Q is for Quickmix

The Winning Toy

"Quick-thinking, intuitive and totally loyal to the Giant Planet and its inhabitants, Quickmix serves as right hand mech to Metroplex. It is he who first confronts Menasor over the evil robot's betrayal of the Giant Planet's traditions, and who encourages Metroplex to avoid becoming involved in the affairs of the Autobots. He rarely fights, preferring his role as a builder and repairman, but when the safety of his home world is threatened, he never backs down."

Toyline: Cybertron

Generation: Unicron Trilogy

Size Class: Voyager

Faction: Autobot

Strength: 7

Intelligence: 9

Speed: 4

Endurance: 7

Rank: 8

Courage: 8

Fireblast: 8

Skill: 7


Robot Mode



Quickmix's robot mode is mostly orange and black, with some yellow, red and silver highlights and with beige and grey on his left arm weapon. His body is sculpted with mechanical parts like vents, gears and other things.. Quickmix also has 2 Mini-Con hard pegs on his chest, one on his left knee and on his removable gun.

Quickmix's upper arms are connected to his upper torso by a small connecting-hinge section and a pivot joint that enables it to rotate 360 degrees, and via the hinge, able to be opened outwards by about 180 degrees (but this looks odd if you do that). Quickmix has a hinge joint in his shoulder that enables it to be raised outwards by about 90 degrees each. The upper arm on the right arm is connected to the lower arm by a pivot and hinge joint combination, enabling it to be rotated fully, and bent inwards by 90 degrees. Quickmix's left arm has a few extra hinges and pivots connecting it's upper left arm to the weapon as well. Quickmix's right hand is sculpted with fingers, but also has a peg hole for his weapon.

The upper legs are connected to his lower torso via a hinge and stiff pivot joint combination, enabling them to be moved almost fully (barring any obstructions from the arms or other objects). His lower legs are connected to the upper legs by a pivot and hinge joint forming a knee. He is able to bend his lower legs backwards by about 90 degrees. His feet are connected to the bottom of the lower legs by a small hinge and pivot combination, enabling them to be repositioned dependant on the surface you need them to be placed on.

Quickmix's head is mostly orange with a silver mouth plate, silver forehead crest, and a black chevron above that. Quickmix's optics are in the form of a single visor system, which is not coloured, but due to the plastic used, there looks like there's a pair of white eyes and a nose just visible. These eyes can be lit up through his light-piping gimmick. Quickmix also has a hands-free headset, like those used on actual construction sites to communicate with each other. This can be repositioned to make it look like he's talking into it.



Quickmix is able to connect to his Mini-Con on any of the afore mentioned hard-points, or by slotting Stripmine's own hard point into the small hole just above his large weapon.

Quickmix has a gun on his right arm that can be removed and held in his right hand, or can be held on any of his Mini-Con hard-points, even on other figures with them.

By plugging his Cyber Planet Key into it's slot (hidden by the cement input area normally) which opens his weapon into two halves, revealing a gun. You can launch a missile from the weapon by pushing the small button which is now revealed.

Quickmix also has a third work mode, like the other 2 members of the Giant Planet form the Cybertron line, but it's really not worth much, you just raise his legs into his hips and have his shoulders higher up than normal...it's really not worth even showing it honestly.


Alternate Mode



Quickmix's vehicle mode is a mostly orange Cybertronian Mixing Truck. He has a cab for a smaller driver (likely a mini-Con in a fictional sense). The cab has 2 pairs of smoke stacks at the back and a small indentation for his mixing drum to rest.

The vehicle mode drives on a set of 6 black working wheels which have sculpted tyres and hubcaps. he is able to roll on the ground unhindered by undercarriage. I front of the vehicle has a pointing out bumper, that could be used as a ramming weapon or maybe a drill of some sort if the owner decides to.



Quickmix's rear pipes can be removed (as it is the detachable weapon from his robot mode as well) and so it can be placed on top of his driver's cab as an extra weapon if desired.

His mixing drum is able to be repositioned as a cannon for a battle mode. As with his robot mode, you can insert his key into it's slot and reveal his weapon again. His Mini-Con Stripmine can also be plugged into any of the available hard-points or the small hole in the intact area. Unlike most Mini-Cons he can be inserted in either robot or vehicle mode (Robot Mode is shown here)


Stripmine



If you know me, then you'll probably know that I love Mini-Cons, and Stripmine doesn't disappoint.

Stripmine is a blue robot with yellow joints for his upper legs, back and arm connection. His chest has some silver detailing. His body has some minor sculpted detailing, such as treads on his legs or a helmet and mouth plate on his head. His eyes are a single bar optic visor that has been painted red.

One of the interesting parts about his Mini-Con is that he's able to switch his arms around, so the drill arm can be on his left or his right with no difference in the figure at all really. The other arm has a Mini-Con hard-point connected on a small hinge.

Stripmine's alternate mode is a blue and yellow treaded vehicle with a laser drill mounted on top. The drill doesn't spin around, and he has no wheels under him (unlike most treaded vehicle Transformers) so he can't actually roll by himself in any way, which isn't all that uncommon for a Mini-Con honestly. Something extra I noticed as well is that if you fold down the yellow hard-point then you can place it into Quickmix's right hand and be used as a welding torch or something.



Legacy

Quickmix was an on screen character from the Cybertron TV series on the Giant Planet, working as one of the construction workers for building the many layers of the planet, but unlike the other two characters from the Giant Planet (Menasor and Metroplex) he did hardly anything of note. He did however use his mixing truck to produce cement or other such compounds to trap enemies, but that's about it.

Sadly Quickmix has been very underused as a character in other fiction. A G1 version of him appeared as a Targetmaster, but fictionally he only appeared in a few places, in a couple of the Marvel comics (where he was positioned on Cybertron under Emirate Xaaron's command or under Rodimus Prime's command in a distant future) he also appeared in one of the Ladybird storybooks, in the opening credits for the G2 TV series (but never in the actual series). Quickmix also appeared briefly in one of the 3H Universe featuring the Wreckers comics. The only other Quickmix to appear was a Micromaster who formed one of the legs of the Micromaster combiner Devastator (a repaint of the Sixbuilder team).

Something of interest however is that every character called Quickmix is a Mixing Truck, something that's quite rare for a Transformers character.

Stripmine's name has never been reassigned, so he's literally unique!!

Both of these figures were repainted for the Universe 2.0 line as Heavy Load with Drill Bit, with both being a set of the first figures to be repainted from an earlier unrelated toy-line in the Universe line (pretty much every other has been used only for the Classics/Universe/Generations etc lines)


Is he cool?

Quickmix is a hard one...I personally like him a lot, I think he's a well designed character with some fun features like his key activated weapon and Mini-Con (always a plus for me). His articulation is pretty good (a common feature for Cybertron series figures). However I can also see why people wouldn't like him as well. Because he only has one real hand he looks a bit odd compared to most other figures, and his paint-job isn't that interesting (unlike his two Giant Planet counterparts) plus his Mini-Con doesn't activate any hidden features (unlike Menasor).

I actually wouldn't mind using this toy as a stand-in for G1 Quickmix, despite his colouring not being exactly right. I mean you can even recast Stripmine as Boomer is you want (and find a yellow gun to play Ricochet or just pretend that Ric' died some point)

So basically, this figure is what I'd class as a Marmite figure, you either like him or hate him (or only like him in certain situations). I would personally recommend this toy for any fan however, but it is totally up to you whether you want to buy him either for the Cybertron character or for the potential G1 recasting I mentioned before.