 I can't believe this, Timmer has used an Infinity Gauntlet to make half of my collection disappear, right in the middle of Cobra Convergence. I still need to do reviews all month, yet I have half the toys to choose from. This is a problem that may require super heroic intervention so it can be wrapped up by the end of the month. Everybody got that? I must carefully choose which toy to review. Calculating which one will have the greatest impact? Yeah, that'll do. Hello everybody, hooded Cobra Commander 788 here, it's time for another vintage Cobra toy review. Before we get started on that though, I have a new patron to whom I need to give a special codename. Sefi Melly, thank you for supporting the channel on Patreon. And since you came aboard just in time for Cobra Convergence 4, I think you should have a codename that will forever be tied to the event. Your codename will be the Conforgence Viper. Thank you for your support. We're going to be spending a lot of time at Sears this month. Based on how Sears' profits are doing, not many other people are spending a lot of time at Sears. There was a time when Sears was a business juggernaut in the US. It was a company with a century of history and a legendary catalog of products. Collectors also apparently liked G.I. Joe because they asked Hasbro for a lot of G.I. Joe exclusives. For collectors, exclusives can be fun. They are somewhat rare, they can be prestige pieces in a collection, and they can be a challenge to acquire. For kids at the time, these exclusives may have seemed redundant. They rarely gave kids anything new. It was mostly just old toys with new colors. Sometimes though, the new colors were beautiful and added something special to the old toy. With the SMS, we have a combination of two old classics. Can a color change make them special? Let's find out. HCC788 presents The Sentry and Missile System. This is the 1985 Sears Exclusive SMS. This vehicle set was available in 1985 and was also on the shelves in 1986 and was discontinued before 1987. SMS stands for Sentry and Missile System. This set was sold exclusively at Sears. Sears released several exclusive G.I. Joe toys in the Real American Hero line beginning in 1982. Most Sears exclusives were just reissues of older product in different colors. Sometimes they didn't even change the colors. With the SMS, all they did is recolor older toys. The SMS is a combination of an older Cobra vehicle and an older G.I. Joe Toad weapon system. The Sentry part of the SMS is a reissue of the 1983 HISTank. Some parts of the all black HISTank have been changed to red. It still has the 788, which is the source of the 788 in this channel's name. The Missile System for the SMS is a reissue of the 1982 G.I. Joe Mobile Missile System, or MMS. The colors have been totally changed from all green to red and black. Why red and black? Probably because the Crimson Guard was released in 1985. The Cobra Elite Trooper was decked out primarily in red with some black details. The box for the SMS doesn't explicitly say it is a Crimson Guard vehicle, but the box art shows a Crimson Guardsman driving it. I have the blueprints for the SMS, and I will be referring to them when I talk about some of the features with this set. The Sentry System and the Missile System have separate instruction sheets and blueprints. One thing that is peculiar about these blueprints is on the back of the blueprints for the Sentry, it has the instructions for the Missile System, and on the back of the blueprints for the Missile System, it has the blueprints for the Sentry. That seems kind of backwards, and I don't know if that is typical of all of the SMS blueprints, but it is a peculiar error. For the blueprints on the Sentry, it looks like they kept the same basic artwork from the blueprints on the HIST tank with some Meyer updates, but they also kept the same numbers, but the text description for those numbers has changed. For the blueprints on the Cobra Missile System, again it looks like they kept mostly the same artwork from the blueprints on the MMS, and they kept the same numbers, but the description on those numbers is different. We're going to set the Missile System aside for now so we can focus on the Sentry. The Sentry has all the same qualities and problems as the HIST tank. The HIST tank is one of the most iconic Cobra vehicles of all time, it is in all black and that's how most people remember it. It's obviously an impractical vehicle in that it puts the driver behind a glass canopy. It's also smaller than it was portrayed in media. In 1989, the HIST II was released and it was bigger than the original and had a lot more features. Unfortunately, the HIST II was not black. The Sentry is similar to the UK Action Force Hyena tank. The Hyena was a red shadows vehicle released in 1984 and it included the red jackal action figure, the UK version of Destro. The Hyena was in a similar color of red, it has dark grey treads and cannons instead of black like on the Sentry, and it has a red turret instead of black. The HIST tank was very popular and the mold was reused many times in many colors. I've picked up a few over the years. Of course, there is the classic 1983 HIST tank in black and the 1985 SMS in red and black. If you want to go outside the United States, you have the Hyena tank. Then in 1991, you have the Sceptic tank in bright orange. If you want to step outside the vintage era into the modern era, there was the 2015 Silent Strike orange HIST tank in a less obnoxious color of orange than the Sceptic tank. Also in 2015, it was released in green as a GI Joe vehicle. There was also a 2008 release of the HIST tank in blue and a 2009 release in white. Let's look at the parts and features of the Sentry. We have some sticker headlights in front and the front portion of the body is this tapered sort of race car looking drivers pod. It looks very sharp and aerodynamic. The Sentry has a 788 sticker in a white outline. This is similar to the 788 on the HIST tank. The HIST tank is kind of famous for that 788. We have a clear plastic canopy for the driver's cockpit. This one is a little scratched and yellowed, but this opens up like an airplane canopy so you can put in the driver. It's best to move the turret to the side so you can pop this thing up and then you have access to the cockpit. There is some molded in technical detail. This is all exactly the same as the HIST tank. Some texture on the seat and the floor. This maybe isn't quite as detailed as we would get on some later GI Joe vehicles, but it's not bad. It has a center control console that goes between the feet of the driver. The HIST tank came with a driver the Sentry did not. So let's use a Crimson Guardsman. Lots of fans consider this to be a Crimson Guard vehicle and I kind of agree with them. For this vehicle it's best to just bend the legs at the hip, just have him straight-legged. Don't bend the knees. And just plop him right in there and he should be able to sit deeply enough in there that you can close the canopy without it running into his head. And there he is. You have the Crimson Guardsman driving your Sentry tank. One thing I don't love about it is the reds don't match very well. The red on the Crimson Guardsman is a bit darker than the red on the tank. And I think there could have been a little better color matching there. The Sentry has black treads just like the original HIST tank. And like the HIST tank these are not real treads, they are just molded in. The vehicle actually rolls on these wheels on the underside. The bogies are in a triangular configuration with the front most bogie in a raised position which gives the treads kind of a triangle shape and that's very distinctive of the HIST tank. On the blueprints for the HIST tank it identifies this bogie as the driver bogie and these two as idler bogies. On the blueprints for the Sentry it is reversed. So these are the driver bogies and this one is the idler. In the front the treads sort of blend in with the center of the undercarriage and that's something I always thought was a little odd about this design. The main body of the Sentry is red, a really beautiful color of red. It does not match very well with the Crimson Guardsman as we saw but still this is a great color. Has a black cobra emblem on the side, another one on the back and the other side is the same. It is symmetrical. On top is the turret. The turret is black with twin black guns. The same as the original HIST tank and I think the black and the red go very well together. The turret can rotate 360 degrees and the guns can elevate but I need to talk about the elevation on the guns for a moment. The guns are supposed to ratchet up using a couple very thin plastic prongs that run along notches inside the gun housing. You can see on the blueprints, these pins and the prongs that they run across, those pins are very thin and very fragile and it is rare to find them intact. They are almost always broken. When those pins are broken the result is floppy cannons. The HIST tank cannons will not hold their position at all. There is a way to fix these cannons and FormBX257 has a video about it so I would direct you to his video to fix these floppy HIST tank cannons. I'm very fortunate in that at least one of the pins on this sentry is intact. So these cannons will lower and will also raise and hold their position. On the blueprints for the HIST tank these are called 90mm twin cannons. On the blueprints for the sentry they are called twin synchronized EER8 laser seeking anti-tank launchers. There is a sticker instrument panel on the back of the gun housing and the turret itself is nothing more than a cup that holds a single action figure. Let's go ahead and use the Crimson Guard figure and just drop him down in there. He just stands in there and he looks pretty good. Unfortunately there's no way for him to retreat behind the armor for additional protection. His head is always out but the sentry is an impractical vehicle in a number of ways so it seems kind of gratuitous to complain about that. That's something we had kind of accepted about the HIST tank design. But there he is. He looks alright. But again I really wish these reds would match. In the back we have this troop carrying platform with two foot pegs and that affords the opportunity to carry two additional action figures on the back of the sentry. And that's nice it does expand the usefulness of the vehicle. Here is the sentry loaded to capacity with Crimson Guardsmen and looking past the color mismatch, I think this is great. The Crimson Guard did not have any vehicles in the regular retail releases so this really helps them out. This gives the Crimson Guard something to ride into battle. And finally in the back we have a universal tow hitch. When the original 1983 HIST tank came out, Cobra did not have anything to tow. If they were going to tow anything with the HIST tank they would have to steal it from GI Joe. But for the sentry this is very important because it came with something to tow. Let's turn our attention now to the thing the sentry is supposed to tow. The missile system. The MS of the SMS. This was originally a 1982 GI Joe vehicle. It wasn't one of the popular ones. The 1982 MMS was all green and it came with an action figure, Hawk. Hawk was the leader of GI Joe. Despite the character being very important to the GI Joe universe, it was a generic figure and was often forgotten by collectors. The MMS is often forgotten too. It wasn't an especially interesting toy. It was a towed weapon. It was only mobile in conjunction with another vehicle. It had three big missiles and that's it. Three shots and it's done. The missile system for the SMS only changes the color. Instead of green it is black and red. Everything else is exactly the same. But the color change helps it a lot. I love vehicles in green, but the MMS could have used some color variation. Unlike the sentry, the missile system is based on a real weapon. It's based on the MIM-23 Hawk. Hawk is an acronym for homing all the way killer. It's a mobile medium range surface-to-air missile system. Unlike with his tank, the mold for the MMS was not used very often. It was used for a Canadian exclusive black MMS. It was similar to this Sears exclusive, but with all black instead of black and red. In 2009, as part of the Rise of Cobra toy line, there was a heat-seek missile system that was nearly identical to this Sears exclusive missile system. The missile system has two modes. It has mobile mode, as you see here, where the wheels touch the ground and it will roll. And you can connect it to the sentry's tow hitch and it can be towed. You can also decouple the missile system from the sentry. And you can put it in emplacement mode. It has a couple legs in the front and those will fold down and just fold each of those down until they click. And then in the back you have a stand. This is for the control box. You need to pull that out and get it out of the way. And then it has a couple more legs that are linked together that pull out and swing down. And so now the missile system will stand on those legs. The control box is here. You just pull that out and connect it to the stand for it. There should be a slot that the stand pegs into. And now you have it in emplacement mode and the wheels are off the ground and it stands on its own. Looking at the parts and the features of the missile system, the most important parts are the missiles. It came with three red heat seek high explosive missiles. The three missiles are identical and they look really good in red. They connect to the launcher on very thin slots that fit on these very narrow tabs and you just slot them on. But because those tabs are thin and these slots are narrow, they don't stay on very well. They do tend to fall off if you move them around very much. These heat seek missiles are just a recolor of the original GI Joe green MMS missiles. They are exactly the same. They have the same slots and they slot onto the missile system in exactly the same way. If we remove those missiles, we can get a better look at the turret. The turret has an arm that will elevate and lower and a turret base that will spend 360 degrees. It's much easier to do with the missiles off because again those missiles do not peg on very firmly. The main body of the missile system is black with some stickers. It is otherwise exactly the same as the MMS and as with the MMS it has some fantastic technical detail molded in all over. It looks really great. They did not skimp on the details for this thing. On the sides it has two wheels. They are dark gray. They are connected with a metal dowel axle that runs through the center of the vehicle and so they are very sturdy. They do not break off very often. Besides being used on the original MMS, it appears these same wheels were used on the 1982 GI Joe HAL heavy artillery laser. The missile system has some detail on the underside. That's very impressive. They easily could have left that off but they didn't. It also has a 1982 copyright stamp that is the same copyright stamp as on the MMS. They did not update the copyright stamp for the 1985 release. Let's talk about this control panel because it can sometimes be a problem. It consists of two parts, the control box and the stand. Both are small and the control box is connected to the main body of the missile system with a long thin black wire. That is just a very thin piece of black plastic wire. It's fairly sturdy and flexible. I'm not too worried about breaking it but that is a very thin connection so if that does break or cut then you're going to lose your control box. The control box has some molded in instruments and it has what looks like a handle but it's a little too thin to fit in an action figure's hand. The control box is connected to the stand on the underside and the stand can just be pulled out. The stand is removable. It has to be removable to put the missile system in its mobile mode but because the stand does not permanently affix to anything it is the most frequently missing part. The stand also doesn't really stand very well. It can kind of be pushed around by that black fishing line. So sometimes I resort to using some mounting putty on the bottom to hold that thing in place. Let's go ahead and put the missile system back in its mobile mode. Let's disconnect the stand from the control box. The control box is stored in this area, this kind of recess here behind the toe loop. So just slide that in there and it should fit in fairly firmly. It shouldn't fall out too easily. Now let's swing those two legs back up into the up position. One on each side to make sure the missiles are out of the way. There we go. And then the back legs. These two back legs swing up together and then slide in. And then there is this slot here in the back and that is for the stand. The stand just slides right in there. And now it is totally ready to be towed. This is the toe loop for the missile system. It has a key shaped hole and that fits pretty well with the toe hitch on the sentry. And it connects and rests at a comfortable level so the wheels touch the ground and it can be towed. I do like this combination. It adds to the battle capabilities of the sentry. The sentry has a couple anti-tank guns, but with the missile system, it can take out aircraft as well. It adds to the versatility of the sentry. Looking at how the MMS was used in GI Joe media, well it wasn't really. This exact configuration and flavor of the HIST tank and MMS were not used in GI Joe cartoons or the comic books, but the original HIST tank and MMS did appear. The HIST tank appeared in the very first animated episode and it was used frequently. It got a lot of screen time. It was a mainstay of the Cobra arsenal. It was only in the Sunbow era though. It did not make the transition to the Deak era because there were other toys to sell. The HIST 2 was in the Deak era animated series. The MMS to my knowledge was only animated for commercials. It did not appear in the animated series. In the GI Joe comic book published by Marvel Comics, the HIST tank first appeared in issue number 11 and it looked different from the toy. It was larger, it could carry more troops. It looked a lot more like the later HIST 2. Cobra didn't have any toy vehicles before 1983. So before the introduction of the HIST tank, in the comic book Cobra just had some generic vehicles or some crazy science fiction vehicles. As with the animated series, in the comic book series the HIST tank was an important part of the Cobra arsenal. It had many appearances and it was present for pivotal moments in the comic book series. The MMS however was not used very often. In fact, I can only remember one appearance in issue number 36. It was used on the USS Jane in a dramatic battle against Cobra Rattlers. Looking at the SMS overall, exclusives can be a mixed bag. They rarely give us anything new. That's a knock against them. Reissued toys can be seen as a cash grab. It's something for consumers to buy. But the company puts very little or no effort into it. In this case, the only difference between these two toys and the originals is color. You had a black HIST tank and a green MMS. Now you have a red and black sentry and a red and black missile system. For the HIST tank, I don't think you can do better than the original black. But red and black still looks pretty good. I'd say the sentry still makes it into the top tier. Maybe not as high as the HIST tank, but it's still a beautiful vehicle. Although it wasn't designated as a crimson guard vehicle, it fits that role perfectly. There were no crimson guard vehicles released in the main toy line. So this allows you to expand your crimson guard army and increase its battlefield effectiveness. For the missile system, I'd say the color change is a big improvement over the old MMS. The basic black is gorgeous and the red missiles add a brilliant flash of color. It's a great color combination and the missile system is a great mate for the sentry. So does that elevate the missile system to the top tier? I don't think it gets quite that high. Maybe to the middle tier. It still has a lot of the problems of the MMS with the missiles not staying on very well. But it looks nice. That was my review of the Sears Exclusive SMS. I hope you enjoyed it. We are in the middle of Cobra Convergence 4 and we have a lot more Cobra Convergence coming up for you this week. On Monday, July 15th, we have Joe Fan 82 on YouTube. On Tuesday, July 16th, we have Justice Curie on YouTube. On Wednesday, July 17th, we have the Joe on Joe podcast. On Thursday, July 18th, we have the Skull Reviews on YouTube. On Friday, July 19th, we have the Human Mechanism on YouTube. And on Saturday, July 20th, we have the Viper's Pit podcast. Links to all of them will be in the description of this video. Don't forget you can get a Cobra Convergence 4 t-shirt. And if you get one and send me a picture of you wearing it, I will put you in a video. Like these guys. We've looked at Sears Exclusives two weeks in a row and there's a reason for that. This is Cobra Convergence. It's a special time of the year. And all Sears Exclusives are special toys. This toy also touched on the Crimson Guard, which is a special division of Cobra. What will we look at next week? Will it be something from Sears? Well, maybe I got to work with what Timmer left me. He snapped away half my stuff. Speaking of which, it's time. Convergence, assemble. Sanitary Productions reporting in. Okay, Timmer has gone mad. He has an Infinity Gauntlet and he's been stealing half of everyone's toys. We need to stop him, people. Does anybody have any ideas? It's just a toy. Can't we go to his house and beat him up? He's Belgian. We don't have the budget to fly everyone there. The Toy Master shrank you down once, right? Can't you just do that again and fly up his- Nobody's flying up anything. Hey, new 2-0-2. Didn't you predict this in an old review of yours? Maybe you could see into the future and check to see if we even have a chance. Well? I have looked into 14 million future possibilities and we win in most of them. Oh, that's horrible. Wait, we win? Yeah. Problem solved then. Uh, but most of us die trying to defeat him. We're crap. There is only one where everybody makes it out alive. Well, tell us then. I cannot. That would cause me to alter the future. How convenient. Okay, look, we still have some time. Everyone try to come up with some way to defeat him. We'll meet again in, oh, say, two weeks' time. That's about the end of Cobra Convergence. Ah, look who's being convenient. Just a coincidence. Convergence disassembled. One, you guys. Nobody wanted to listen. Timmer, Timmer, Timmer. I just dress up like this for fun. Look, I'm going to be in the fight this year. No, it's fine that you're in the fight, but Sargette Slautress? That's my codename. That can't be your codename. Shouldn't it be something like Black Widow or Nebula or... It's my codename.