This is the latest in a series (of indefinite length and regularity) of blog posts memorializing cancelled toys. Our figure today is... a GI Joe.
This piece of art was done by Ron Rudat, and was apparently identified as a "Battlefield Messenger" (it would have fallen to Larry Hama to give him a name and story):
Considering that Doc was a 1983 figure, but Rudat was already working on that design in 1981, it's possible the reason we never saw this guy in production is that he was simply too plain for the line by the time he would have been made - the most "grounded" figures of 1987 were Falcon, Outback, and Tunnel Rat, while we were also getting things like Psyche-Out and Fast Draw.
The important thing is the sticker down in the corner, which shows that the drawing was accepted on 9-26-85 - or exactly 40 years ago today. Happy birthday, Unknown Battlefield Messenger; may you someday become a real boy!
