Rarities - Unproduced 1995 "Star Brigade" Falcon

In 1999, Whiz Bang Collectibles sold off some of their pre-production G.I. Joe pieces.  These had been acquired from ex-Hasbro employees and they remain the primary source of most of the resin prototypes of unproduced 1995 items.  If you were willing to spend the money on one of their auctions, they offered you the chance to also buy some ancillary items.  One such piece was listed as "Star Brigade Falcon".

Whether or not this figure would have actually been Falcon, or even Star Brigade, is probably open to interpretation.  Many of those early prototypes were mis-labeled or simply unknown.  But, it is generally accepted that this figure is as advertised.  You will note many missing parts in the photos.  Hasbro only sculpted new parts for their pre-production pieces.  Falcon would have used some existing tooling for the remaining parts.  In this case, the waist and legs were rumored to have been the 1987 Payload.  However, that figure was planned for a full repaint in 1993 and Hasbro could not find the mold.  So, it's likely that, had this figure made it to production, it would have had different parts used to complete him.

In the years since this figure appeared, the parts have been cast and made available to customizers.  You can see one such cast that was painted up on JoeCustoms.com.  The colors on this figure are the artist's interpretation.  And, to my knowledge, we have yet to see any official coloring from Hasbro.  So, we don't really know what this guy was supposed to look like. But, the painted details give you a better look at the quality of this mold and the amazing sculpting job that Hasbro did on it.

While Star Brigade may not be every collector's passion, this Falcon figure appears to have been very well done.  It's likely that, had he been sold at retail, that he would be relatively sought after today.  The Joe line, in general, would have been better off had the 1995 figures come to light.  And, were it not for the victorious Kenner forces in the boys action figure division after their Hasbro acquisition, these figures would have seen the light of day.  Instead, we got G.I. Joe Extreme.  It's nice that we have looks into what might have been.  While the bad of 1995 gets most of the press, figures like this Falcon show that the good might have been worth it.

Photo From Whiz Bang that was offered with the 1995 Dr. Mindbender resin prototype.