Heavy Duty GI Joe Hasbro Trademark Renewal

We’ve been covering Mattel Masters of the Universe trademark renewals for quite some time. Today, we focus our attention to Hasbro’s trademark renewals and we’ve discovered that they recently started the process for renewing a trademark for the GI Joe character named Heavy Duty. Hasbro filed this application back on June 13, 2023 and this could mean one of two things. First, companies will renew trademarks because they do not want to lose the naming rights to the figure. Second, it could mean that they are renewing the trademark because they have a figure in the works and this is just a formality. We like to think it’s the latter so let’s take a closer look at the Heavy Duty character and some custom concepts

Heavy Duty Vintage GI Joe Figure

Heavy Duty was released in 1991 and his figure was 100% original with no shared parts with other figures. Although the 90’s is where GI Joe went off the rails, the 1991 figure assortment gave us some cool versions of the some characters.

Heavy Duty came with a green backpack, a green launcher base, a red missile site, a black center mount cannon, two green spring-loaded side-mount missile launchers, and two light green missiles. The two missile launchers attached to the sides of the ammo box. The gun barrels attached to the top of the ammo box, the backpack attached to the bar at the back of the ammo box, and the site fit into the backpack’s post.

His file card reads:

“A classical guitarist in his spare time, HEAVY DUTY sees little difference between playing Bach’s “Two Part Invention in D Minor” and operating his Man-Portable Heavy Weapons System. They both require right and left hand independence, exceptional hand-eye coordination and the ability to concentrate simultaneously on two or more complex operations. To him, playing Bach correctly and hitting a distant, fast-moving target are two sides of the same coin. It also represents his cultural refinement.”

“Let’s say you zap a laser-guided missile at a tank. You try to keep your laser-guided designator dot on that tank for the entire run of the missile while that tank commander is popping caps at you. If you move, the laser dot disappears from the tank and your missile wanders astray. Heavy Duty carries enough extra firepower to shut down the enemy while his missiles are running. And Heavy Duty doesn’t duck for ANYBODY!”

Heavy Duty GI Joe Classified Series Custom Concept

Hasbro has not announced a figure of Heavy Duty for their GI Joe Classified Series so we often look to the customizing community for some inspiration as to what a Heavy Duty figure could like. The image on the left has Heavy Duty in classic v1 vintage color scheme and his classic baseball hat turned backwards. The image on the right reuses the Cobra Island Roadblock figure as this version of Roadblock was often referred to as the Heavy Duty for GI Joe Classified Series given his unique look.