(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to Combiner Wars Dead End. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Combiner Wars Dead End here.)

    It's pretty much inevitable-- if there's a police car design released in a TF line, it's more than likely to get redecoed into Prowl somewhere down the line, and that's exactly what Streetwise has been redecoed into. The thing is, both Streetwise AND Prowl are primarily white, which rather limits how different one can be from the other. That said, Hasbro certainly did a good job regardless, making sure an ample amount of black is visible on Prowl, particularly in robot mode. The white is also more of a "pure" shade, compared to Streetwise's milky off-white, so there's that as well. The signature Prowl two-edged "swoop" paint app on the front of his hood that comes to a head in the middle is here, and he also has his usual "HIGHWAY PATROL POLICE" text on the side car doors, along with a blue police badge on said doors. (All of this is a bit cramped, though, given that due to the mold breakup, there's a stripe of unpaintable black plastic going up about two-thirds back on each "car door" piece.) The light silvery blue paint on his windows also looks great, contrasts well against the white, and helps differentiate him from Streetwise a bit more. (And hey, even the rear window is painted-- a rarity on a mass-release toy in this day and age.) Like the other Optimus Maximus deluxe components, Prowl's hand/foot/gun weapon is mostly a rather medium gray-- a bit bland, but thankfully used fairly sparingly, only used elsewhere on Prowl's waist and combiner connector piece. The outside of the weapon is mostly painted silver, though it's odd that Prowl's shotgun weapon is left white-- silver is a MUCH more fitting color for said weapon. The rear section of Prowl's vehicle mode is also rather bereft of paint, with no paint on the taillights or rear bumper at all. In robot mode, Prowl is considerably less accurate to G1 when it comes his overall structure compared to his vehicle mode, so most of his color scheme is simply a side effect of the colors from his vehicle mode. That said, his upper legs are appropriately black, and his faux hood-chest does have a miniaturized angular black paint app on it that fairly closely mirrors his vehicle hood paint app. His lower legs are also painted the same silvery blue that his car windows are-- homaging that his G1 toy had the vehicle's rear windows for its lower legs. I wish there were a few "minor detail" paint apps on Prowl's robot mode, but otherwise his color scheme is better "spread-out" than in vehicle mode.
    Prowl has the same mold changes made to the Dead End design that Streetwise does, along with a new headsculpt. The headsculpt is pretty much a straight-up re-do of his classic G1 design with less boxy proportions, and looks nice with the silver face and red headcrests that mirror the red on his police sirens. (The black eyes are a tad creepy, though.) The only complaint I have about the headsculpt is that the lips are over-pronounced the point where it looks like he had injections done-- weird.
    Combiner Wars Prowl may not be the most G1-accurate update in robot mode, but he's got a solid color scheme, excellent proportions in both modes, and is another use of one of the best molds of the entire line. Honestly, unless you're a stickler for G1 accuracy in nearly every respect, I'd go for this over the Universe 2.0 update easily-- regardless of whether you plan on combining Prowl or not.

Pre-mission psych-screening report by Rung, Autobot Psy-Ops Specialist:
Prowl possesses the most complex and comprehensive analytical mind on record-- he has the ability to simultaneously track the current position of over 8 million objects in motion, as well as predict their future locations with stunning accuracy. His logic processors make his counsel indispensible to Autobot High Command. (Now if he could just get the troops to follow his thorough plans more carefully...). Prowl has been devising ways to finish this war for millions of years, only to see the passion and courage of the Autobots trump his results-based planning time and again. It's enough to make a bot flip a table over now and then. His dual missile launchers aren't half as dangerous as the acid core rounds he fires from his blaster.
CONCLUSION: Cleared for mission.

HISTORY (extracted from compulsory biographical download):
Prowl first earned his reputation for thorough analysis working for the Mechaforensics Division on the Iaconian Police Force. He spent many years on Earth later in his career, finding the moral grayness of the planet troublesome, as Prowl is a bot whose optics view the universe in black and white. Forms either an arm or leg of Optimus Maximus, the combined form of Optimus Prime.

Review by Beastbot

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