Prowl (TM2)

This article is about the owl. For the lion, see Prowl (Magnaboss){{#switch:{{#sub:Prowl (Magnaboss)|-1}}|!=|.=|?=|.}} For a list of other meanings, see Prowl (disambiguation).
Prowl is a Maximal from the Beast Era portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Give a hoot! Read a book!

Prowl is not a verbose Maximal, preferring instead to listen. He gathers information, analyzes it, and instantly suggests an appropriate course of action. His logical mind is without match among his Maximal brethren, who rank him among their best military strategists. Prowl feels that he fulfilled that same role in a previous life.<ref>Beast Wars Prowl pack-in bio card</ref>

{{#if:ProwlBeast Wars Sourcebook #3|
“ Logic provides the structure to be filled by the soul of creativity. ”
{{#if:Prowl|

—Prowl{{#if:Beast Wars Sourcebook #3|, Beast Wars Sourcebook #3}}

}}

}}

Fiction

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Beast Wars toy bio

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Prowl appeared to have lost all specific memories of his prior existence. He remained convinced that he was a great military strategist in a previous life. Beast Wars Transmetal 2 Prowl toy bio

Japanese cartoon continuity

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Story of Binaltech

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Offered a glimpse of the fast-approaching future by the time-traveling Decepticon Ravage, Wheeljack was witness to the death of Prowl and various other Autobots in the year 2005. In an attempt to alter the course of these events, he began Project: Bodyshop, developing new Binaltech bodies for his comrades that they would be able to control via the GT System. A body was developed to be used as a secondary unit by Prowl and was designated "Prowl 2" (プロール2 Purōru Tsū).

When Prowl came under attack from Decepticons on a mission in the vicinity of Saturn, Wheeljack made a desperate attempt to preserve Prowl's life by attempting a long-range transfer of his spark into his new body via subspace. Unfortunately, the process malfunctioned and Prowl's spark was lost. The body, however, had already been programmed with Prowl's datatrax, and Chip Chase, recalling the time years before when he had taken control of Prowl's body, volunteered to have his own mind transferred into the shell, bringing it to true life as "Prowl 2". Prowl & Chase

Thanks to Prowl 2 and Overdrive's efforts, the Ravage with knowledge of the future was eventually captured and made to reveal some of his secrets to the Autobots. Darkest Hour

After Unicron's defeat at the hands of Ultra Magnus, Prowl 2 remained vigilant knowing that Ravage still held an advantage over the Autobots with his knowledge of the future. He rallied the Autobot forces off Cybertron to better avoid whatever future catastrophe might await them. During the Autobots' absence, Shockwave returned Megatron to the timestream, and the Decepticon leader took full control of the Transformers' homeworld. Binal Time Optimus then summoned Prowl II and many other Autobots and told them that scientists had been able to retrieve some of the data about the future. Most pertinent was the existence of a "kill switch" which would immobilize all Transformers once pulled. The Autobots used the device as a last resort, but as it turns out, all those in Binaltech bodies were unaffected by its power. With most of the Autobots in Binaltech bodies, they secured an easy victory over the Decepticons. Kill Switch

Eventually, Prowl's lost spark was discovered, having traveled through subspace into another timeline. Unfinished Business, Part 1 Prowl's spark was deemed too weak to make the dimensional crossing back to his own timeline unprotected, so Chip allowed his lifeforce to be transferred back into his human body, so that "Prowl 2" could cease to be and the body be used to house the true Prowl's spark at last. Unfinished Business, Part 2

Ask Vector Prime

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When Prowl and Wheeljack traveled from BT World to OG World and subsequently took up permanent residence in the latter dimension, they transferred their sparks into new, non-Binaltech bodies, leaving the old bodies in storage. Years later, when the elderly Chip Chase fell ill, Wheeljack remembered the time his essence had powered Prowl's Binaltech body back in Wheeljack's home universe, and repeated the process using the Cortexitron and Prowl's Alpha BT unit in hopes of preserving Chip's lifeforce. Unfortunately, the process was not entirely successful, and the new Chip/Prowl fusion was put into stasis until eventually, Maximal technology enabled it to be reactivated. Some memories were lost, but Prowl II was once again alive. Ask Vector Prime, 10 September 2015

2006 IDW Beast Wars continuity

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"Problem, Razorbeast?"
"Yeah. We have no idea who the hell you are."

During the Great War, many Autobots fell victim to an infection that destroyed their bodies. To help boost the defense against the Decepticons on Earth, humans and Autobots combined their technology to create new Transformer bodies. One result of this cooperation was a warrior that was the combination of a human's essence and a robotic body. This warrior took on the mantle of "Prowl" for a short time and lived to the era of Maximals and Predacons. Beast Wars Sourcebook #3

Prowl was one of the protoforms left behind by the crew of the Axalon on prehistoric Earth. He was activated and put in chronal phase by Razorbeast at Magmatron's request, but was protected from Magmatron's Predacon shell-program by Razorbeast's viral code.

"Hey, Prowl. Someone told me you sound like an owl."
"Who?"

Accompanied by Night Glider, Sonar, and Air Hammer, Prowl sped to meet up with Razorbeast. The Gathering #2 These fliers and a phalanx of other Maximals finally reached Razorbeast's team just in time to fight off Ravage's Predacon militia. In the battle that ensued, Prowl battled Sky Shadow. After the skirmish, Razorbeast had a spark-to-spark conversation with Prowl, telling him how tempted he was to end Megatron's life while he was in the captivity of Magmatron. Prowl assured him that he made the right decision, as it was what happened in the here and now that mattered, not what could happen in there and then of the future. The Gathering #4

Prowl would serve as an adviser and sounding board for the anxious Razorbeast in the following weeks, alongside Wolfang, and the two would reassure him that the situation was under control at the moment. Of course, the Predacons decided to launch a full-tilt assault during one of these group chats and Prowl scrambled to counterattack alongside his comrades. The Ascending #1 During the attack, Ravage learned from a temporally-displaced Magmatron that Shokaract was the real threat, and a truce was called. The Ascending #2 Prowl was one of several Maximals who were taken back to Cybertron in the present day, as it was under attack from Shokaract and Unicron's acolytes. Prowl airlifted Snarl (who invisibility-cloaked them both) in an effort to put a chronal phase facilitator on Shokaract. However, when Snarl jumped off, Prowl was visible once again and was blasted out of the sky. Fortunately, his sacrifice was not in vain, as the monster was taken to Magmatron's limbo and convinced to end this madness before Unicron consumed them all. The Ascending #4

TransTech

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His only fictional appearance that isn't headache-inducing.

A Prowl with black feathers was a member of the Axiom Nexus Security Administration. He, Prowl, and Prowl were part of the group investigating the discovery of Comet's body. Withered Hope

On the day of the Waruder invasion of Cybertron, another Prowl, with white feathers, aided his fellow police officers (including yet another Prowl) in arresting C-81, Battletrap, and Stepper. Cybertron's Most Wanted

2005 IDW continuity

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WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO US??

Thousands of years ago, an owl Maximal was one of Onyx Prime's followers present with him on Antilla. Surfeit of Primes

A Cybertronian Transformer with the same design was one of the many radicals who joined Tarantulas's cell of Mayhem revolutionaries and underwent the Chimeracon upgrade. He was killed by the Wreckers shortly after the Autobot commandos invaded the Noisemaze. Sins of the Wreckers #5

Yet another owl Transformer was a Eukarian colonist. When Unicron arrived to consume his homeworld, he was one of the many Eukarians dragged into the maw of the planet-eater and devoured. Our Darkest

The Prowl II conundrum

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Due to the fact that The Transformers: The Movie (1986) was not released in Japan until 1989, the production staff of the assorted Japanese-exclusive series were apparently not aware that several characters died during the film. As a result, a few of these deceased characters continued to appear in subsequent Japanese series—Prowl in The Headmasters and Wheeljack in Victory. Prowl was an especially erroneous instance, because he had been name-checked as being among the deceased in the Japanese dub of "Dark Awakening", and yet... here he was, with a speaking line and everything.

The story accompanying Binaltech (2003–2008) introduced the Genetronic Translink System, a mechanism which allowed Transformers to simultaneously operate multiple bodies. This served as a possible explanation for the survival of many of these characters in Japanese continuity, but it did not explain how Prowl could still be around, since he had specifically been stated to be dead. Enter "Prowl 2", an identical clone (sort of) with Prowl's memories that seemingly retconned the appearances in The Headmasters into being "Prowl 2", rather than Prowl.

This continuity patch-job failed to stick, however—eighteen chapters in, the events of the Binaltech storyline were branched off into a parallel universe, leaving the appearances of Prowl in The Headmasters as an anomaly once more.

The anomaly continued in early 2008, when IDW's Beast Wars Sourcebook profiled the Transmetal 2 Beast Warrior Prowl. Originally released in 1999, this Prowl's toy bio featured many references to the original (they have the same function and motto, use the same weapon, and are described in almost identical terms) and noted that he "believes himself to have been a great military strategist in a former life," all of which seemed meant to imply he was the original, or at least had a strong connection. As the Sourcebook had already chosen to represent the Magnaboss component also known as Prowl as an upgraded version of the original Generation 1 character, Transmetal 2 Prowl—here given the moniker of "Prowl II" to differentiate him—was established to be an upgraded version of the semi-clone from Binaltech. This made little sense, however, given that the storyline of the Binaltech world was incompatible with the history of the Beast Wars universe, plus, a few months after the publication of the Sourcebook, the Binaltech story restored the original Prowl to life and put Chip back in his own body.

All of this would be patched up with "Controverse" in 2014 and then a 2015 Ask Vector Prime Facebook post that was written with input from Ichikawa. Between the two works, Prowl (and Wheeljack) were shown leaving the BT World timeline and traveling to the OG World timeline and switching to bodies reminiscent of their classic appearances. It was then explained that the original BT body, now lacking a spark, would eventually be reactivated with Chip's life force to form Prowl II. And thus was the problem solved, and there was much rejoicing.

Toys

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Beast Wars

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PrOWL. Get it? Yuk yuk yuk. Oh, Hasbro.
  • Prowl (Deluxe Transmetal 2, 1999)
Part of the second wave of fourth-year Beast Wars Deluxes, Prowl is a Transmetal 2 bio-mechanical owl with a flip-around-reveal spark crystal in his owl-skull. In beast mode, he has a spring-gear-activated spinning head-and-wing gimmick. Oddly, the advertised robot mode for this figure has limited range of motion, since its wings would prevent its arms from moving forward. However, box art suggests folding the wings over the shoulders, rather than sticking out sideways from the chest.
His toy was released in two color schemes: the first one, available in the first wave of product with Prowl (aka "second wave"), features a white, turquoise, and red coloration. Come wave 3, however, he and Dinobot were re-shipped as part of Hasbro's early experiments in refreshing a line with same-character redeco variants, with Prowl now colored black, blue, and red. As a running change variation, he was sold under the same individual SKU rather than as a completely new release, and his packaging makes no mention of this new color scheme.
The white version of this toy was sold in Japan as an "import", in Hasbro packaging with a Japanese sticker for legal information, exclusive to Toys"R"Us.


Binaltech

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Chip Chase cosplaying.
  • Prowl (Binaltech, 2005)
  • ID number: BT-15
  • Release date: July 28, 2005
  • Accessories: Engine/gun, traffic direction baton
  • Known designers: Steve Bono (Hasbro), Masakatsu Saito (concept artist){{#if: |, {{{2}}}}}
Prowl II was repurposed from Binaltech Prowl.
Part of the fourteenth wave of Takara's Binaltech line, Prowl "Patrol Type" transforms into a fully-licensed 1:24-scale [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Acura RSX|{{#if:||Acura RSX}}]] with opening doors, hood and trunk. His engine becomes a (non-firing) gun, while a clear-plastic nightstick is hidden under his car mode rear section.
For his standard Japanese Binaltech release, Prowl received a vehicle mode deco based on a real Japanese police car (the Hasbro Prowl's deco being based more on the original Generation 1 toy), a different spoiler mold, different rims, right-side steering, a Japanese police cherry blossom emblem instead of an Acura logo, and gray plastic instead of stony-blue. He was also labeled as a "Honda Integra Type-R", the model's make in Japan.


Notes

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  • The Beast Wars toy bio notes that Prowl fires "highly corrosive acid pellets", a nod to the original Prowl's weapon, but this Prowl has no gun of any type. However, real owls do spit up hardened pellets of undigested bone, fur and other leftovers from recent meals... so basically, Prowl horks up hardened barf-bullets at his enemies. Delightful!
  • There is another "Prowl 2" toy out there, the Spychanger from the 2001 Robots in Disguise toyline. No release of the toy included a bio, and consequently, just exactly who this figure represents was debated for a long time. Ask Vector Prime would eventually clarify the mystery there as well.
  • One idea Jim Sorenson had for a potential Beast Wars: Uprising convention comic (later solidified as the unrelated "Dawn of the Predacus" available at BotCon 2016) was Prowl as a villainous digital backup of Generation 1 Prowl.[citation needed]{{#ifeq: ||}}

Foreign names

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  • Japanese: Prowl (プロール Purōru)

References

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