Prowl (G1)

Prowl is an Autobot of many virtues - he is quiet, competent, loyal, and possessed of almost endless patience. When Optimus Prime appoints Prowl a task, he can be guaranteed that it will be completed to the best of Prowl's ability. Prowl is not given to speculation or estimation - the only realm in which he will work is that of the proven fact; if he cannot explain it, he will not believe it. He hates doubt, and strives to make a situation as simple and logical as possible, purging excesses of concern from his mind by going to Optimus Prime for assurance. Prowl is friendly, but only as a listener; as a talker, he is not so sociable, entering a conversation usually only when someone makes an unreasonable remark, and demanding an explanation.
Prowl's logic center is unquestionably the most powerful of all the Autobots. For example, he can compute the paths of movement of 800 separate moving objects and determine the proper countermove in half a second. Prowl's straightforward mind means that non-linear thinking is one of his biggest weaknesses. Irrational situations and thought processes can sometimes scramble his circuits to the extent that his mind will briefly shut down. Strangely, although his toy tech specs placed him as second-in-command of the Autobots, in the animated series, both Jazz and Ironhide seem to share this duty with him in certain cases. Jazz was in charge of special operations, Ironhide security and Prowl tactics.
Prowl is voiced in the cartoon by Michael Bell. 
==History==
===Cartoon===
A regular member of the battle units assembled to combat the assorted threats the Decepticons posed to Earth, Prowl's primary solo adventure saw him pursue Starscream, Thundercracker and Soundwave alongside Bluestreak after a botched raid, only for injuries sustained in the ensuing battle to knock his battle computer offline. Unable to mobilize himself without its functions, Prowl reached out electronically and interfaced with the nearby computer of Chip Chase, who manipulated Prowl's body and fended off the Decepticons.
Beyond that, however, Prowl's role as a strategist put him firmly in the background of the Transformers' ongoing adventures on Earth, participating in many battles but playing key roles in few; among some of his roles in conflict involving him orchestrating the plan to invade the Decepticons' underwater base, devising security measures to prevent Megatron from stealing super-fuel from an Autobot convoy and leading the attack against the Triple changer, Blitzwing's fortress when he separated from the Decepticons, only to wind up built into a throne by Scrapper, after being smashed and defeated by Blitzwing's tank mode.
====The Movie====
In the year 2005, when the Autobots had been forced off of Cybertron and were based out of Autobot City on Earth and two orbiting moon bases, Prowl, Ironhide, Ratchet and Brawn were dispatched to Earth to collect a shipment of energon cubes that would power the Autobots' subsequent strike at the Decepticons. Getting wind of the plan, Megatron and his forces attacked their shuttle, and a single direct hit from Scavenger's weapon penetrated Prowl's armor, melting his internal workings, which ended his life. He and the others were killed in the line of duty. His recovered body was laid to rest in the Autobots' deep-space mausoleum, which was later destroyed.
Prowl's death coincided with the discontinuance of his original toy, as had almost all of the 1984 toys (one of the main purposes of the movie was to kill off the 1984 cast to make room for the newer toys), though he made the occasional appearance in the animated segments of the toy commercials.
====The Headmasters====
Prowl appears in episode 1 and 3 of the Japanese exclusive Headmasters series. He is among the Autobot forces on Earth. Since Headmasters takes place after the movie, this appearance is anomalous, though a later piece of Japanese-exclusive material explains that this is a separate character named "Prowl II"; this only applies to the Japanese G1 continuity, which has many, many distinct differences from the American G1 continuity.
===Comics ===
Events from the UK-only comic stories are in italics.
====War on Cybertron====
As revealed in The Magnificent Six, early in the War, before Optimus became leader, Prowl was part of the Magnificent Six, a strike team comprising himself, Wheeljack, Jazz, Inferno, Sunstreaker, and Stampede, tasked with infiltrating Decepticon territories to sow chaos. During a mission to the neutral town of Yuss, they defeated a small band of Decepticons and were considered heroes by the locals. However, the team team found themselves facing off against Megadeath's elite cadre in retaliation. The Magnificent Six held Yuss's borders for a week, but the neutrals, resentful of the violence, sold them out.
As Megadeath's captives, the six were tortured for a week. Sadistically, Megadeath gave five of them blasters, and offered them and offered him freedom if they could stop him killing the unarmed Stampede. Prowl and the others could not bring themselves to take up arms. Megadeath then gave the Autobots two hours to find his neutral prisoners before he obliterated the entire region. The Autobots instead hid, and ambushed Megadeath when he came to investigate. Though Prowl and Wheeljack nearly died in battle, the remaining three Autobots crippled their torturer. Megadeath refused to divulge where he had stashed the neutrals, so the Autobots left him to die to his own device. When later questioned about what had transpired during their mission, the survivors claimed not to remember any of it.
Prowl was by Optimus Prime's side when he thwarted Megatron's first attempt to take Iacon. Prowl was also at the battle of Jan-Ja where Optimus rallied the troops in protecting Iacon. Prowl made a small cameo in prequel comic Transformers 84, where he takes the crew assigned to the Ark to see the ship. While everyone was mostly in high spirits, he reminded them of the danger of the mission they would undertake, to clear an asteroid belt, and vital to Cybertron's safety. 
====Early battles on Earth====
While the Ark was successful in it's mission, the Autobots came under attack by the Decepticons. When the battle reached fever pitch, Prowl reported to Optimus that they would be defeated in 5 minutes. Apologising to his friend, Optimus sent the Ark into a crash landing into Earth where it would be buried for the next 4 million years. 
When the Autobots were revived, Prowl assumed his role as Optimus Prime's second-in-command and volunteered to lead a reconnaissance party to explore Earth. As a result, he led the Autobots in their first battle with the Decepticons on Earth, when they were ambushed at a drive-in cinema. In the process, he was the first to realise that the Earth cars they had been modelled after were mere machines and humans were Earth's dominant lifeform.
Prowl took part in other early Autobot actions on Earth, including the battle with the Decepticons at Witwicky's garage, the attempt to rescue Sparkplug Witwicky, subduing a rogue Brawn, and defending the Ark from a Decepticon attack, during which he was damaged fighting Ravage. He was rendered inactive when Optimus Prime had all the Autobots' fuel reserves given to keeping just five troops fully powered to defend the Ark from a further attack.
====Shockwave's Order====
After spending some time deactivated, Prowl was finally brought back online by Ratchet in time to help deal with the Guardian robot left by new Decepticon leader Shockwave to guard the Ark. With Optimus Prime's head having been taken by Shockwave and his body left inactive, Prowl took over as leader, overseeing Jazz's fuel arrangement with G.B. Blackrock and sending a group of Autobots to disrupt the Decepticons' attempt to conquer Cybertron.
He finally set out with almost all the Autobots to liberate Blackrock's aerospace facility, which was where Optimus Prime's head was being held. The group recovered what appeared to be Optimus' head from a swamp and restored it to his body. Prowl welcomed Optimus back, only for Optimus to open fire on him and the other Autobots: The head was a dummy and joined the Decepticons in battling the Autobots. Prowl was among those to suffer injury before the real Optimus Prime was restored and finally defeated Shocwave.
====Further adventures====
Prowl was all for taking advantage of the Decepticons' weakness and proposed using the Creation Matrix to create an army of nuclear-powered Warrior Autobots. Jazz and some of the others were against the proposal, but Optimus only offered weak dismissal of the idea. It was only after Optimus had regained his confidence with a solo mission to rescue Bumblebee from the Decepticons that he firmly turned down Prowl's idea.
Prowl acted as a co-ordinator during the Autobots' search for the rogue Dinobots and was finally able to take a battling Grimlock and Sludge offline by crashing a shuttle into the pool where they were fighting. He, Optimus Prime and Ratchet were shunted into limbo by the arrival in the present of Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge, where they were fed an illusion of being involved in an alien war by a group of parasites. Shortly after his return to reality, he believed Optimus Prime had been killed and presided over his funeral, only for it to turn out that the body they had found was a dummy.
Prowl may have accompanied Optimus Prime and Warpath to a meeting with the American President, during with a smear campaign launched by the Insecticons left Prowl badly damaged by Shrapnel. Like many of the original Ark crew, he was listed as deactivated by the time of Optimus Prime's genuine death, but was briefly brought back online by Ratchet in order to scare off car thief the Mechanic with his police car disguise.
====Under Grimlock's leadership====
Once Grimlock had taken command of the Autobots, priority was given to bringing Prowl and the other deactivated Autobots back online. Prowl quickly found that Grimlock had neglected the war with the Decepticons in favour of pursuing petty feuds and supported Blaster as an alternative leader, witnessing the duel between the pair on the moon.
After Optimus Prime had assumed command, Prowl was among those listed as deactivated again as a result of the rampage by the Underbase-powered Starscream.
====Earthforce====
Prowl was among the Autobots reactivated by Galvatron, after he had reviewed a segment of Prowl's history in which he had pursued the Battlechargers without concern for human collateral damage and been brought back into line by Optimus Prime. Galvatron hoped these flaws would allow him to brainwash the Autobots into serving him, but Prowl and the others were able to overcome his conditioning and defeat him.
Feeling out of place among the newer Autobots, Prowl was happy to go to Earth with Wheeljack and even happier to run into some familiar foes in the form of Megatron, Soundwave and a group of Constructicons and Stunticons. Prowl foiled Megatron's attempt to alter Earth's atmosphere, jumping onto his rocket to divert it and then casually emptying it of its contents as two Decepticon factions fought over it.
Joining up with the new Autobot Earthforce, Prowl served as Grimlock's second-in-command. He journeyed into the past to stop Megatron changing history by saving the Seacons, and joined the surviving members of the Autobot Wreckers in defeating the Decepticon Mayhem Squad. When Wheeljack accidentally activated the Autobot base's defences without anyone inside to shut them off, Prowl personally fought his way into the base to deactivate them.
Prowl joined Grimlock in attempting to forcibly recruit Starscream as a donor to save Snarl from the wasting disease corovia gravis, in the process having to fight off Megatron and Shockwave, who Starscream had deposed as leaders. He later played a key role in recruiting journalist Irwin Spoon to bring down a brainwashed Superion, hoping Irwin would write a favourable article about the Autobots. This latter hope came to nothing as Irwin was abducted by the Stunticons, with Prowl quickly being rammed off the road by Motormaster when he tried to rescue him.
====Facing Unicron====
Prowl was among the Autobots revived by Grimlock with nucleon, and then brought to Cybertron as reinforcements when the planet was attacked by Unicron. Prowl was quick to criticise Grimlock's tactics, which included crippling the Ark by flying it straight at Unicron, but followed his orders to join the battle anyway. The battle was finally won by Optimus Prime, who plunged the Creation Matrix into Unicron, destroying him.
Prowl was among the group who found the badly damaged Optimus Prime in the aftermath. The dying Optimus named Grimlock as the new leader and Prowl did his best to support him.
====End of the War====
Prowl tried to keep the alliance with the Decepticons together in the aftermath of the incident. Believing Cybertron was destroying itself, he organised an attempt to evacuate both groups to an uninhabited world, only for the Decepticons to betray them, sabotaging the Autobots' ships and leaving them to die. They were saved by Grimlock, who arrived with replacement ships he had hidden millions of years earlier.
Pursuing the Decepticons, who Bludgeon had led in attacking the peaceful planet Klo, Prowl again critiqued Grimlock when he promptly led the Autobots into an ambush, getting most of their number killed. Despite this, Prowl, Grimlock and the other survivors again provided reinforcements for a returned Optimus Prime when he took on the Decepticons. With the fallen Autobots being revived by the Last Autobot, the Decepticons were finally routed. Optimus Prime revealed Cybertron had survived and told Prowl they could finally go home.
==Robots in Disguise (2001)==
==Unicron Trilogy==
See main article: Prowl (Transformers Energon)
==Transformers IDW==
See main article: Prowl (IDW Comics)
==Transformers Animated==
==Transformers Cyberverse==
==War for Cybertron Trilogy==
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