 Some of you may be wondering why my daughter Audrey isn't in more videos. Well, sometimes she can take things a little too literally. This week we're reviewing headhunters. There can be only one! For Commander 788 here, this is the show where we review every vintage G.I. Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. Before we get started, I have the privilege of giving a code name to another patron, Adam Verwolf. I already call him Adam Airwolf whenever his name comes up, so for his code name, I will refer to him by his full name. Adam Stringfellow Borgnine Airwolf III. Thank you, sir, for your support. This week I'm reviewing a figure that was neither on the G.I. Joe team nor Cobra. At least at first. Drug Elimination Force was introduced in 1992, and it was G.I. Joe's attempt to join the war on drugs. Of course, DEF had to have a villain, the evil drug kingpin called Headman, and his minions, the headhunters. This figure was chosen in a poll on Patreon. I can understand why it was chosen. This figure is somewhat obscure. A lot of fans from the 80s didn't stick around for these 90s subteams. A lot of the figures from that era are less than impressive. This figure, though, is surprisingly cool. It's so cool, I'm going to review two versions of the figure in this video. Please join me as we learn how to say yes to life and no to drugs. HCC788 presents the Headhunters. This is the Headhunter, Headman's narcotics guard, or the Cobra street troopers, depending on which version you have. Version 1 was introduced in 1992 as part of the Drug Elimination Force subset. It was available in 1992 only and was discontinued for 1993. Version 2 was introduced in 1993 as part of Battlecore. There was supposed to be a second year of DEF, but that plan was scrapped. All the planned DEF figures were rolled into the general Battlecore series. Version 2 is very nearly just a variant of the first version. It uses exactly the same mold and has almost exactly the same accessories. But since it has a new card and with the removal of the DEF branding, I think that qualifies it as a unique version. Even though the figure itself didn't change very much. Drug Elimination Force, or DEF, was introduced in 1992. DEF was the faction of GI Joe that was tasked with fighting drug dealers. It was Hasbro's attempt to use a social issue to sell toys. It wasn't their only attempt. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but they tend to do it in a ham-fisted way. The anti-drug message in particular hasn't aged well. DEF introduced a new non-Cobra enemy for GI Joe, the Headhunters, led by the drug kingpin Headman. Headman was the leader, and the Headhunters were his soldiers. Since the Headhunters are undifferentiated soldiers, they are army builders, and they make good army builders. It really looks nice to have a bunch of them on a shelf. Cobra is GI Joe's most significant enemy, but there have been other enemies. Most had some association with Cobra, such as Zartan's dreadlocks, Cobra Law, and Destro's Iron Grenadiers. Headman and his Headhunters, though, were enemies to both GI Joe and Cobra. GI Joe already had a criminal sub-team well before 1992, the Dreadknocks. Maybe the Dreadknocks should have been DEF's enemy instead of the Headhunters. If they had been, maybe we would have gotten updated versions of the original Dreadknocks, Buzzer, Ripper, and Torch. There were only two versions of Headhunters in the vintage era, but in 1993 there was a Headhunters Stormtrooper action figure. Based on the file card, they're supposed to be elite Headhunters. After DEF was discontinued, the relation between Headhunters and Cobra became a bit muddled. Headhunters were the enemy of both GI Joe and Cobra, but in 1993, Headman was gone, and Headhunters then worked for Cobra. How did that happen? Did Cobra take over Headman's crime organization? That's certainly possible, but it isn't explained. In 1993, a new Cobra urban crime commander was introduced, Gristle. If DEF had carried into 1993, Gristle would have been the second in command to Headman. That's how he was used in the animated series. Since there was no DEF in the toy line, I guess he's supposed to be Cobra's leader of the Headhunters. Let's take a look at the card backs for these figures and let's start with the 1992 card. This is the one for the DEF subset. It has the purple laser lines in the background that designated DEF figures. It has his faction as the evil Headhunters. Some decent card art here. It does emphasize that giant missile launcher, but I love the shotgun. That looks great. It's got his codename here, and he is number six in the DEF series. It says electronic battle flash rocket launcher is inside here. So we will look at that, and we have some instructions here on how to use the figure stand, how to holster the shotgun, and how to use the missile launcher. It looks like this figure was $4.99 at Toys R Us, and that was a little more expensive than an average figure. Clipping the card around to the back, we have the cross cell. We have a partition here with the other DEF figures that were available at the time. And then we have these other regular GI Joe figures that were also available. This is a bit different. This was not on every GI Joe card back. This was just on the DEF cards. It says GI Joe is a member of the partnership for a drug free America. Watch the new adventures of GI Joe on TV. We have one flag point here that's a 90s style flag point. Then we have the file card. We will take a much closer look at the file card later. There's also this lower portion that seems to be part of the file card, but it has a line here indicating you're supposed to cut this off separately. Now let's look at the 1993 card. This card does still have the plastic blister attached. The previous owner cut around the blister and took the figure in accessories out. I did not do that. The previous owner did that. The figure is now in Battlecore. This is number 35 in that series. The card no longer says Headman's Narcotic Guard. It now says Cobra Street Troopers. The background has the red laser lines that denotes an enemy figure in Battlecore. We have some card art here and even though the colors on the figure changed, the colors on the artwork did not change. It's exactly the same artwork, exactly the same colors, even though now the figure does not reflect those colors. It's still $4.99 though and I think that's not a good price. I mean it should be less because even though the figure and the accessories are almost the same, the missile launcher has fewer features than the original because the missile launcher does not light up on this one. Rocket Launcher shoots, it says. And here we have the same instructions on the figure stand and the shotgun and the missile launcher. Flipping the card around to the back, we have the cross sell with some other Battlecore figures that were available. We also have an advertisement for a couple of the sub teams, the Mega Marines and Star Brigade Armor Tech. Still one flag point and we have the file card. This time just a regular 90s style file card. We will look at both of these file cards later in this video. Let's look at the accessories for the head hunters. The 1992 and 1993 versions came with almost exactly the same accessories. The shotgun, the backpack and the missiles are identical between the two versions. I'm only going to look at those accessories once. However, the missile launchers are slightly different, so we will need to look at both of those. First, let's look at the shotgun. The shotgun is in black plastic. The file card refers to this as a sawed off double barrel shotgun. I think this looks really great. It's just a really nice looking weapon and an appropriate weapon for head hunters. This will fit in the figure's hand. It will fit in the figure's hand pretty securely. And he looks great with it. I just I love this accessory. I think it's a fantastic shotgun. And what's even cooler about it is it does holster in the backpack. It slides right into the slot in the backpack and that's great. This is a lovely bonus feature. I wish more figures had features like this. Next, let's look at that backpack. The backpack is in black plastic. It has some really nice technical detail on it. The file card for the 1992 figure calls this a portable drug lab backpack with computer readout terminals. It has some buttons and dials. It has some kind of an air canister with a hose. Most importantly, it has the holster for that shotgun. Since this is a portable drug lab, I assume it's used to manufacture the fictional drug Spark as depicted in the animated series. Since all references to drugs were removed from the 1993 card, instead of being a portable drug lab, it's now a portable backpack with computer readout terminals. It's now time to talk about these missile launchers. These missile launchers are always a contentious subject. Some people like them. Some people hate them. They're not my thing, but I understand a lot of fans of GI Joe in the 90s really enjoyed these. It is made of a purple translucent plastic. It has lots of technical detail all over it. It does have a grip and it will fit in the figure's hand. Be careful with that though. This plastic does not have as much give as the plastic on the other accessories. So don't put too much pressure on the figure's thumb because you could break it. This 1992 missile launcher has a bonus feature. It will light up when fired. It has a couple batteries in there and a little light bulb. The missile launcher fires this black missile with kind of a cartoon bomb shape to it. The trigger is in the back and I'm just going to fire this off to the side of the screen just so you can see the light up feature. When you push the trigger down, the barrel will light up and the missile will fire. Without the missile in the barrel, if you push the trigger down, the bulb will still light up. So I guess you can pretend to be firing a machine gun or something like you know something like that. It's not bad. If you like missile launchers, I suppose you probably would like one that lights up. This is the single included missile with the figure. It's in black plastic. It is the same between the two figures. To use it, press it into the barrel of the missile launcher with the notch side down. Press it in until it clicks. To test this missile launcher, let's bring out the dock and see if we can knock him down. Oh no! Run for it Marty! The 1993 missile launcher, as I said, is almost identical to the 1992 missile launcher but instead of being in translucent purple plastic, it is in opaque purple plastic and it does not have the light up feature. It does not have any of the electronics inside. It does work the same though. You just put the missile in and use the trigger in the back to fire. Let's take another shot at dock. Here we go. They found me. I don't know how but they found me. Really strong spring on these things. The final accessory both figures have in common is the black figure stand. I always approve of figure stands and this is a great thing about 90s figures. They came with figure stands. The 90s leaned in heavily on missile launchers. I don't care about them but if you get rid of the missile launchers, the head hunters have awesome and appropriate accessories. Let's look at the articulation for head hunters. They had the standard GI Joe figure articulation meaning they could turn their heads from left to right and look up and down. They could swing their arms up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. They had a hinge at the elbow that allowed them to bend their arms at the elbow about 90 degrees. They had a swivel at the bicep that allowed them to swivel their arms all the way around. These figures were held together with rubber O-rings that looped around the inside. That allowed them to move at the torso a bit. They could move their legs apart about so far. They could bend their legs at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of the head hunters. There's only one significant difference between the 1992 figure and the 93 figure. On the 1992 figure, it had brown paint on the shoulder, hands and legs. On the 1993 figure, they changed all of those brown paint applications to neon green. Of course they did. It was the 90s. Looking at the head, head hunter has a black helmet. It's an unusual shape. It almost looks like a bicycle helmet. He has a gold faceplate that covers his entire face. He has a blue neck covering. The faceplate is reminiscent of Cobra Commander and the Cobra Vipers, but the head is a different shape. The head is more squared off. This gives him a cold, impersonal, intimidating look. On his chest, he has a black jacket that looks like leather. He has gold buttons that run down the front. Although the gold paint is mostly worn away on this figure, you can see them more clearly on the 1993 figure. He has a blue undershirt. And on his right shoulder, he has a brown spiked pauldron. This kind of reminds me of the Desert Stormtroopers from Star Wars. It's hard to see on this figure, but those spikes or studs on the brown pauldron have gold paint on them. He has a couple pips on his collar that should be in gold paint. Again, the gold paint is mostly worn away on this figure. It can be more clearly seen on the 1993 figure. This is an awesome looking torso. It's hard to beat a black leather jacket. The arms feature long black sleeves. The sleeves to that black leather jacket. And he has brown gloves. The arms are kind of plain, but that's okay. They do exactly what they need to do. There's a buckle on the front of that jacket that is in gold paint. You can kind of see the gold paint a little bit, but again, it's much more clear to see on the 93 figure. The 93 figure is different in that the gloves are painted green instead of brown. The waist piece is black. It has a belt. It has a couple belt buckles on it. Those belt buckles are in gold, which again can be seen more easily on the 93 figure. The sculpted details on the waist piece are just a little shallow. And here is where some additional paint applications may have helped. The waist piece between 92 and 93 are almost exactly the same, except on the 1992 figure on the butt, mine says made in China. And on the 93 figure, it says made in Indonesia. I don't normally seek out country of origin stamp variation, so I don't know if there are any made in China 93 figures or not. But if you're interested in that kind of thing, I guess you can be on the lookout for it. The legs are black and they have some really nice details on the right leg, the outside upper leg. It has some buckles sculpted on. And there are some brown straps that go around the upper leg just above the knee on both legs. And they have what looks like knots on the outside of the leg. These look like rawhide leather straps. There's a brown pistol holster on the left leg with a couple brown straps that go around the upper left leg. It's a little odd that they put the pistol holster on the left side, implying headhunter is left-handed. But this is an army builder. It's unlikely that every headhunter would be left-handed. We finish up with some tall brown boots. The boots have buckles on the outside of the boots with gold paint applications on those buckles. It looks great. On the inside left boot, there is a knife with a gold handle. That looks fantastic, really well done. And for some reason, this guy has gold spurs. Again, the only difference on the legs between the two figures is the 93 figure has green paint where the 92 figure had brown. The 1992 figure is amazing. The colors are gorgeous. They are wonderfully subtle and effective. The whole figure is covered from head to toe. You can't see any skin. This guy could be a robot. He has a terminator vibe. Let's take a look at the file cards and let's start with the 1992 card. The 92 card is on a purple background. It's easy enough to read. Let's start by looking at this lower segment. This is not usually considered to be part of the file card. This part was usually discarded. This has an anti-drug message on it. It says the headman has dispatched his headhunters to parks and benches in G.I. Joe military zones. These ruthless henchmen will stop at nothing to distribute their evil narcotics. They're going to be kind of easy for law enforcement to spot. Just look for the drug dealers with the leather uniform and the gold faceplate. Let's look at the file card now. The file card has a close-up portrait and then a copy of the artwork on the front of the card. And it has a numbered list of the features on the figure and the accessories. I did refer to this list when talking about some of the accessories. The code name is headhunters plural. They are headman's narcotics guard. There's a quote here that says, if anyone so much as looks at headman the wrong way, we'll just have to adjust that person's vision by knocking his lights out, literally. Knocking his lights out literally, literally. So you find that person, you go to his house, and you destroy all his lamps? They're headhunters. So shouldn't they take heads, literally? There can be only one. This paragraph of text says the headman recruits his personal bodyguards from the greediest, most ruthless drug dealers and criminals in the world. He offers them a big money stake in his global operation and a chance to live out their meanest fantasies in return for absolute loyalty and obedience. Headhunters are driven orcaholics with evil ambitions. They are willing to undergo constant and rigorous training in advanced weapon systems and fighting styles to further their careers in the headman's organization. This text makes total sense if the headhunters are headman's foot soldiers. Now let's look at the 1993 card and see how they changed it. We still have the close-up portrait and we have the copy of the artwork on the front of the card and we still have the numbered list, which is almost the same, but they did change item number one about the backpack to remove the reference to drugs. Codename is still headhunters, but now they are Cobra's street troopers. The quote is almost the same, but they changed it to remove the reference to headman, now it says if anyone so much as looks at us the wrong way. The paragraph of text is also almost the same, but they removed any references to headman and added references to Cobra. So now they're recruited by Cobra, they get a big money stake in Cobra's global operation, and they are workaholics to further their careers in Cobra's totally illegal and totally ruthless business ventures. It's as if headman never existed. These guys were recruited by Cobra. It doesn't say Cobra took over headman's organization. It sounds like these guys started out in Cobra, which is not possible if the first file card is true. These file cards are contradictory. Looking at how headhunters were used in G.I. Joe Media, they appeared in the Deke era of the animated series in the episodes The Greatest Evil Parts 1 and 2. In those episodes G.I. Joe's Falcon gets addicted to the drugs distributed by headman. The drug is called Spark, and it's a generic stand-in for real narcotics. The sister of a Crimson Guard immortal also gets addicted. This prompts G.I. Joe and Cobra to join forces to fight against headman's drug dealing organization. Even though G.I. Joe and Cobra are working together, they still have different aims. If there's anything worse than international terrorism, it's drug dealing. The headhunters were fierce fighters. They gave both G.I. Joe and Cobra a run for their money. They have no lines in the series, so they're totally silent, which reinforces the robotic aura. The episodes try to follow the typical just-say-no approach to drugs of that time period, but it does have a twist. The moral of the story is that people addicted to drugs need help, not condemnation. The series ends with a rare on-screen death. Headman gets covered with his own potent drug and overdoses and dies. In the G.I. Joe comic book series published by Marvel Comics, they first appeared on the last page of issue number 123. They were miscolored white. In issue number 124, headman's drug operation was raided by DEF. The headhunters fought well. They actually had lines they did speak, which made them a little less intimidating. The story carries over to issue number 125. To my knowledge, the headhunters didn't appear after that. I get the impression Larry Hama, the writer of the comic, didn't enjoy the DEF story and got it out of the way as quickly as possible and never returned to it. Looking at headhunters overall, the 1992 figure is fantastic. Starting with a base black figure is a good foundation. Black doesn't require a lot of painted details. The paint applications are sparse, but they work. The gold face shield, the helmet, the black leather, the studded shoulder guard, they all work together to give this figure a terrifying, dangerous look. There's a mystique about this figure. The headhunters inspire fear. They are the perfect enforcers for the nefarious headman. The 1993 figure unnecessarily changes the leathery brown color to bright green. Why? It doesn't necessarily ruin the figure, but it diminishes the effect. It's just not possible to be as frightened of a guy wearing neon green. The accessories are mostly great. The shotgun is perfect. The backpack provides a holster for the shotgun, which is even better. The missile launcher, whether it lights up or not, is not my thing. Even though the headhunters were used only briefly in the animated and comic book series, their uses were pretty effective for their purpose. The transition of the headhunters from headman in 1992 to cobra in 1993 is unexplained. Honestly, you could just ignore all the changes that were made for version 2. The headhunters were best realized in their original DEF version. That was my review of the headhunters version 1 and 2. Thanks again to Adam Stringfellow, Borg9, Airwolf III for your support, and thanks to my patrons for voting on this review. I want everyone out there to say no to drugs. Except for aspirin and any medication prescribed by your doctor. In fact, really, I'm not qualified to give any medical advice, so say no to drugs that you shouldn't take, and yes to drugs that you should take. See you next week! Thank you for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, I'm making more like it, so please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel, hit the notification bell so you don't miss any future videos, and share this video with your friends. That's what helps this channel grow. You can find me on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, hcc788.com. If you want to know if I've already reviewed a vintage GI Joe item, that's a good place to check. Special thanks to all my supporters on Patreon, including the names you see on the screen now. Support on Patreon helps keep this show going. So if you like this show, and you'd like to support this show in that way, please consider checking out Patreon. You can get some special rewards, including early access to reviews, and you can find out how to decode the secret messages you see in these videos. Thank you for joining me on this adventure of collecting vintage GI Joe toys. I'll see you next time, and until then, remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe. Only one.