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Transformers Toy Review Archive (older series, 1984 to date)
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Warcry's review of: Quickmix

Name: Quickmix
Nebulans: Boomer and Ricochet
Generation: One
Function: Chemest
Sub-Group: Double Targetmaster
Motto: "The faster it is, the better I like it."

Impatient, short-tempered inventor. Always in a hurry. Constantly devising new formulas and developing new ways to defeat the Decepticons. Somewhat absent-minded. Too busy starting new projects to see his old experiments through to the end. Teamed with the mercurial Nebulan, Ricochet, who transforms into a submachine gun and the bombastic Boomer, who turns into a sonic pulse cannon. In vehicle mode, reaches maximum speed of 150 mph.

Quickmix has the same motto as Blurr. Yeah, that's the best anecdote I could come up with for this guy. Sorry.

What? OK, I'll try again...

My Quickmix is something of an oddity in my TF collection in that I can't say exactly how I ended up owning him [I can give a fairly accurate accounting of that for about 95% of my collection, oddly enough]. I think I picked him up at K-Mart or Woolco or some damned place, but the when and why elude me. I do remember playing with him in the back seat on the way home from the store, though. And even then, I was disappointed with him. That says something.

It's not that he's bad, per se, but he could have (and should have) been quite a bit better.

Alternate Mode:

As his name suggests, Quickmix is a cement mixer in his alternate mode. His name does not, however, suggest quite how crappy he is in this mode. His cab and most of his body are cheap, plasticy red, while his mixing drum and rear fenders are white. His wheels are black plastic, as Hasbro had long since abandoned rubber tires by the time he was made. His windows are bright yellow, which looks very, very bad to my eyes. His Targetmasters can attach to either side of his mixing drum, making him the world's deadliest cement mixer.

There are quite a few problems with this mode. First and foremost, his robot-mode fists are blatantly visable underneath his mixing drum, attached to his rear fenders. That's somewhat understandable, since his arms have to fold under there during his transformation. However, most of his arms are hidden from view by his wheels and a small piece of plastic that comes forward from the fenders. Extending that piece of plastic by half an inch would have hidden the hands, but Hasbro just didn't bother.

Another issue, one that probably came on due to my Quickmix's extreme age, is that his robot-mode shoulder joints are very loose. What does that have to do with the alternate mode? Simple. Since his arms swing under the mixing drum using that joint, and since the mixing drum is on a joint of it's own, those shoulder joints have to be able to support the drum. Mine can't anymore, so the arms swing out from underneath Quickmix whenever I put him down on a flat surface. And that means I can pretty much kiss goodbye to any display value he might have had in this mode.

And for a parting shot...his mixing drum doesn't turn, either, which all in all makes him a really poor cement mixer toy.

Robot Mode:

Despite having an intelligence-insultingly simple transformation, Quickmix's robot mode ends up looking pretty good. His cab forms his feet, and his mixing drum becomes the centre of his chest (which sorta explains why it doesn't rotate in vehicle mode...). His legs, head and the outer parts of his torso are red, while the rest of him is white.

The overall effect is a pretty nice one, I think; the mixing drum combined with the overall width of his chest gives Quickmix a powerful look. Combined with his shorter-than-optimal legs, it gives him the look of a stout construction worker. An apt design for a Transformer that turns into a construction vehicle, I'd say.

This isn't to say that Quickmix is without problems in this mode. The biggest one by far is his arms. They suffer from the same malfunction as Broadside's do; that is to say, they bend at a totally random spot that is neither shoulder nor elbow. That's not a real problem as long as you leave his arms angled downward. But if you try to point his Targetmasters at anyone, he ends up looking kinda silly.

His arms are his only points of articulation, by the way. That's the second issue. The third issue is his face. It's poorly-moulded and doesn't really look like a head at all. The paint apps don't help much, either. Quickmix is something of a generic brick, but he's a charming generic brick.

Transformation: 3/10 Weak...
Durability: 5/10 The red plastic that Hasbro used on him seems to be sub-standard. Aside from looking bad, it's fairly brittle (at some point in the past, I managed to break off one of his front wheels).
Fun: 5/10 Pfft.
Price: 9/10 Quickmix fetches between ten and twenty dollars (US) from what I've seen, depending on condition and whether or not his Nebulans are included. Not too bad, considering the age of the figure.
Overall: 5/10 He's the weakest of the Targetmasters that I own, but he really isn't bad. He's just overwhelmingly mediocre. Recommended for completists or as a display piece.
 
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