 This is Duke, G.I. Joe's first sergeant from 1983. The figure was first introduced in 1983 as a mail away exclusive offer. Duke was released carded in 1984. He was also available carded in 1985 and was discontinued for 1986. He was later available through the mail again from Hasbro Direct. In 1983, order forms for Duke were included with boxed vehicles. To order him, you had to turn in 7 flag points and $1. There are some variations between the mail away release and the carded release. This is the first version of Duke, but there were many versions released throughout the vintage era. Version 2 of Duke was released in 1988 as part of Tiger Force. It used almost the same mold as version 1, but with some updated parts. He had all new colors, including a new hair color. Version 3 was introduced in 1992. He was blonde again, with a red and tan desert camouflage uniform. This is not a bad version. Version 4 was released in 1993 as part of Battlecore. It has a more realistic desert camouflage and a non-removable helmet. Version 5 was also released in 1993 as part of Star Brigade. That was the same year as the realistic looking Battlecore figure. This was an armor tech figure, and he had a missile launcher for an arm. That's insane. Version 6 was released in 1994. It was also a Star Brigade figure, but it was not an armor tech figure. It was a normal O-ring action figure, but it was another space figure. Most figures of Duke emphasized his gritty military background until someone in the 90s decided to send him to space. I imagine Duke as always having his boots on the ground. In all forms of G.I. Joe media, since the character was introduced, Duke has had a leadership role on the team. He was the ultimate leader of G.I. Joe when he appeared in the animated series. Later in the series, it was explicitly stated he was second in command behind Hawk. In the comic book series, he became the field commander. For fans of the animated series, Duke was the first leader of G.I. Joe. In the animated series, the command hierarchy started with Hawk at the top, followed by Duke, then Flint, then Beachhead. For fans of the comic book series, Hawk was the first leader of G.I. Joe, and Duke showed up abruptly and was given leadership responsibilities. How you feel about Duke probably depends on whether you primarily followed the cartoon or the comic book series. Duke was designed by Ron Rudat for Hasbro. Ron was tasked with creating a heroic character. Let's take a look at Duke's accessories, starting with his submachine gun. This submachine gun is referred to as the M32 submachine gun. It is in light green plastic. This is a copy of the submachine gun that was included with 1982 and 1983 Stalker. When Stalker had this submachine gun, it was called the M32 Pulverizer submachine gun. This weapon is loosely based on the Heckler and Koch MP5. There's a color variation on this accessory. Some of them had a slightly darker green and others had a more pale green. I'm not sure the difference is showing up on camera very well, but this one is a very slightly darker shade of green than the other one. This isn't the accessory that was originally intended for Duke. He was going to have a copy of the XMLR3A laser rifle that came with 1983 Snowjob. Ron Rudat even taped the Snowjob rifle to the final design drawing for reference. In the card art, Duke is holding the XMLR3A. At some point in the production process, they gave him Stalker's gun instead. Now let's look at Duke's helmet. This helmet is in light green plastic. It's very much like the standard GI Joe helmet that was issued with a lot of 1982 and 83 figures. The helmet color should pretty closely match the color of the submachine gun. There is a color variation on this helmet. Like with the submachine gun, some were in a darker green, while others were in a more pale green. There is another variation of this helmet. Early male away figures had helmets that did not have holes on the sides. The retail release and later male away figures had helmets that did have holes on the side. The only other figure that had this light green helmet without holes on the side was 1984 Roadblock. Next we look at Duke's binoculars. The binoculars are in black plastic. They have a strap that goes around the figure's neck. There's a bend at the top of the strap so it will rest more closely at his chest. Though not perfectly, it still sticks out a bit. The binoculars will fit in the figure's hand if you put his hand on this thin part of this bend in the binocular lens. And he can hold the binoculars to his eyes, which looks pretty cool. But because he has that stiff black strap, the strap kind of sticks out behind his head. Now let's turn to Duke's backpack. This backpack is in a light tan color. It has some nice details. It has a bed roll and an entrenching tool and some pouches. This is a copy of the backpack that was first included with 1983 Airborne and it's in almost the same color. Airborne's backpack should more closely match the plastic color on the figure and Duke's backpack should match the plastic color on that figure. The problem with color matching is that both these figures and the backpacks have a tendency to discolor over time, so the color matching may not be perfect. There is a molding difference between the Airborne and the Duke backpacks though. The Airborne backpack has crossed support ribs on the inside and the Duke backpack does not. I guess this backpack clips onto his bandolier because Duke doesn't have any other load bearing equipment. The final accessory is the flag sticker. It's an American flag sticker that fits on his right arm. It was only included with the male away version. It was not with the carded release. This is a very difficult accessory to find. Many collectors will consider the figure to be complete without it. The figure didn't include instructions on where to place the sticker and some fans said they placed it elsewhere, like on the backpack. In the artwork on the male away form, you can see part of the flag on the right arm, but it's partially obscured by shadow. It's more clearly seen in the 1984 card art. I like the flag. It gives a little splash of color to the figure. It's an extra point to the flag. That's one flag point. That's a lot of accessories, but only the binoculars and the flag sticker are original. The rest are borrowed from other figures. Let's take a look at Duke's articulation. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures in 1983, meaning he could turn his head from left to right. He could not look up and down. He did not have a ball joint neck. The ball joint neck was not introduced until 1985. 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. This was an O-ring figure, meaning 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 look at the sculpt design and color of Duke. Only two parts on this figure are original. All other parts are reused from other action figures. Looking at Duke's head, he has blonde hair. He has brown eyebrows and eyes. He has a grinning face with white painted teeth. There is a variation on this head. The earliest male-away heads had the hair sculpted with less detail. The later figures, and possibly only the carded figures, I wasn't able to verify that, but later Duke figures had a head with more detailed hair. You can see more lines sculpted into the head for the hair. The head is otherwise the same. The head is a unique part. It was not used on any earlier action figure. The figure is sculpted with an expressive face. He is grinning. The teeth are painted white. I'm glad they added that painted detail. On the version 2 Duke figure, the teeth were unpainted. I prefer a neutral expression. When playing with the figure, I would put him in situations where he would not be smiling. On his chest, he has a khaki shirt. He has a green undershirt with a collar. It's a little odd that he would have two collared shirts. He has gold jump wings on the right side of his shirt. He has a green bandolier that runs from his left shoulder down to his right side. The bandolier has a buckle, a couple of pouches, and a grenade. He has two unpainted pockets on the front of his shirt. That green bandolier detail does not continue to the back. It just disappears at his shoulder. This back piece is not a unique part. It was reused from 1983 Doc, and it's almost in exactly the same color. I've noticed a paint color variation for the green paint on Duke's chest. This variation is not included on Yojo.com, but I've noticed this difference on several Duke chests. The green paint on this figure is a bit darker than the green paint on the other figure, and that difference can be seen in some other Duke chests that I have. These are all the Duke chests that I have. I have the two intact figures, and I have three from spare parts, and you can see the color difference in the paint. The green paint on these three is darker, and on these two, the green paint is a little bit lighter. This Duke torso was reused on several action figures, including some versions of 1987 Starduster and some versions of 1987 Steel Brigade, including the exceptionally rare Steel Brigade version 2. On his arms he has long khaki sleeves that are rolled up to the forearms. He has bare hands, no watch, no gloves, anything like that. The male away figure had the flag sticker which you could place on the right arm. The card art shows it on the right arm, so that seems to be the right place to put it. These arms are reused from 1983 Doc. They changed the skin color, they removed the orange cross on Doc's arm, but the shirt color is almost exactly the same. There is a rare variant of Duke that does not use the Doc arms. It has cuffed sleeves, similar to the 1983 reissues of the 1982 figures. The waist piece is unpainted, it is in light green. It has a belt with some detail, a couple pouches. There are pockets in the back. This is another reuse of a part from 1983 Doc, just recolored. Doc at least had painted details on the belt, so this reuse of parts loses a paint application. The legs are light green, the same color as the waist piece. They are mostly pretty plain, but there are some details. There is a black pistol in an unpainted holster on the right leg, an unpainted strap that goes around the right leg. He has brown boots and he has a knife on the left boot. The upper legs are reused from the 1983 Major Blood figure. You can see that's the same pistol on the right leg, though the paint applications are a bit different. The lower legs are reused from 1983 Gung Ho. You can see he has the same boots and the same knife on the left side. It's impressive how an iconic figure was created using only two original parts. There's a downside to this approach. The chest and back piece don't exactly match up with the bandolier disappearing on the back rather than continuing as it should. That's my biggest knock on this figure. It seems Duke was intended to be released in 1984. The pre-production design drawings of the figure have a 1984 date, but the figure was issued as a mail away in 1983. Was Duke a rush job? Is that why so many of his parts come from other figures? I will caution you if you decide to get this figure. The green plastic on the lower half of the figure tends to be fragile. I see a lot of Duke figures with broken crotches and broken heels, so be cautious with this green plastic. Let's take a look at Duke's file card. There are several variations of this file card and we will look at those. There were also some changes to the text of the file card made in pre-production before the text was finalized for the production release. The file cards received in the mail in 1983 looked like this. With a white border you were supposed to cut the file card out. There was some copyright information in the white border and there was a close-up bust of Duke in the portrait. There are a couple types of card backs on these early mail away cards. Some of the mail away cards had a plain cardboard backing while others had a plain white backing and I have a couple examples of those. I don't know which was the earlier one and which was later. I don't know when they changed it, but there are a couple examples of some different card backs on those early mail ways. The retail card was printed on the back of the card on which the figure was packaged. There's some artwork from the front of the card there. There was also a change to the portrait instead of the close-up bust portrait. The portrait is a bit farther back so we can see more of Duke's torso. As I understand it, the later Hasbro Direct mail away cards had this retail card portrait but had a red backing. There was also a Duke action figure that was sealed with a VHS cassette of the animated series that also had a red backing on it but that one had the figure sealed on the back of the card. His faction of course is G.I. Joe. There's the portrait of Duke. He is the first sergeant. His codename is Duke. His file name is Conrad S. Hauser. On the pre-production prototype file card his name was Carl Hauser. Primary military specialty is airborne infantrymen. Secondary military specialty is artillery and small arms armorer. Birthplace is St. Louis, Missouri and his grade is E8 in parentheses master sergeant. This is a discrepancy. The specialty says first sergeant but the grade says master sergeant. Both the first sergeant and master sergeant are E8 but they are not the same. The first sergeant is generally considered to be higher in authority than a master sergeant. First sergeants are commonly called top sergeant or first shirt and they have a hands-on role in field leadership. The version 2 file card from Tiger Force fixed this problem. It has him as a first sergeant in his stated specialty and a first sergeant in his grade. Problem solved. By 1992 the version 3 file card had him as a master sergeant again but it had him as a master sergeant in both places. However, the text of the file card referred to him as the top kick or the first shirt. That is terminology for a first sergeant. So there's a discrepancy between the pay grade and the text of the card. In 1993 for the version 3 file card they still have him as a master sergeant and there's nothing on here that refers to him as a first sergeant. Even though technically it's a lateral move, a master sergeant is kind of a step down from a first sergeant so this is sort of a demotion. I don't know why it's so hard to get this right. He is either a first sergeant or a master sergeant. Just pick one. He can't be both. The original plan was for Duke to be an officer with the rank of major. This was changed at the behest of Larry Hama who pointed out that the team already had a field grade officer, Hawk, who was younger than Duke. It wouldn't make sense to have Duke come in as a major so he was given an enlisted rank. This paragraph says, Duke was fluent in French, German, and English when he enlisted in 1967, graduated top of his class at Airborne School Fort Benning, opted for US Army Special Language School, specialized in Han Chinese and Southeast Asian dialects, went special forces in 1969, worked with tribesmen in the Boonies of South Vietnam, ran four different special forces school, turned down a commission in 1971, commands by winning respect, current assignment acting first sergeant G.I. Joe team. It says current assignment acting first sergeant so maybe that's the reason for the discrepancy between the grade and the specialty. Maybe he is a master sergeant but acting as first sergeant for the G.I. Joe team. But then why not just make him a first sergeant? This file card portrays Duke as the best at everything. He knows all the languages. He finished top of his class at Airborne School. He didn't just graduate from special forces school. He ran four special forces schools. He's even too tough and gritty to become an officer. This bottom section has a quote from Duke himself. It says, statement after declining commission. They tell me that an officer's job is to impel others to take the risks so that the officer survives to take the blame in the event of total catastrophe. With all due respect, sir, if that's what an officer does, I don't want any part of it. This file card details his training and experience in Vietnam. Unlike other file cards, it mentions Vietnam by name. Duke would be in his mid 30s by the time he joined the G.I. Joe team in 1983. If he enlisted at 18, his birth year would be 1949. In 2020, he would be 71 years old. The pre-production prototype file card had him enlisting in 1960 and went special forces in 1963. At that time, he worked with the Montagnard tribesmen. Montagnard is a French term referring to the people who lived in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. In the early 1960s, they were trained by U.S. special forces. I'm glad they changed it. Having him enlist in 1967 makes him a much more reasonable age for his introduction to the G.I. Joe team.