Prowl (WFC)
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| 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 from the Aligned continuity family.
An experienced militia and police officer, Prowl joined Optimus Prime's Autobots in the war against the Decepticons, contributing his knowledge of combat in urban areas. His weapon of choice is the Investigator Special—a electroconductive gel that's quite adept at redirecting internal signals, paralyzing his targets long enough for him to bring them in.
"Prowl. I don't think anyone here needs sarcasm right now."Prowl and Optimus Prime, Exodus
Contents |
Fiction
The Covenant of Primus
Along with his close friend Bluestreak, Prowl played a vital role in overthrowing the Quintessons during their rule of Cybertron. As engineers, the pair were given blueprints by their Quintesson overseers and instructed to decipher them. Realising that the Quintessons themselves had no idea how to go through the plans themselves (which the duo discovered by deliberately inserting inaccurate calculations), both young Cybertronians brought the matter to the attention of Sentinel Prime and his Council.
After Sentinel went through the plans (though Alpha Trion privately suspected the Prime could not make head-or-tails of them and was simply trying to put the young bots at ease), he thanked Prowl and Bluestreak and asked them to continue trying to gain as much information as they could without jeopardising themselves. Their information led to the horrifying conclusion that the Quintessons were planning to sell Cybertronians off-world as slaves, using the plans to create Space Bridges to make it possible.
When the Quintessons had been driven off-world, Cybertron entered a Golden Age, where the Cybertronians were able to use the Space Bridges to create colonies for themselves. One of the first was Archon, where Bluestreak decided to move to in order to become a Space Bridge operator. Meanwhile, Prowl himself remained on Cybertron as an operator as well.
Sadly, the Golden Age came to a sudden end with the advent of the Rust Plague, a virulent, seemingly unstoppable disease that rusted all metal, even Cybertronians, to nothing. When the increasingly desperate measures to stem the Plague failed, Sentinel Prime came to the grim conclusion that for the sake of Cybertron's safety, the Space Bridges had to be destroyed. The order was given to all Space Bridge operators to self-destruct their Space Bridges immediately. Any attempt to bring anyone through would be considered treason and subject to summary execution.
Despite this, Prowl desperately pleaded with Bluestreak to come home, offering to open his Bridge long enough for his dear friend to make it through. Bluestreak replied that the Plague had already reached Archon and that he couldn't risk bringing the Plague back with him. He offered Prowl the hope that perhaps the efforts of the Archon authorities to stem the Plague might work and that they would someday meet again, but both Transformers were aware this would likely be the last time they'd ever speak to each other again.
Ironhide had arrived to ensure Sentinel's orders were carried out, and at one point had to urge Prowl (as gently as he could) to initiate self-destruct. The two Cybertronians watched the Space Bridge, once their symbol of hope and the future, go up in flames.
Several centuries later, when the Decepticon uprising began, Prowl had joined the Autobot ranks and would later play several roles during the coming war. The Covenant of Primus
Aligned novels
Prowl acted as go-between for the civilian High Council guards and various city-state militas. He allied with Optimus during Megatron's attack on Praxus. During the siege of Iacon, Prowl informed Optimus that Megatron was aboard Trypticon Station. Optimus feared Megatron had found a new weapon. Alpha Trion asked the Autobots what they knew about energon. Prowl tried to silence Jazz's jokes as he felt anything the Archivist had to say was significant, but even he laughed when Jazz felt Alpha Trion had not sufficiently explained what Energon was when he said it was the emanation of Primus. Alpha Trion then adequately explained Megatron had found Dark Energon, the emanation of Unicron.
Optimus ordered Prowl to lead a guerilla team to draw out the Darkened Decepticons, to waste the resource in chases, when Prowl received a communication from Starscream requesting a meeting. Prowl offered to go meet him in case it was a trap, but Optimus requested Starscream speak to him on a secure channel instead. When the Darkened Decepticons stole the Plasma Energy Chamber, Prowl helped fight them off and got Ratchet to repair Omega Supreme, whom Megatron almost killed. Afterwards, Prowl received a distress signal from Sentinel Prime. He traced it to Kaon, as he recognized the signal blocking its source was used by gladiators to hide messages they didn't want on the Communication Grid from his pre-war days working in the Hydrax-Badlands circuit.
Prowl rescued Sentinel with Optimus and Jazz. While recovering, Optimus went to Cybertron's core to purge its Dark Energon corruption and returned declaring Project Generation One. Prowl became part of the Eight Track crew, boarding Trypticon and sustaining heavy damage battling its drones and Minicons. He helped destroy its Dark Energon Facility, causing it to crash into the planet. He boarded the Ark with the other Autobots, journeying through the last space bridge to a spiral galaxy. Then Prowl detected the AllSpark. Exodus
After passing through the unstable Space Bridge, Prowl and the Autobots aboard the Ark found themselves in the vicinity of a Cybertronian colony world called Velocitron. They located it in part thanks to a mysterious starmap projected outwards from Optimus Prime's chest by the Matrix itself. Prowl was assigned to Hound's second response team, as Optimus Prime made planetfall with his initial squad. It was a time of great stress between Velocitron's rulers, Override and Ransack, and the Autobots' arrival from mythical Cybertron only exacerbated the situation. Worse still, Prowl uncovered evidence of a Decepticon agent on Velocitron. He overheard a secret meeting between a mysterious robot called "777" and several Velocitronians, spreading Megatron's message of "Peace through tyranny". Prowl was unable to get a good fix on 777's face or voice, but after active sabotage temporarily disabled the Ark, he came to the conclusion that one of their crew was actually a Decepticon agent. Jazz and Prowl conferred with Optimus about the situation, but ultimately concluded there was little they could do at the moment other than remain on guard. Although the Autobots secured an ally in Override, they left Velocitron on the brink of civil war during their departure, as Ransack's followers had been corrupted by the Decepticon rhetoric spread by the Ark's traitor.
The next leg of their journey through the Space Bridge brought the Autobots to fabled Junkion, a world composed entirely of space junk. Prowl was on board the Ark during the initial landing again, and was therefore present when the engines blew out in another act of deliberate sabotage. At Prime's request, he kept an optic on the shifty Junkion named Axer, whom even Junkion Leader Wreck-Gar didn't trust. Prowl got some intel on Axer from another Junkion named Shearbolt, and learned that not all Junkions were natives—some came from Cybertron and other worlds, and Axer was among the most recent arrivals. Shearbolt seemed to be holding something back, and so Prowl resolved to keep both him and Axer under observation during their time on Junkion.
Unfortunately, Shearbolt disappeared soon afterwards. And when Prowl eventually located the Autobot—dead and stuffed inside a starship belonging to Axer—Ratchet confirmed via energon decay that Shearbolt had been dead before Prowl supposedly had a conversation with him. Shocking as it was, this confirmed the existence of a mythical "Shifter", one of the descendents of the Thirteen's trickster, Amalgamous Prime. Tracking down Axer, he confirmed that the Autobot they thought was Hound was actually a Decepticon shifter named Makeshift. After securing Makeshift, Prowl and Ironhide oversaw the repair work on the Ark while Optimus Prime finished up his Matrix-driven quest on the other side of Junkion's Space Bridge. Makeshift's Decepticon comrades found them, however, forcing Prowl and the others to square off against the Seekers while waiting for Prime to return. He eventually did, and the situation became a bit too esoteric for Prowl's taste...multiformed legendary figures and weapons out of myth threatening to tear apart the planet.
The situation resolved itself once Prime got a heading for the AllSpark in a flash of insight. Unfortunately, Megatron shared that insight, and the two Cybertronian forces began a race to acquire the prize. Exiles
When the Matrix led the Autobots to a planet called Aquatron, Prowl led a recon unit down to the planet including Kup, Rodimus, and Bumblebee. They established a beach-head on the northern continent and made contact with the seemingly friendly Curator, governor of the Aquatronians. Once Optimus Prime and the others landed, however, Optimus suffered a mysterious seizure requiring him to be treated by the Aquatronians, making many of the Autobots suspicious of their hosts. Soon after, the Aquatronians revealed their true nature as agents of the Quintessons when the Decepticons arrived. The Aquatronians disabled the Ark and the Nemesis in orbit before politely insisting that the Autobots and Decepticons engage in peace talks, with the Curator as moderator. Optimus skeptically agreed.
Indeed, the "peace talks" were a sham from the beginning, orchestrated by the Curator to fail and bring the Cybertronians before a kangaroo court of trumped up charges before executing them to harvest their energon for an invasion of Cybertron itself. When Optimus and Megatron were separated from the others during a single combat exercise, Jazz and Prowl led the Autobots in escaping from their cells to strike back against the Quintessons' Sharkticon guards. Alongside the Decepticons, they fought a holding action at Hydratron while Optimus and Megatron dealt with their true foes. Afterwards, the Autobots and Decepticons coordinated a joint effort to locate their missing leaders among the wreckage, and found Optimus Prime and Megatron side-by-side atop a friendly Leviacon. Retribution
Transformers: The Ultimate Pop-Up Universe
Pursuing the AllSpark after it had been launched into space, Prowl was one of the many Autobots that found their way to Earth. There, he participated in a great battle within a human settlement against the Decepticons. Prowl chronicled the ongoing developments of the Cybertronian civil war in his datatrax. The Ultimate Pop-Up Universe
Tales of the Beast Hunters
Prowl was assigned to go out on patrol with the newly recovered Bumblebee. His attempts to make sure the patrol was nice and uneventful were almost stymied when Megatron turned up out of the blue. Tales of the Beast Hunters Chapter 23 Fortunately the Decepticon leader was attacked a short time later by a horde of Predacons, and Prowl stopped Bumblebee from getting involved on the grounds their enemies could conveniently destroy each other without any Autobots experiencing any danger or excitement. Tales of the Beast Hunters Chapter 24
2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon
Following the restoration of Cybertron from the Great War, Prowl was one of the many Autobots blacklisted by the new High Council for being a supporter of Optimus Prime. Enemy of My Enemy
Precursor World
A Warrior of the Seven Lights resembling Prowl was a member of the White Order. He was nearby on the White Planet when his commander White Gallant Convoy was warned of the fall of the Blue Order and the threat of the interdimensional warlord Ultra Megatron Omega by the Primus Vanguard's eponymous supreme leader. God Neptune comic 1
Games
Transformers Universe
- Voice actor: Alex Skuby (English)
Prowl is an Autobot commander and adviser for PvP modes (Elimination, Meteor Storm, and Challenge). He will constantly update players about the battlefield in Meteor Storm as well as give advice on which points to capture and which to defend, while also giving motivational quotes in other modes when the Decepticons are losing or winning.
Robots in Disguise mobile game
- unlock Champion — 200 Ultra Sparks
Prowl was one of the Autobots who fought against hordes of Decepticon clones in and around Crown City. Robots in Disguise
Toys
Prime
Cyberverse
- Prowl (Cyberverse Legion Class, 2013/2017)
- Series / Number: 3 / 006
- Accessories: Justice Hammer, lightbar
- Known designers: Joe Kyde (Hasbro)
- Part of the second wave of Beast Hunters Series 3 Cyberverse Legion Class toys, Prowl is a redeco of Legion Class Smokescreen, transforming into a police car loosely based on a McLaren MP4-12C with an additional police lightbar on top. He comes with the "Justice Hammer", which is adorned with two 3mm posts and two holes, and can mount onto ports on Prowl's hands, and onto the sides of his vehicle rear/robot feet. The lightbar is pegged onto his roof/back and can be removed to reveal another 3mm mounting point.
- Smokescreen's mold was also used to make Prime Bluestreak (sans lightbar) and Prowl's police version for The Last Knight Barricade. The hammer, in various colors, was also used by Twinstrike, Blight, and Rot Gut. in 2017, this Prowl also saw release as one of the 3 random free Legion Class gift for the Walmart exclusive Blu-Ray release of the four live-action movies.
Beast Hunters
- Prowl (Deluxe Class, 2013)
- Series / Number: 2 / 016
- Accessories: Launcher & "Firelance Missile" (combine to form Firelance Missile Launcher)
- Known designers: Andrew Scribner (deco artist)
- Part of the fifth wave of Prime: Beast Hunters Deluxe Class toys, Prowl is a retool/redeco of Deluxe Smokescreen, featuring a new light-bar, plus a new head and deco based on his Transformers Universe design (featured at the top of the page), but omitting Smokescreen's Shadow Quill Armor. He transforms into a McLaren MP4-12C police car, and comes with the Firelance Missile Launcher, a redeco of Smokescreen's spring-loaded missile-firing Electronet Launcher, but without the Electronet. The launcher can peg via 5 mm post onto his hands, light-bar, and on either side of his spoiler.
- His packaging call-outs mistakenly mention snap-on armor that he doesn't have. Additionally, his instructions reuse the line-art of the Electronet Launcher to depict his Firelance Missile Launcher, Electronet and all, and the instructions use mis-transformed line-art of Smokescreen to depict Prowl. His instructions also include the twenty-fourth and final chapter of the Tales of the Beast Hunters series.
- Prowl was later redecoed into 2014 Transformers Protectobot Streetsmart and Timelines Barricade.
Adventure
- Prowl (One-Step Changer, 2015)
- Release date: March 21, 2015
- ID number: TED-04
- Adventure Prowl is a redeco (repaint?) of Age of Extinction One-Step Changer Prowl, being identical in coloring to the original toy but featuring additional paint details on his eyes, arms and groin. He has a scannable badge compatible with TakaraTomy's Adventure app, which when scanned will unlock Prowl in the collection list.
Notes
- Though Prowl is physically based on Generation 1 Prowl, his weapons and tactics—using stars and knives to fight Sentinel's prison guards—bear some similarity to Animated Prowl, as do some aspects of his facial design and his Cyber-Ninja background.
- Prowl did not appear in either of the High Moon Studios video games, but concept art for him was featured in The Art of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. Unusually for a WfC/FoC design, it uses a Prime-style noseless face.
- For some reason, Prowl appears in The Covenant of Primus depicting the finale of Predacons Rising (specifically Optimus Prime's speech to his troops before flying into the Core) in place of Smokescreen. His dialogue suggests he'd always been present, leading to the possibilities that (a) the chapter in question takes place in an alternate universe where Prowl was present instead of Smokescreen or (b) the author simply confused the two (the fact that Prowl's figure is a retool of Smokescreen's probably didn't help).
- In Robots in Disguise, Prowl is depicted as a recolor of Bluestreak.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Prowl (プロール Purōru)
- Hungarian: Portyázó ("Prowler")