Friday, June 24, 2016

Rarities - Unproduced 2002 - 2005 New Sculpt Figures

During the Joe Vs. Cobra era from 2002 through 2005, Hasbro tried a lot of things.  The produced hundreds of figures in just a few years.  In the deluge of product they attempted, many concepts failed and were abandoned.  In doing so, several figures were left behind and never got released.

The most prominent example of this was the failed Mission Disk series of figures.  They were single carded products packaged with a computer disk.  They were sold at smaller retailers.  The first wave just used already released figures.  As such, the concept utterly failed at retail.  The second series would have included some new figures, though.  Below is the cancelled Mission Disk Destro, Flint and Double Clutch.
Unproduced Mission Disk, Destro, Flint, Clutch, Midnight Chinese, Scarlett, Bombstrike, She Hulk, Shipwreck, Frostbite, Clown Flint, Duke, BAT, Battle Android Trooper


Unproduced Mission Disk, Destro, Flint, Clutch, Midnight Chinese, Scarlett, Bombstrike, She Hulk, Shipwreck, Frostbite, Clown Flint, Duke, BAT, Battle Android Trooper

Unproduced Mission Disk, Destro, Flint, Clutch, Midnight Chinese, Scarlett, Bombstrike, She Hulk, Shipwreck, Frostbite, Clown Flint, Duke, BAT, Battle Android Trooper


Along with specifically cancelled figures were simply alternate color schemes or unfinished figures that appeared to be first attempts at a design before it went to production.  Below are a Duke, BAT, Shipwreck and Salvo figure that range from completely different from the production figure to simply slightly different.  

Unproduced Mission Disk, Destro, Flint, Clutch, Midnight Chinese, Scarlett, Bombstrike, She Hulk, Shipwreck, Frostbite, Clown Flint, Duke, BAT, Battle Android Trooper





Unproduced Mission Disk, Destro, Flint, Clutch, Midnight Chinese, Scarlett, Bombstrike, She Hulk, Shipwreck, Salvo, Frostbite, Clown Flint, Duke, BAT, Battle Android Trooper



Unproduced Mission Disk, Destro, Flint, Clutch, Midnight Chinese, Scarlett, Bombstrike, She Hulk, Shipwreck, Salvo, Frostbite, Clown Flint, Duke, BAT, Battle Android Trooper



There are some figures that are just...weird.  Below are a Flint and Frostbite figure that simply defy explanation.  The colors are terrible and Frostbite's skin is unearthly.  These figures were unlikely candidates for release.  But, they may have been color or mold tests for other uses of the parts.  Their atrocity, though, is interesting in it's own right.

Unproduced Mission Disk, Destro, Flint, Clutch, Midnight Chinese, Scarlett, Bombstrike, She Hulk, Shipwreck, Salvo, Frostbite, Clown Flint, Duke, BAT, Battle Android Trooper

Unproduced Mission Disk, Destro, Flint, Clutch, Midnight Chinese, Scarlett, Bombstrike, She Hulk, Shipwreck, Salvo, Frostbite, Clown Flint, Duke, BAT, Battle Android Trooper
Also among the oddities of the day were a few figures that were without explanation.  Below you see the famous open torso Scarlett figure.  There is no way this figure was ever considered for release by Hasbro.  But, large quantities of them were made and available from Asia.  After initial figures sold for high amounts, the supply increased and the figure is relatively common today.  How this figure came to be is a mystery.  But, it's something collectors have tracked down.  The second figure is the "She Hulk" Bombstrike figure.  While it's not rare to find unpainted prototypes in odd colors, it is rare to find those alternate plastic pieces fully painted like the Bombstrike is below.  Again, this is more a result of production process than a figure that was ever intended for release.  But, they are more oddities that define some of the weirdness that could be Asian figures.

Unproduced Mission Disk, Destro, Flint, Clutch, Midnight Chinese, Scarlett, Bombstrike, She Hulk, Shipwreck, Salvo, Frostbite, Clown Flint, Duke, BAT, Battle Android Trooper

Unproduced Mission Disk, Destro, Flint, Clutch, Midnight Chinese, Scarlett, Bombstrike, She Hulk, Shipwreck, Salvo, Frostbite, Clown Flint, Duke, BAT, Battle Android Trooper

8 comments:

  1. Can you please point out the differences on the Duke (v18) and David "Salvo" Hasle (v2)?

    Thanks

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    Replies
    1. I used the wrong photo for Salvo. I'll have to update it tonight. There is a blue shirt version. I didn't collect those figures, so got them mixed up. For the Duke, I don't recall the exact differences. May just be a hue or slight color difference.

      Delete
    2. Fixed the Salvo photo with a comparison of the red and blue.

      Delete
  2. That Destro matches up nicely with the filecard art on his 2003 release.

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  3. My daughter has that Scarlet figure and she likes the original better. In this day and age, no one would look twice at that open torso Scarlet figure and think it was inappropriate.

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  4. Destro is dope.
    That Flint is bad no matter what.
    There was a white Storm Shadow planned for mission discs, based on the 2002 figure, the mold was used for Cobra Ninja Trooper and SHadow Strike.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ok, I would have love to have gotten that Destro, he would have easily been my Alexander McCullen as it is I use the regular release in that role.

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  6. That Scarlett figure was certainly daring and quite a different look for her, but Bombstrike was stacked and yet, she still made it into production. It would've been interesting to see how peek-a-boo Scarlett would have fared.

    ReplyDelete