I don't know if this is new for anyone or what but, a few years back I had a packaged straight arm Rock & Roll, and the packaging depicted as usual the other members of the Joe team, but had none of the Enemy. I've had a few Straight Arm figures over the years, Flash, Short-Fuze, Scarlett, and all of them had the slots for the enemy. Does anyone know if this was just a really early version of the packaging, or if there was some kind of release before COBRA was designed? I don't recall if all of the Original Joe team members were present, but I remember it being a double row of pictures that I thought was 2 rows of 5. I wish that I wouldn't have needed the cash, otherwise I could get a pic of it.

Hi I have a few of the 1982 straight arm figures MOC that your talking about. I believe that these were the first release from Hasbro. They added the Cobra figures to the cards a little later on. From things i've read in the past the nine back cards are somewhat rare. If you would like to see a picture of some of these just send me an email at jbuzzell@wi.rr.com and I can take some for you.

Thanks Jeff

Hey bro,

The original nine carded GI Joes from 1982 were Breaker, Grunt, Rock n' Roll, Snake-Eyes, Scarlett, Stalker, Short-Fuze, Flash, and Zap. They were all released on 9-back cards. Later in the year, they were all re-released on 9-back cards with a Cobra Commander offer superimposed on the front artwork. Finally, when the Cobra Soldier and Cobra Officer were added in late 1982, all figures were re-released again on 11-back cards to include the two Cobra additions. This makes a total of three carded releases in 1982. Remember that some characters like Zap and Short-Fuze have additional variants out there as well. The nine backs with the Cobra Commander offers are the hardest to find, with the original nine backs being second hardest and the eleven backs being the easiest to get. Hope this helps.

forgive my ignorance, but why are zap and short-fuze on more different card variants? If you mean Zap's double handle bazooka, I can see that, but what else?

thanks

Hey,

Sorry for the lack of specificity. I meant the weapon variations for Zap and Short-Fuze. I honestly don't remember precisely, but I believe the two-handled bazooka Zap was only available on a nine back card and the closed handle Short-Fuze was only available on a nine back card. I have at least never seen these two on Cobra Commander offer or eleven back cards. This doesn't mean they don't exist. Perhaps someone else on the board knows?

At any rate, you might have some fun collecting some of the 1983 swivel-arm versions. In my opinion they look much better than their 1982 counterparts and for every 3 straight-arms there is only 1 swivel-arm...so the extra rarity makes for more fun collecting! (If you're interested, check out some Explosion back Snake-Eyes and Cobra Commander photos I've posted in the Photo Gallery and let me know what you think.)