1993 Headhunter
An odd phenomena from the end of ARAH was Hasbro’s penchant for slight repaint color variations. Not really new figures, but re-releases with small changes, like different parts and usually a swapped color on a single paint application. Most of the time these weren’t very great recolors, and that’s really the case with this Headhunter. But, it’s a gaudy drug-dealer who wears fluorescent green gloves, so I like him anyway.
I never really wanted this figure when I first got back into vintage collecting, mainly because I saw him as a downgrade to a figure I already had. Why buy fluorescent green Headhunters when you can just army-build the more reasonable looking brown ones? At least, that was what I thought, but I really like the Headhunters faction, so at a certain point I was curious enough just to try one to further expand that group in my collection.
The truth is, it’s a cool and totally reasonable repaint. Generally speaking, the figure is exactly the same as the Headhunter who came out a year prior, it just swaps the brown paint for green. It’s not really any less realistic, and in some ways it adds charm to the figure, turning the Headhunter into a bit more of a showy, gaudy cartel member.
Though, beyond changing one color, the figure really is just the same thing as the standard Headhunter. So, anything else you might think about that mold still applies here, and there’s really no reason to like this figure if you don’t already like the V1 Headhunter. In my collection, this figure is useful for adding some variety to my Headhunter ranks, which is of course acting as an accessory to the original.
The parts make this figure better than the original release, arguably. The dumbest thing about the DEF line was the light-up missile launchers that pushed the price of them up by an absurd amount. This figure has virtually the same parts, just without the light-up gimmick in the launcher. You still get the extremely cool shotgun and backpack that holsters the shotgun, which is the main draw of the figure’s parts. At a time when Hasbro’s creativity was waning, it was nice to see parts that interacted like this.
These are harder to find, and the prices are pretty badly inconsistent on them.Used to, they were very cheap figures, but now they range from $15 all the way up to $30. Amusingly, they even out price a couple of convention Headhunters, which probably exist in far fewer numbers than this figure does. I like this figure, but I’ve gotta say I really don’t understand why it now commends more money than many other rarer and more delicate Headhunter items, including Headman, the Headhunter Stormtrooper, and normal Headhunters. I guess that’s just GI Joe collecting in 2020.
I’ve been shocked by this figure’s prices, too. Way too high for him when you see HHST and ’92 HH figures for much cheaper. But, the 1993 repaints of 1992 figs are among the rarer 1992 releases and I think there’s a panic on neon army building right now that’s driving up prices beyond real demand. We saw the same thing on more classic Cobra army builders in the 2000’s.
I don’t mind this figure. Like you, I enjoy the green. It makes the mold pop more than the brown. I never found this guy at retail. But, pretty much all the Cobras were impossible to find in ’95 and ’96.
It’s funny, the brown Headhunter is probably more realism based, but the neon green is a far more eye-catching figure.
I’d never owned a Headhunter until I picked one up locally for TheDragonFortress, in 2019, or so. So I’ve got a really weird opinion on the figure, because it does look cool, but the fact I’d never seen anything negative about the figure, I probably looked at it with too high of expectations. Still it is a pretty cool figure, just not one I’ll ever go out of my way to seek out.