WILD WEASEL

Early Comic Book Version

This figure was one I did back in the mid 80's, based on how Wild Weasel was colored when he first appeared in the Marvel Comics G.I. Joe series. In this initial appearance, Wild Weasel and Firefly were wondering around in a swamp for a reason I can't recall, and Wild Weasel's outfit was notably different in color than his action figure. Instead of the pure red outfit, the torso and helmet are dark blue on the early comic book version, in a darker shade than his blue scarf. His upper helmet visor was also an exposed gloss black visor, it didn't slide up inside a cover on the forehead like the visors on real pilot helmets or his figures helmet did. This visor also had a much glossier and reflective appearance than the visor over his eyes, though it was obviously black and not silver. (In fact the lower visor was so dull looking compared to the upper that I really think the artist thought that the upper visor was the visor he saw out of and the lower was just part of his faceplate. This seemed the case since he seemed to have his head down like he was looking out of the forehead area of his helmet in a lot of the pictures.)

The figure itself was a heavily worn Wild Weasel with a broken crotch that I got from a friend along with a pile of loose figure parts, including an 85 Crimson Guard crotch. The beauty of it is that a Crimson Guard has the same overlapping double belt that Wild Weasel has and the 85 version is much lighter red than the 86 version and matches Wild Weasel pretty well, so this "CG" crotch was a perfect replacement.

Painting the figure was simple, just add some Cobra blue paint to his vest and helmet and he's practically finished. To help the web gear and belts stand out better against the dark blue background I painted all the buckles and clasps silver. The helmet's upper visor was painted black and was given a coat of high gloss varnish so it would be shinier than the lower one like the comic book version shows. Much more recently I added a silver Cobra logo decal, since the original was rubbed away long ago.