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Series: Beast Wars
Allegiance: Maximal
Categories: Deluxe Transmetal 2
Year: 1999
Prowl strives to find logic and reason in everything. A listener, not a talker. Has most sophisticated logic center of the Maximals. Able to analyze and advise on complex combat situations almost instantaneously. Fires highly corrosive acid pellets. Cybernetic eye and frontal lobe interact with wing mounted ion orbs, supplying limited telekinetic power. Afflicted with ironic, dry sense of humor. Believes himself to have been a great military strategist in a former life.
Remarks: Usually black repaints are the specialty of Takara when it comes to Optimus Prime / Convoy figures, but in this case it was Hasbro who gave a new coat of paint to Beast Wars Transmetal 2 Prowl, whom I have previously reviewed. Thus we shall only look at the differences here. There has been a very straight-forward color-replacement here. What was white is now black, what was grey is now a dark blue, and what was a chromed blue is now chromed silver. Only the few translucent red parts have remained unchanged.
Black Prowl here is what is called a running change, meaning he’s not so much a variant figure as Hasbro simply decided to change the Prowl figure mid-production. Black Prowl was sold in the same packaging as the first TM2 Prowl and even under the same SKU (stock keeping unit). The black version never appeared in any media (not that TM2 Prowl has that many media appearances under his belt to start with) and no in-story reason was given as to why he was now sporting a much darker paint job.
Running changes have been a part of Transformers pretty much from the start as the original G1 Optimus Prime figure was available in multiple versions with different colored feet, Roller units and missiles. In Beast Wars the only other figure with a running change variant was TM2 Dinobot, though the change was nowhere near as pronounced there (tan-and-purple to white-and-blue). Which leaves us with a variation of a pretty cool Beast Wars figure. Personally I like the darker paintjob a bit more than the original white one, but that is purely subjective, of course. Do you really need both versions of this toy? Well, only if you’re a Beast Wars nut like me. Still, unless you’re completely opposed to beast-formers, you should consider at least one version. How many robotic owls are there, after all?
Rating: B
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