Wild Bill
It is odd to see a figure who didn't originally appear in single pack form on a single packed card for the 25th anniversary. I don't necessarily mind it but it does take some getting used to. Just look at Wild Bill and you can see exactly where he got his code name from. His design I firmly believe came from Robert Duval's Air Calvary commander in Apocalypse now (Famous for the line "I love the smell of napalm in the morning.") I really have nothing at all to base that on other than conjecture, but it seems to match up.
Wild Bill is very much a one dimensional character, which is fine in a cast of nearly 400. He is the pilot much like Clutch was the driver. He is a cowboy and as such acts like one. There really isn't a great need to tweak his character and as such I have really never tried to. To me he has always been shooting six shooters, riding horses, flying helicopters and shouting "YEAH-HA!" at the highpoints of the adventure. Why mess with that since it adds so much to the background of the team.
Still Wild Bill is probably more important than even I give him credit. As such long ago I made him head of the GI Joe Air Calvary (Meaning Helicopter Division of the GI Joe Air Force, Air Calvary just sounded better). Giving him a command position (in my mind) made his character more than a background pilot. While you still had the six shooters and the "Yeah-Ha's" it also showed Bill was incredibly capable and competent.
Bill has had a varied history with figures however.
Wild Bill V1 is a bland figure to say the least. Mostly one color (note: The two tones at the arm have been there since day one. Some have told me this is age but apparently I got an aged one in 1984. Also I have never seen a V1 without that same problem). The only real disruption to the color is his hat which when you consider was the part of him you saw the most from the seat of the Dragonfly, made perfect sense.
Right off the bat Bill had his six shooter. It's one of the few things that details this otherwise bland figure. Its also one of the few character points of the figure as well (the others being his buckle, hat, and vest)..
The next couple of Wild Bill figures were based on the mold below. The first one is slightly better for color in my opinion but the 2000 version has one major flaw.
The hat, while a neat feature sits oddly on the head. I have heard of modified versions and seen some that sit better but really this takes away from the figure.
But to add to that the figure leans more towards the Air Calvary idea and farther away from the cowboy one. He is barely western influenced. While in some ways that isn't bad, part of me leans back towards the idea of the cowboy in the sky and this mold is just too regimented for that idea.
However the cowboy influence wasn't dead at all, in 2002 A new mold came with decidedly western influence.
Sometimes referred to as "Stone Cold" Wild Bill due to the head sculpt. The six shooters were now on the chest which is a bit odd at first to be sure. The leather jacket defiantly denotes a western feel especially with the hat. One aspect of the hat is that Bill can actually hold it unlike his previous figures with a hat. BTW the second figures hat is a custom I did from a spare Bill. Not anything major obviously but I think it makes the figure that much more.
My main issue with this figure would be scale, specifically his bulk in the chest, arms and legs. While I have always believed Bill to be tough his stature to me is that of a more normal person (around six feet even I would say). Even though I think Bill is tough, I never gave him an incredibly strong nature (unlike say Roadblock or Gung-Ho). With this figure's size however it is hard not to pull that connotation from him.
As with many JvC figures there were a few repaints. This last one is the only one I never bothered making a hat for. The reason is his color kind of denotes a Pilot outfit. With the helmet I thought he looked much more like a test pilot than an helicopter pilot. For this color though it worked and left it as it was.
Bill was quiet for a bit until his 25th anniversary figure was released.
When I first saw the pictures on the internet, I noticed as may other did that Bill was made entirely from Ace's body. On the net the pictures looked ok still, in hand I think it is a different story.
Let me start off by accentuating the positives, the head sculpt is dead on. I would have to say its probably one of the better head sculpts of the 25th line. Another great point is the buckle, a fall back to the original but now much more noticeable. His chest gear does a great job of hiding the flaws in the torso as well.
But the torso/arm issue that was prevalent with Ace is still apparent despite being well hidden. However this is not the worst of the figure. My biggest problem is the holsters, they are HUGE. In fact they are entirely too big for the guns that come with Bill. The guns kept falling out as I prepped him for the pictures you see above. I am not sure why those holsters were chosen for the retool of Ace's legs since there have been some smaller ones in the line thus far (I have yet to experiment with some of the other figures to see if there is a specifically better holster however).
The holster leads into the next problem with the figure, the legs. At first I tried to delude myself into believing these were chaps which would match Bill's western wear. However the fact is these are obviously Ace's legs and meant for a pilot. While Bill is a pilot and the argument could be made that this is why he has similar garb to Ace, the fact is that the legs break up the idea of the character and thus make for a less than stellar figure. I think some different legs would have made for a much better esthetic and a stronger representation of Bill.
Which does bring me to something that has bothered me for some time. The constant use of straight repaints in the GI Joe line. I understand the needs for reuse of molds to keep costs down, in fact with Ripper I thought the reuse of Buzzer's mold was done quite well. However I have always been amazed that Hasbro is so reluctant to mix parts to make a more solid and distinct figure. I think it is this lack of thought that killed the "new sculpt" line and I think it is beginning to harm the 25th line. I looks lazy, lacking of originality, and feels cheap. Sometimes it works but that is rare. A head swap and new chest gear do not make a new action figure any more than a head swap would with the old ARAH figures. I think that if Hasbro really tried to mix up some parts they would find they would get much more mileage while still maintaining a fresh look to their figures. I don't think I would even be bringing it up if I felt Hasbro had learned this in 2003 when it was sorely needed due to a rash of repaints. It hurts the line, the fandom, and the characters to keep this kind of production going.
With all that it is time to reluctantly chose my default.
I say reluctantly because while I feel this is the best Wild Bill done so far, I don't feel he is the best Wild Bill can be. While not my favorite character I do like Bill and wish that someday he receive a figure worthy of him. For now I will use this JvC version, again reluctantly.