When the previews of his HISS came out, I only saw it as another repaint of the POC HISS and wrote it off. But after seeing some better pictures of it, I realized it was quite different and appeared to be better in many ways. I decided to pick one up I think it is way better than the POC HISS.

POC
Terrible brown color (later better in black or red, but still not great)
Non-transparent canopy with weird fang design
Stupid pop up function that usually popped on its own
No gunner's turret
Tank treads were cool, but they didn't roll for crap. They seemed too short for the body.
Terrible figure

Retaliation
Cobra blue, hard to improve on
Transparent canopy with much better armored looking design
Pop up removed however it would be nice if the body were slightly closer to the wheels
Gunner's turret (Because what is a GIJoe vehicle without an overexposed gunner?)
Elongated fixed treads. Still don't roll great, but at least they will slide on smooth surfaces.
In many respects the figure is still terrible, just in a different way. While it completely lacks in articulation, it is a great sculpt. Besides, I don't like these super articulated figures. They are super loose and bendy.

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Y'know? It's funny, because I like a lot of those things. The woodland brown makes a lot more sense for an armored vehicle, than blue does. (and, blue is my favorite color) I was so glad to see that Cobra's "tank" was finally protecting its crew, with the armored canopy and internal gunner's station. I love the moving tracks, but they really do need need too many modifications to work right. Great idea; poor execution. I hate that the Retaliation one has gone back to the glassed in canopy and exposed gunner. That always made less sense to me, than an accountant in a bird suit.

I suppose the Retaliation HISS might be good for urban warfare, where it's less likely to have somebody fire a rocket into one of its screen doors.

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