Prowl (Animated)
| The name or term "Prowl" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Prowl (disambiguation). |
- Prowl is an Autobot in the Transformers Animated continuity family.
Some people are team players, and some...well, aren't. Prowl falls into the latter category. A loner at heart, he has little interest in teamwork, something Optimus Prime finds extremely frustrating.
Prowl is an adept and agile one-on-one fighter who strikes swiftly and unseen with throwing stars and swords, and he feels cooperation with the loud and unsubtle Autobots around him would cramp his style. He uses an array of throwing weapons, such as cutting discs, that he can throw with high accuracy. While useful as thrown projectiles, these weapons tend to be far more damaging at close range and will occasionally bounce off their target with little damage if thrown from too great a distance. He's the only Autobot with a jetpack, granting him limited flight. Despite Prowl's battle prowess, this unwillingness to work with his teammates causes problems.
Still, he's not without his redeeming features. He has a deep, deep fascination with organic lifeforms. His quarters on Earth is missing most of its ceiling, allowing him a permanent window into nature. In fact, he seems to have a deeper appreciation of his new surroundings than the humans who grew up with them. The phrase "stop and smell the roses" is a life truth for Prowl, and he can spend hours motionless, watching the world play out around him.
Interestingly, he is drawn considerably larger, or at least taller, than Bumblebee, despite the fact that his vehicle mode is much smaller.
Fiction
Transformers: Animated cartoon
- Voice actor: Jeff Glen Bennett (Engllish), Lutz Schnell (German)
Prowl showed a lack of interest in both teamwork (as a loner type) and in the motivational (kinda long-winded) speeches of Optimus Prime. He did not obey orders at first and learned of the consequences firsthand as he was nearly killed by a nanite-enhanced cockroach. After his revival at the hands of Sari and her All Spark-empowered key, he showed that he had become a valuable team player when he headed out with Bumblebee and Sari to save Professor Sumdac and Captain Fanzone from Starscream. Transform and Roll Out!
Later, Prowl was watching a cat stalk a bird. He found it fascinating, but was aggravated when he was interrupted by human fans. Returning to base, he hid out in his Japanese-themed room, only to be interrupted by Prime and Bumblebee. Even worse, Sari threw a slumber party, pushing Prowl to the edge by the commotion. Ironically, when Megatron took over the factory, Prowl was able to show Bumblebee the value of stillness in battle, something the pair would work on later in a game of Twister™. Home Is Where the Spark Is
In an attempt to get Bulkhead to be less bumbling and destructive, he tried to teach his comrade how to move with ninja-like grace as he did. It...did not go well. Bulkhead's effectiveness in battle was undermined until Prowl realized Bulkhead's approach had its place and encouraged him to "do what you do." He also sensed sparks within the Dinobots and, unwilling to let them be destroyed, secretly hid them on a small island before they were melted down. As he explained to Bulkhead, "Just because something's big and lumbering and destructive, doesn't mean you give up on it." Blast from the Past
Reasoning correctly that the Decepticons would target Sari to get at her All Spark-empowered key, Prowl took to instructing her in the art of "ninja nerve blows." It was shortly after one of these sessions that his decision to save the Dinobots seemingly came back to haunt him when the gargantuan robots kidnapped the girl. He headed to their island home with Bulkhead in tow, the suspicious Captain Fanzone shadowing them somewhat clumsily the whole way. However the police captain was not prepared for the environmental hazards of the secluded island and had to be rescued by the pair of Autobots. Together, the three of them discovered that the Dinobots had been coerced into kidnapping Sari by Prometheus Black, whose corrosive touch they had come to fear. Forced along with Fanzone to fight the mad geneticist's creations in a gladiatorial arena, Prowl began to develop a bond with the captain, who in turn came to trust Prowl. Survival of the Fittest
Trivia
- The glasses bear an uncanny resemblance to those of Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Gurren Lagann would have been released around the same time details on animated were being finalised, though it's possible it's too early for this to be so.
- His personality however is nothing like his glasses-twin. Despite his design revamp and added Ninja Skillz, he still has the same old cold, dickish but sensible and logical personality his G1 counterpart has. He's also turns into a Police Motorcycle(his G1 form was a Police "Race Car") and features both black and a "Metallic" colour(gold instead of silver) as predominant colours and a chevron as nods to his G1 self. It's still debatable whether he was originally intended to be a new character with the same name(such as many of the characters in Beast Wars), but given the police theme and design references, it's more likely they just added to his character as it was never that well defined.
- This also would not be the first time a car-based Autobot has been turned into a motorcycle, or given a new "feature"; similarly, Energon and Movie Arcee were motorcycles and given a "hunter" persona(as opposed to Prowl being a Ninja).
Toys
Transformers Animated
- Prowl (Deluxe, 2008)
- Prowl transforms into a police motorcycle of made-up model. His removable hubcaps turn into three-bladed shuriken. He comes with a traffic light with a chain attached to it, which functions as a weapon.
