which you can replace if they wear down. You just have to remove these screws, take the gun apart and replace those batteries. Those are readily available at most stores. The black trigger in the back, which activates the light and the spring-loaded missile, is the only moving part on this, so let's go ahead and look at that missile launching feature. Headman came with a single gold missile. You place the missile into the launcher with the notch side up. Press it back until it clicks into place. And we will use our favorite target Dr. Meinbender from 1993. To fire the missile, you just press down on the trigger. And let's see if we can hit Dr. Meinbender. I know fans from the 90s liked these spring-loaded missile launchers. They were fairly popular. I never needed this kind of accessory though. It's just a bit gimmicky to me. Also, I don't think a character like Headman would be carrying something like this around. His final accessory was a black figure stand that was pretty standard for 90s figures and a really good thing actually. This is one thing I do like about 90s figures. They came with figure stands and the 80s figures did not. And that's it for accessories. And I have to say, I don't think any of these accessories fit with Headman. For a character like this, the accessory I want to see him with is a pistol. Yes, just a pistol. With the accessories out of the way, let's take a look at the articulation for Headman. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures at the time. So he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. Not very much, not a great range of motion on that. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside that allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt, designing color of Headman starting with his head. And oh my goodness, this head is just so extra. On his head, he has everything. He has absolutely everything on his head. He has a black wide brim fedora hat. He has a black domino mask with his eyes painted in. The details described so far are identical to the Hamburglar from McDonald's. This domino mask, which is very cartoonish, was changed in the cartoon to sunglasses, which makes a lot more sense. Why is he wearing this? Who does he think he's fooling? Let's keep going. We're not done. He has a black moustache and a sole patch. He has a blonde ponytail in the back of his head. And around his neck, he has a white collar and a gold button right there in the center of his neck. This head just has too many elements. In GI Joe, we've had guys with hats. We've had guys with ponytails. We've even had guys with domino masks. Combining two of those elements would probably feel excessive. Having all three on one head is just way too much. You know a figure with a much cooler head is the headhunters. I mean, look at that. You really got something there. Alright, that was just the head. Let's move on to the chest. The chest has a black double breasted suit jacket. It has a white shirt under that, and that white shirt continues up to the neck. On the jacket, he has gold vertical stripes, supposed to be pin stripes, and gold buttons in front. There is a fair amount of detail on this chest. There's even a pocket square there. But this type of figure with this articulation doesn't make it easy to give him something like a suit jacket. It just doesn't fit with an O-ring figure very well, and some sacrifices are made for the articulation. This is actually something I think modern figures do better than O-ring figures. Trying to do an O-ring figure in a suit usually just doesn't look right. This gold metallic paint on all G.I. Joe action figures, including this one, is not very robust and will wear away fairly easily. I have another headman that has a lot of those stripes worn away, and the gold on the buttons is completely worn away. The arms are a continuation of that black suit jacket. He has some vertical painted gold stripes, top to bottom, a little faded on this figure, which is to be expected. He has bare hands with a Caucasian flesh tone. The waist piece continues that black and gold pinstripes suit jacket, and here's where the articulation really screws with this design. The O-ring figures, the articulation on them, kind of assume there will be some kind of detail on the hips or around the waist that will hide that articulation point, something like a belt. But the suit jacket covers that, and so at that articulation point on the waist, it just ends up looking kind of odd. His legs are just black with very little detail, just black suit trousers, and there's basically no detail until you get to the shoes. First of all, he's wearing spats, which is hilarious. Then he has gold tipped and gold heeled shoes. Before we move on, let's just take one more look at headman in all his glory. He is just a classic cartoon villain. Even though his colors are kind of subdued and he's basically just a black figure, he still finds a way to be over the top and absurd. Drug dealers were classic villains in the 80s and 90s. They showed up in probably every movie and TV show. It was easy to make them villains, so I guess some imagination went into this figure, but it's kind of a caricature of what people at the time thought a cartoon drug dealer villain might look like. Man, that's a mighty fine action figure. Okay, now let's look at the card back for headman. I have the full card back, which is nice, so we can see how this figure was marketed. The big GI Joe logo up here on the top and the card art for headman. This was the 90s, so the classic explosion back cards were long gone. Instead, in the 90s we had a variety of different backgrounds. In this case we have some purple stripes and I have to say that is much less exciting than an explosion background. Let's take a look at that card art and see how villainous the headman is. And we can see that he's got like pock marks on his face and he's drooling. This guy is just a beast. Although those details didn't really make it to the figure. They didn't sculpt all that scarring on the figure that they had on the card art. On the flip side of the card we have the cross sell with the other DEF figures that were available and a few of the figures in the main GI Joe line here. Then we have the file card with a purple background. Then we have this section here, which some people may consider to be a part of the file card. I do not. And this is just your basic PSA. Don't do drugs, tell your friends and call the cops if you see any. Let's look at that file card with the purple background. Purple is not the best, but there are worse. Some of these 90s file cards had like bright neon colors in the background and those hurt my eyes. Purple is alright I guess. We have a portrait of headman here from the front card artwork. Codename is headman, he's the drug kingpin. It has a quote here presumably from headman himself. It says, I am above the law. I rule this block. I rule this city. Which city? It doesn't say specifically which city. This guy rules Gary Indiana. So if you're in Gary Indiana watch out for this guy. This paragraph says the headman started out mugging old ladies for their social security checks, moved on to robbing convenience stores, then learned the ropes about drug dealing while serving time in the state penitentiary. A hardened criminal if there ever was one, headman wouldn't think twice about annihilating anyone or anything who gets in his way. Nothing is sacred to him. Honestly, that's a pretty realistic backstory. This kind of thing does happen in real life. I could totally believe that. He goes on to say, a truly evil villain with a fixation on order and control, that he created a drug empire based on paramilitary standards with strict discipline and a rigid chain of command. Which I guess is why he has uniformed foot soldiers with these sweet, sweet uniforms. The result was an organization that quickly devoured the competition and now threatens to spread its addictive poison throughout the entire world. You know, I ridicule these 90s file cards a lot. And they deserve it. But this one in particular isn't too bad. It really does try to give a realistic backstory to kind of a ridiculous figure. It's got a numbered list of features on the figure and accessories and I don't normally read these, but in this case I'm going to because it's just too hilarious. You have to see what they named some of these things. He has a continuous fire mega blast combat rifle. He has an ominous steel mask of obscurity. That's hilarious. He has poison tipped steel-toed boots. They're poison tipped drug battle scars. Drug battle scars. That's what these these pock marks on his face are. That's not acne guys. That is drug battle scars. He got in a battle with drugs and it looks like the drugs won. He has a gangster dress hat, which I guess he got at the gangster clothing store. You know, your regular gangster habitash or he will have that gangster dress hat. He has double breasted blazer with reinforced protective lining. So I guess his suit is bulletproof. Why not? He has a cufflink communicator slash transmitter. So he's on par with Dick Tracy. He has high-tech wipeout missile and a sophisticated armaments launcher system. Make sure to let you know it's sophisticated. It's not your lowbrow armaments launcher system. They had a fairly reasonable file card, but then they gave the features and the accessories some of the silliest names I've ever seen on one of these things. Let's take a look at headman's media appearances and he does have media appearances in both the animated series and the comic book, and he was not so in both. In the dick animated series, Falcon on the G.I. Joe team gets addicted to the drugs that headman is selling and he gets kicked off the team by his half-brother Duke. Then a Cobra crimson guard immortal also has a family member that gets addicted to those drugs. So since these drugs are now a problem for both G.I. Joe and Cobra, G.I. Joe and Cobra combine forces to fight against the headman. That's right, drugs are so bad that both G.I. Joe and Cobra will join together to fight against them. Because drugs are bad, okay? This story in the dick series was a two-parter. It covered two episodes titled The Greatest Evil Parts 1 and 2, and those episodes were advertisements for the toys, of course, but also anti-drug PSAs with toll-free hotline phone numbers at the end of each episode. That story culminates in a battle at headman's mountain headquarters. Yeah, that's weird. Anyway, he has a bunch of drug money there and Cobra wants to get it. And at the end of part two, headman dies. He becomes a victim of his own drugs and then they collapse a mountain on him. Hey, if you're gonna deal drugs, this is the fate you should expect. Drugs are so bad that the drug dealer is one of the rare characters they actually killed in the cartoon series. In the comic book series, headman and the DEF had a storyline that coincided with the appearance of eco-warriors. I think Larry Hama was just trying to get both of those stories out of the way at the same time. Headman appears on the last page of issue number 123, where he's moving his drug operation into the Cobra-controlled town of Broca Beach. DEF was introduced in the next issue, number 124, and in that issue, Larry Hama, the writer, used a unique storytelling method. On most of the pages, the page was divided into three sections with one panel following the DEF storyline, the next panel following the eco-warriors storyline, and the last panel following a Ninja Force storyline. All three storylines ran through the entire issue simultaneously, which was a valiant attempt to make that issue interesting and unique, but was awfully confusing for the reader. The DEF storyline continues into the next issue, number 125, and in that issue, instead of splitting the pages into three sections and following three different storylines, it just splits the pages into two sections and follows the DEF and eco-warrior stories, but it's still pretty confusing to read. These three issues that contain the DEF storyline are awful. I don't know what else to say about them. I have a hard time finding anything good to say about them at all. They interfere with the ongoing storyline in the G.I. Joe comic book. They're not written well. They're not drawn well. There are no lessons learned. The kid who has both of his parents killed by drug dealers just sells a Cobra assault rifle to buy more drugs. Nothing is gained. The best thing about that storyline is that it ended so we could get on with the ongoing story in the G.I. Joe comic book. I'm not the only one that thinks so. In Larry Hama's interview with Toy Fair Magazine in 1998, he lists DEF as his least favorite characters and he has a quote. He says, I couldn't fit them into the fantasy. It just bugged the hell out of me. I don't remember their names. I blocked them out entirely. Looking at head men overall, man, I do not like this figure. I'm sorry, I know a lot of you guys out there like it, but this figure does not do anything for me, except maybe make me laugh at it. That head with the hat and the thing and the ponytail, it's just too much. The sculpting is probably as good as it could be for this type of figure. I mean, you have an O-ring figure wearing a suit and that may not be possible to do very well on an O-ring figure. With the waist cut where it is, it just doesn't look right having a suit on a figure. Also, it comes across as being maybe a little too plain. I know it's a suit and so it wouldn't normally have a lot of detail, but it maybe needed something a little extra. It does have the gold pinstripes, but I don't think that does enough to help the figure. I don't like any of the accessories. The rifle, the missile launcher, none of it. Except for the figure stand. Yes, I like the figure stand. Some of the figures in DEF are actually pretty cool, but I think one of the reasons DEF doesn't resonate with me is that it comes off as an after-school PSA and those are almost universally bad. I feel like I should borrow Linkara's PSA Hell Bumper for this. Nobody seems to know how to talk to kids about something important like drugs without coming across as insincere or patronizing. If an anti-drug message like the one they gave us through DEF doesn't work, well, what does work? I suppose there's no one answer. People from different backgrounds will respond to different messages. I suppose I can tell you what worked for me, though. It's not a message that would get through to everyone, but it certainly opened my eyes. I've got to take you somewhere. Come with me. Alright, I've got to remember where it is. I always get lost here. All the trees look the same. It's easy to lose where you're going. I have a general idea of where it is, every time I come here, I always have to search and find it again. I mean, is it by that tree? Or that tree? All the trees look the same. That's it, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, there he is. There he is. Alright, well, the sun came out just as I was about to shoot here, but I wanted to introduce you to somebody. I wanted to introduce you to my friend Davey. Davey I knew for a lot of years. He was younger than me, but we got along so well. He just had a great sense of humor, a great person to be around. He was one of those people just, he loved life, he loved people, he loved to be around people, and he's one of those people that just kind of brightened the room every time he would show up. So Davey and I were close. In fact, he was one of those people that I just kind of assumed that I would know him my whole life. And he was one of those people that I would assume that when I'm old and in the nursing home, he'll be right there with me and we'll be cracking jokes and talking about all the fun times we had in our younger years. That was Davey. He just seemed like somebody who'd always be around. He was interested in meteorology. That's what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to college and study meteorology. It's just one of those things that interested him. But at some point he found some new friends. Some new friends that introduced him to drugs. And Davey being the type of person that he was, you know, he found something that he enjoyed and when he found something that he enjoyed, he didn't hold back. He just jumped in with both feet. But, you know, he did that for a while and he gained some experience and he felt like, you know, he could do that safely. He could party and it would be alright. And so he thought that, but he was wrong. A few days before his 18th birthday, he died of a drug overdose at a party with his new friend. And so that was a surprise and a shock to those of us who had known him for years and years and who had cared about him so much. So instead of going to college and studying meteorology and, you know, having a rich, full and happy life, he came here. And so my friend is here and I won't see him again. And that's something that still affects me to this day. It's still something that I struggle to accept in my life. So don't use drugs, kids.