Medix

Who's ready for a complex web of references and homages! Medix is a dedicated Cybertronian field medic, keeping his patients stable until his fellow Protectobots arrive on the scene to help him. Like Chase, the character Medix debuted as part of the kid-friendly Rescue Bots, where he was the team doctor. You know, like Ratchet is to the real Autobots. (Apparently Ratchet is his uncle; don't think too hard about how that would work.) He's not a real Rescue Bot, yet: he's one of the kids in training at the Rescue Bots Academy. Of course, if he's in this line now, he's presumably grown up some, and graduated. I've been hunting this figure for two years now. He's technically part of Legacy: Evolution, the 2023 line, although nobody got him until early 2024. The figure is a Walgreens exclusive, continuing their two ongoing themes: releasing medical/science-themed characters, like Minerva, and not actually putting the toys out anywhere, like Brainstorm, Ratchet, Red Alert... we could go on. Not great at getting stock onto shelves, is the pharmacy. I've been checking every single Walgreens I go to, and it's taken until now for even one to show up. Medix is a repaint of Legacy Crankcase, which was itself a retooling of Skids. That means we get a very blocky robotm with more more rugged design elements than Skids had. The chest has a unique shape, with large, angular panels that originally homaged the 1988 Crankcase toy, but are here basically just a fancy design element. Because G1 Crankcase was a Triggercon, meaning he had flip-out shoulder cannons, this mold has a tiny, vestigial pair of the same; but the instructions don't mention them at all, since they don't make much sense for a doctor. To utilize them, you have to move the windshield kibble up slightly so they can actually clear the body. The robot has rocker ankles, hinged knees, swivel thighs, swivel/hinge hips, a swivel waist, swivel wrists, hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a swivel head. The joints' quality is unpredictable, with the shoulders being loose and floppy and the hips being very tight. He's armed with the blaster that's come with all versions of this mold (in translucent blue) as well as the light bar and Minerva/Elita-1 weapons (in translucent red), and the front grille of the car can either be left on the robot's chest, or turned into a kind of crummy blaster for him to hold. The little shoulder guns aren't the only thing the instructions omit: there's an entire step that gets skipped, a step of such importance that it will be physically impossible to convert the robot without it. Raise the chest up over the head, and swing the arms back down, then fold them into the middle; press the shins together and open the front panels, raise the legs forward at the hips, then fold the pelvis upward and under the car's roof (that's the one they left out); rotate the shins to form the back of the car, flip the rear wheels out, and lower the side panels to finish things up. Oh, and attach the grille/gun if you had it off. This is a pretty rough transfomration, exacerbated by the loose/tight joints, with a lot of it being a "get everything close to where it's supposed to be, then squeeze real hard until it's forced into place" thing; it's not good here, and it couldn't possibly have been good on Crankcase, or Skids, or Crosscut, Burnout, Zimbooloo, Parsimonious Knip-Knap, or any of the other uses of this mold. Since the instructions don't mention the shoulder guns, they also don't show you were they need to go in this mode: they'll only fit if you push them up against the windshield, not down to be hidden away. Additionally, while Crankcase got a new hood and a new head, Medix gets the head from Burnout/Crosscut, which is sized for the old hood - thus, the car mode is left with a big sunken gap in the center of the hood where things don't line up. Designer Mark Maher said they needed to get this item together quickly, and that definitely shows in the final product. Heck, they didn't even have time to finish painting the tires on his arms! The sculpted, non-rolling part on the shoulder is supposed to be black like the rest, not left white. When a character named "Medix" was first released in the Rescue Bots line, he turned into a white and orange ambulance; four years later, in a line called Playskool Heroes, the character was still an ambulance, but this time accented in neon green; that same year, the customizing class at BotCon let participants make their own toy out of the Combiner Wars version of First Aid: several different versions of Ratchet, or Medix. So this figure, a 2023 Legacy: Evolution repaint of a Legacy retooling of a different Legacy figure, with a "Velocitron Speedia 500" head, is actually an homage to a 2016 BotCon figure that's an homage to a Rescue Bots character in a different crossover line. When Hasbro said they wanted to honor all parts of Transformers as a brand, they meant it! Shame he's not easier to find. -- 06/10/25 What BotCon exclusives do you want to see made available for more fans? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.