Head/Arms/Legs: Mail Away Hawk w/ Mirage's visor
Torso/Waist: 86 Sci Fi

Ah Flash... a figure I got in kindergarten. One of the very first figures I ever got. It was the straight arm version, and he accompanied me to school and had many many adventures in the treacherous sandboxes at Winnetka Heights Christian Academy. Needless to say, by the end of the year, he had broken thumbs and his backpack and visor were gone. Later, one of his arms broke completely off. Despite loving the figure, the next couple of years came and went without him being replaced in favor of newer, cooler (or so I thought at the time) Joes. In late 86, I got a copy of GI Joe Magazine that featured the mail away offer with the original Joes (and Airborne and Doc) back for one last mission against Major Bludd and a Cobra Officer. Even though I was only 9, I got a rush of nostalgia and appreciated the simple uniformity of the original Joes. Flash was a Joe that looked a lot cooler and more realistic than Sci Fi (to me anyway) and I immediately sent off for the offer. Alas, it was not meant to be, and a few weeks later I got a letter from Hasbro stating that the offer had expired and their inventory gone. A healthy, intact Flash was not meant to rejoin my childhood collection.

Years later, just after I had started some basic customizing and began participating in the online Joe community, and I discovered a collection of customs by Joe community member Straight Edge. He had taken more detailed and beefier sculpted figures from later in the line who represented specialties that the original 13 had and repainted them to more closely resemble their O13 counterparts. Downtown had been repainted Olive Drab and become Short Fuze, Big Bear had received 91 Grunt's head and become Grunt, and so forth. Sci Fi had received Jet Pack Hawk's head and become Flash. It was a brilliantly simple idea, and I decided I wanted these figures in my collection, starting with Flash.

Thus began my obsession with customizing, and within months, I had recreated the entire O13 lineup with designs inspired by Straight Edge's customs. While many of these customs were replaced by designs of my own, Flash has held up, still proudly standing on my custom shelf, taking his place among the Joes.