I’m glad they’re still making updates of the Beast Wars cast, as I’d thought Legacy Silverbolt was the last one. But Age of the Primes has given us another one, in the form of his opposite number, Quickstrike.
“This is fine.” Wait, sorry. “This is fahn.”
Introduced in the second season, Quickstrike’s role was technically to be another Predacon mook, but there was one twist with him: He was a cowboy. He had the accent, he’d root and toot and talk about keisters and tarnation, it was a whole thing. He wasn’t very smart, and was always itching to get into fights, but it was the mannerisms and accent that made him distinctive. He was no Waspinator or Inferno, but he was a heck of a lot more interesting than Scorponok or Terrorsaur (which is probably why he was introduced the episode after those two were fatally written out of the show).
The cross-sell was a lie, we didn’t even get all four of these ones on the show.
Quickstrike and Silverbolt were also “Fuzors,” a sub-line of Beast Wars figures with the aesthetic gimmick that their beast modes were hybrids of two different animals, with Quickstrike being both a scorpion and a cobra. In fact, the pair were the only representation the entire toyline got on the show! It happens when you have a limited budget for new character models.
Translucent plastic *and* ball joints. If he had chrome, he’d have the Nervous Collector Trifecta.
Speaking of the toyline, Quickstrike originally had a little Basic-class figure released in 1998, who’s one of the few vintage guys from the era that I personally have no memory of ever handling, so I’ve got no basis of comparison for the new one. Like Silverbolt, though, the figure was actually quite animation-accurate (or rather, the show had started making an effort to be more toy-accurate), so the new one’s biggest claims to fame seem to be “he’s larger,” and “a new one finally exists,” since Quickstrike hasn’t gotten a single new toy between now and ‘98. No respect for an old gunslinger, until now.
Robot Mode
Funny lookin’ fella, ain’t he?
Quickstrike feels bigger than he should be. It’s not a bad thing, and I’m sure he’s accurate to whatever scale chart they use for these updates, it’s just funny to see this particular Deluxe Goon tower over all the other Deluxe Predacon Goons. He’s not just tall, too, he’s barrel-chested, and kind of just a big slab of plastic. Good for him!
He still isn’t the tallest of the Goon Squad, though.
The original Quickstrike toy had kind of a funky design, where he really was an animal re-arranged into a humanoid shape, and that’s been faithfully preserved here, in a way that feels quirky.
Gonna poke you with his leg-fingers.
He’s got legs made out of scorpion claws, an entire right arm that’s just a full cobra, and a left arm that ends in giant scorpion legs. How does he interact with the world without functional forearms?
Good enough, he’d probably say.
He’d probably say he doesn’t need to do anything other than fight. Uptop, I’m not sure what anything on his face is supposed to be, but it’s all replicated here in a nicely animation-accurate form. It makes me visualize the way the weird projection he has where his mouth should be would deform and move while he was speaking.
Tarnation, et al.
The rest of him’s pretty slavishly animation-accurate, too, with stuff like the beast head on his butt, and the big panel behind his head being there because they’re on his CGI model, too.
If nothing else, he’s extremely good at watching his own back.
For colors, he’s a vibrant character, decked out in a toxic-looking combination of dark yellow, aqua, and extremely dark (nearly black) brown, with orange scorpion legs, a tiny little predacon symbol on his chest, and red eyes. It’s a strange colorscheme, but a fetching one, and it is, again, just as he appeared in the animation. Well, mostly. That nearly-black brown was more metallic and reflective on the cartoon, but I don’t see how a figure could have done that without blowing its paint budget. At least none of him is translucent, like on the ‘98 figure.
He, as the kids say, mogs the other Beast-era scorpionformer.
For build quality, he’s a sturdy lad, just an unusually solid block of plastic in your hands. I get the impression that, because he’s kind of a simple figure overall, they were able to just pour money into making him incredibly durable, and he feels it.
When there’s keysters to the left.
For articulation, the big story here is his snake-arm, to the point where it’s basically a gimmick. So, he’s got a universal shoulder joint, and after that, a whopping six ball-joints, all in his arm, plus an opening and closing mouth for the scorpion. This means that he can bend, flex and whip it like nobody’s business.
“There’s a snake in my arm!”
The joints are nice and tight, too, but I will say that they’re ball joints, so I worry about them loosening with time. But time also turns everything to dust eventually, so I’ll focus on what they are, and not what they might become.
“That’s a might heavy for a toy review, partner.”
The rest of him’s got your standard good modern suite of articulation, including ankle tilts, swivel knees and thighs, universal hips, a waist swivel, universal shoulders, and a ball-jointed neck with a bit of up-and-down action. His non-snake arm’s got a bicep swivel, an elbow swivel, and, I guess, a wrist swivel, and two finger joints? The big mass of legs can swivel, and grab like a claw, basically.
*Grab*
“Yoink!”
For features, well, there’s kind of nothing. Okay, I say that, but like I said, the snake-arm being so poseable feels like a feature, but that’s reaching. What he does have is five Weaponizer ports across his body, including one on what I guess is the palm of his claw-hand, and another at the chin of the snake-head.
He would absolutely give up one foot for more guns.
That snake-head also has a little blast effect nub in his mouth.
I made myself chuckle imagining he’s, like, violently puking.
I gotta admit, though, with no accessories, and no other features, he does feel really threadbare. The original squirted water from the snake’s mouth, and while they aren’t going to do that on a modern figure, an effect part or something would have been nice. It really feels like he needed one more thing.
Loading up for the gimmick he no longer has.
Transformation
This is, theoretically, extremely simple. You’re laying him on his chest, turning his legs into claws, hiding his head, extending his torso, and arranging his arms into the obvious things they become in his alternate mode. It can get a bit tricky around the torso, though. I’m always forgetting the specific ways his robot torso splits, and the fact that you need to leave him half-transformed to get his snake-arm into its snake-tail position.
He’s gotta be like this before you can re-arrange his arms.
Still, once you’ve got it, there’s not much to it. Not that there needs to be!
Beast Mode
Is it too old-internet-humor of me to be like “I’m pretty sure these are real in Australia?”
Quickstrike changes into a straight-up scorpion, with an entire cobra for his tail. I think the most interesting thing here comes when you compare him to the previous attempt at a beast-era scorpionformer, Kingdom Scoponok.
Two different kinds of horror.
That guy wasn’t shooting for animation accuracy in his altmode, something he shared with the other Beast Wars updates released around Kingdom. Instead, he was some kind of semi-realistic hellbeast. Quickstrike’s aiming for animation accuracy instead, and so winds up looking way different (and a little bigger), even if the basic shapes are the same. He’s a lot cleaner-looking, too. I’d say the only eyesore is some holes in the middle of his carapice, though at least one of them’s a 5-millimeter port.
I got both heads in one shot!
His scorpion face is similarly toon-accurate. I’m pretty sure on the tv show, it was actually a recolord and slightly resculpted Scorponok head, so it’s fun to see it accurately replicated here. By the way, I never commented on the similarly nice headsculpt on the cobra head.
And he’s offended by it.
His colors are largely the same in this mode. I’ve got no idea if any real scorpion would have these aqua-and-yellow colors, but they do scan to me as a natural “stay away, I’m poisonous” kind of thing.
Funny how all three of the Season 2 Minions were bugs.
He’s just as rock-solidly stable in this mode, too, to my immense relief. Articulation-wise, though, he has some limits. His claws are nicely poseable, with shoulder and elbow joints, and ends that can snap, and rotate up and down, no problems there.
His claws stop him from throwing up gang signs.
Plus, his shoulders have a swivel that lets them rotate, for additional expressiveness. At the back, he’s got that same ridiculous amount of joints in his snake-tail, plus a hinged jaw.
I’m honestly not sure who to root for here.
He’s squeezing his ears to make Silverbolt fly.
The big thing that’s being missed here is his beast legs, which are two solid, fully immobile pieces, without even a singular point of rotation, since they’re fully pegged in in this mode. It seems like a drag, but then I remember what an unstable, loose, ready-to-pop-off mess the scorpion legs were on Kingdom Scorponok, and that makes this solid, immobile block of legs feel worth the sacrificed joints.
“Let it all out, little buddy. I gotcha.”
For features, well, there’s nothing new in this mode, but you can still access all five weapons ports.
He’s definitely a boss from a 16-bit action sidescroller.
Overall
Quickstrike is a strange figure, because of how straightforward he is. He’s just a direct update of the Beast Wars original, making him bigger, bulkier, and more poseable. On one hand, there’s something interesting to how large, solid and basic he is, and he certainly pulls it off well. On top of that, the big, multi-jointed snake arm’s nifty. On the other hand, he’s, well, kind of dull.
As a little kid, I was dull enough to not realize Blackarachnia was playing him.
What you see is exactly what you get, and he feels like he’s missing something to make him stand out, some kind of feature, or accessory, or interesting quirk of the design and engineering. Maybe I’m desensitized to the inherent weirdness of his design, though, because of how I grew up with the character, and that wierdness is what’s supposed to make him stand out, which, fair. Still, I can’t help but consider him competent, but skippable, unless you’re going for full cast completionism, like me, or are a particularly big Quickstrike fan. He’s not *bad*, not at all, he’s just kind of there.
One more goon squad pic for the road.
For over 300 Bot, Non-Bot, and Retro Bot Reviews, click here to view my archive.
