1983 Wild Bill

I've finally done it.  In 20 years of profiling figures, I've never actually completed a figure year's worth of profiles.  In many cases, I'm close.  In some cases, it's just one or two figures before that year is complete.  But, I've never actually closed out an entire year.  My focus has always been to switch around and not get too focused on any specific year in too short a period of time.  With this profile of Wild Bill, all the new figures that were released in 1983 are now done and have been reviewed.  It's an odd feeling since I always like to have options for figure years as subjects of future profiles.  But, I've told most of my stories about specific years and there is some redundancy if you read everything about a year in one sitting.

Wild Bill's entry to my collection came in the fall of 1983.  I had mowed lawns all summer long and had properly saved my money.  Now, I wanted to buy something big.  At the time, there was really only one option: the Dragonfly.  It was the one toy the kid around the block hadn't gotten, yet.  And, it was awesome.  On a warm, early Fall day, my mom took me to the recently opened Kohl's store.  There, I found my Dragonfly and bought it.  Both of my younger brothers complained bitterly about not getting something.  So, my mom bought them Tripwire and Torpedo.  Somehow, since I was buying my own toy, I didn't get a figure bought for me.  This recurred in my childhood for the next several years.  Apparently, I'm somewhat bitter about it.  But, it also created a sense of self reliance that I maintain to this day.  And, I've always simply worked to buy the things I want.  I miss out on some things due to my independence.  But, I've also gotten to do some amazing things due to the same spirit.

Back to the Dragonfly, though.  I got the copter home and opened it by our front, screen door.  A light drizzle fell as I put it together.  When done, it became the flagship of my burgeoning Joe collection.  Instantly, Joe had the full upper hand in any firefight.  At the time, we might have had a FANG to battle the Dragonfly.  So, the Joe copter quickly became the ruler of the toy room.  Once I got a Hiss Tank for Christmas that year, Cobra finally had a weapon capable of shooting down the Dragonfly.  By the holiday season, I also had a Skystriker.  And, while the Skystriker was cooler looking from afar, the reality is that the Dragonfly is a substantially better toy with way more play value than the titular Joe aircraft.

The same, though, could not be said about the pilot of the helicopter: Wild Bill.  After the emeralds that were Clutch and Steeler from 1982, Wild Bill seemed like a letdown.  He had some interesting designs.  But, he was definitely a step below the carded figures from 1983 in terms of details and quality.  His orange hair was a bit too orange.  It gave him a comical appearance: something that was a complete departure from how Larry Hama portrayed him in the comic.  His head was also too large.  And, it dominated his appearance.  It made him out of proportion with the other, existing figures.  I kept him in the Dragonfly as it was better there than wasting one of my better figures as the pilot.  But, in general, Wild Bill was a huge disappointment as a figure.

One frustrating thing about Wild Bill was that he became one of Larry Hama's go to Joe characters.  He appeared often in the comic and maintained starring roles through the mid '80's as I started using my collection as a creative outlet.  It sucked to see Wild Bill done up as a great character in the comics but to have his figure be so lackluster.  To this day, it's tough to reconcile Wild Bill's character with his original toy.  The early Hasbro designers had something for very open collars.  And, far too many figures look like refugees from a cheesy Midwestern disco.  Wild Bill is a prime example.  The rest of his motif is just kind of bland.  While the green and brown that dominates his design isn't a bad combo, it just feels kind of tired after the other, amazing new offerings that preceded him in 1983.

The figure just looks off.  His head is too large for his body.  This proved out, too, when trying to place Wild Bill in the front seat of the Dragonfly (like the box art showed!).  Wild Bill would not fit in a way that allowed the canopy to close without unnatural finagling of the figure.  Yes, I would eventually learn from the comic that Wild Bill would fly from the back seat of the chopper.  But, that initial frustration with him fitting didn't do the figure any favors.  It also didn't help that, generally, I'm not a fan of the cowboy look.  I'm an urbanite.  I always have been.  The "western" look wasn't something I ever found particularly appealing.  So, again, my personal biases helped to shape my opinion of the Wild Bill figure.  I would not start buying the comic until June of 1984.  By then, my opinions of the figure were pretty set and I would instead lament that there was not a good Wild Bill figure instead of trying to rethink my stance on the one that did exist.

Wild Bill is a Bill Kilgore (from Apocalypse Now) knockoff.  You have the helicopter pilot wearing historic military gear.  You can almost hear Wagner playing when the Dragonfly makes an appearance.  But, in 1983, I had no idea that the original character existed.  So, Wild Bill seemed like something new to me.  I figured he was just a cowboy knock off character since there were still lots of cowboy toys floating around in the early 1980's.  His Texas steer belt buckle, Civil War era cavalry hat and twin, ivory handled six shooters all completed his look.  (Wild Bill also wears his antique weapons handles forward.  At the time, one of my Dad's old cap guns from the 1950's was still at my grandparents' house.  It had a real leather holster.  I always carried the pistol handles forward, too, as I thought it was a cooler look than the standard handles back.)  It makes little sense to wear them like this on your legs.  But, it's a design choice that helped Wild Bill stand apart from his contemporaries.

The Joe line of 1983 was perfectly timed.  While Return of the Jedi figures stole the thunder from G.I. Joe in the early part of the year, their grip as the prime toy of our household had been weakened by the 1982 Joes.  In the late summer of 1983, one of my brother's friends came over.  He brought with him his new Airborne figure.  I was immediately enthralled by the swivel arm battle grip.  That one little change to Joe construction completely changed the way with which you could interact with a figure.  And, it was all it took for Joe to permanently displace Star Wars.  From 1983 onward, Joe dominated our house.  And, aside from a smattering of Star Wars Christmas presents, Joe was pretty much the only toy I ever bought again.  

1983 is also important, though, because Joe took a huge leap forward.  While the 1982 line was far more sci-fi than most modern collectors care to admit, it was still steeped in the classic military motif that matched the World War II homage green army figures that you could buy at every grocery store during the early 1980's.  In 1983, though, Joe stepped away from the green base figures of the prior year and introduced a massive amount of color to the line.  While you still had some green figures like Wild Bill, Hasbro also introduced tan, blue, grey, white, red and silver to the line.  Along with the colors, though, came the characters.  Gung Ho and Wild Bill were larger than life.  Snow Job and Tripwire were the funny, supporting cast and guys like Doc, Torpedo and Ace were serious specialists with credentials to support their new looks.  

Cobra, though, took a bigger leap.  While Cobra Commander had always been more super-villain than terrorist, the crop of 1983 Cobras made it clear that G.I. Joe was really a story of heroes and villains rather than a textbook on military operations.  Major Bludd gave Cobra credibility with the affiliation of such a dangerous desperado.  But, Destro, with his steel mask and massive size, firmly cemented Cobra as a group of enemies who weren't some third world despot.  Sure, the military lingo and specialties were there to keep Joe grounded in its military roots.  But, 1983 was the step forward that prevented Joe from quickly stagnating at retail like so many other toys did.  

You can make a case that the 1983 Joes were the stepping stone towards making the modern G.I. Joe equal to their predecessor from the 1960's.  Kids could now play in sky, under water, in the snow or even the desert with their figures.  And, within the next two years, there would be a Joe figure to cover pretty much every adventure a kid could conjure up.  So, G.I. Joe could be a military line.  But, it could also be a science fiction line.  (I do believe that one reason why it was so easy for kids to evolve from Star Wars to G.I. Joe was because Joe had some familiar themes like lasers, sharply dressed villains and a variety of characters that would connect with various personality types.)  It appealed to fans of comic book heroes and villains and also offered chances for standard civilian adventures.  Joe figures were compatible with toys from all other 3 3/4 figure lines because their articulation and construction allowed them more freedom of mobility.  It was far less frequent to be able to successfully integrate other 3 3/4 figures into Joe vehicles because the Joe toys were designed specifically to work with bending knees, flexible waists and, now, swiveling arms.

Now, I have to be ingenuous about this transition, too.  Star Wars also suffered from the reality that Return of the Jedi ended the story.  Darth Vader and Boba Fett were dead.  The Empire was defeated.  There were no real stories left to develop with the toys.  And, this ending also opened the door for Joe.  The crop of 1983 Cobra villains were super villain archetypes and turned the Joe saga from some generic army guys fighting knock off Nazis to a full blown chess match of fully developed heroes and villains who had motivations, grudges and the wherewithal to battle each other to a standstill that could generate stories for years.  Star Wars lost that when the major players had their arcs come to an end.  We're just now, 40 years later, starting to see how the Star Wars universe could have been expanded.  But, without the availability of modern TV techniques, it's doubtful Star Wars could have pulled it off in 1983.

One odd memory I have of Wild Bill is that the kid around the block gave me his straight arm Steeler figure in late 1987 or so.  Both of the thumbs were broken.  But, I found that Wild Bill's arms were a suitable substitute.  So, one of our spare Wild Bill figures was taken apart and used to upgrade Steeler.  I then found that the rest of the Wild Bill parts were pretty useless for making kitbashes of new characters.  To this day, the rest of that Wild Bill that was sacrificed so Steeler could join my collection remain in a box of discarded and unloved parts.  I got rid of the Steeler with the wrong arms in one of my collection purges.  So, there's no reuniting the entire figure.  But, it's one of those odd remnants of my childhood collection that still haunts my collecting closet.

Wild Bill didn't see much use.  He was released by Hasbro and no one else in the vintage line.  In some European catalogs, you see mock ups of a Tiger Force Wild Bill (they are hand painted samples) flying the Tiger Force Dragonfly.  It was likely that Wild Bill was the original choice to be the pilot for that chopper, too.  But, the mold availability didn't match up.  So, Recondo was released instead.  I have to say that getting a Tiger Force Recondo far surpasses a possible Tiger Force Wild Bill.  So, I applaud Hasbro for that decision.  Oddly, in 2001, Funskool dropped a Wild Bill repaint.  While their orange release featured new arms, it had the rest of the Wild Bill body.  It was odd to see for sure.  But, the brightly colored figure is pretty fun.  It remains a travesty that we didn't get the 1992 Wild Bill mold in 1983 colors during the repaint era.  Hasbro had the mold and it would have been a well received figure.

As far as 1983 figures go, Wild Bill is cheap.  Mint and complete with filecard versions sell for around $20.  And, you can get them for 1/2 that with a little patience.  Wild Bill's tend to discolor pretty badly, even on otherwise mint samples.  So, it can be a hassle to find a perfectly colored one.  (You will see guys try to pass off a "white undershirt" Wild Bill.  But, this is just a discolored chest.  Even mine that you see below is starting to go.)  But, this is a figure that I don't care enough about to spend any time tracking down.  I don't even really like him as the pilot of the Dragonfly and I replace him every chance I get.  But, Wild Bill is iconic.  So, you pretty much have to have him if you own a Dragonfly.