Re: First Look at Studio Series 86 "Dead" Prowl from the Buzzworthy Bumblebee Line
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Comment by
Sowndwave76
Jun 10, 2023
The one aspect of this Prowl that I appreciate are the toon accurate colors.
And at the same time, it's also one of the flaws of this figure (more on that later).
Overall I think this was a bad decision, and a at best, a missed opportunity.
This critique has nothing to do with any love for this character...
I've never made a top 5 favorite Autobots list, but Prowl wouldn't even make my top 15-20.
For me, I've never been a fan of a themed figure where the theme is so limiting.
At least with Coronation Starscream, he could be displayed (or played with) without the coronation gear.
Even though I'd say it's fair to view this Prowl's alt mode as pointless, either way, imo it just doesn't look good.
Where the toon accurate deco falls flat for me is when considering the white areas could've and probably should've been a light-medium gray. The upper legs that are gray should've been closer to a charcoal gray.
As it is and looks to be finalized, as Razorbeast suggested, an interchangable head would've helped this figure, along with orange light-piping, or at least orange paint for the eyes and mouth.
I'm not saying any of these modifications would've swayed me, but the figure we're getting hasn't done enough with the theme imo.
If you're going to go with a limiting theme like this one, then it should've been taken further.
This would've been much better as a Selects release.
Even though Buzzworthy is an exclusive line, it's not the most difficult thing to get ahold of items from Target. I know not everyone lives in the U.S., or within a 30 minute drive of a Target store. I also say this as someone who has yet to find Origins Jazz.
But going back to the "limited" aspect of this theme, it's more limited than the SG figures.
I'm not even going into how bad I think it is that we're getting another Ironhide, but when I said this was a missed opportunity, this should have been Prowl in a screen accurate deco just like they did for Cliffjumper. Even though I got the previous Amazon 2 pack, I still would've bought a screen-accurate SS86 version.
And I say this even if it would've come with Ironhide... I just would've sold him.
In fact, this may have been a chance to get "ER" Hound's release secured.
Or even better still, make the 2 pack Sunstreaker and Hound, and give Prowl a solo release.
So that's also where this release bothers me-- there were better options, even if Hastak was set on a 2 pack release.
The "dead/dying" theme is a really good idea for the R.E.D. line.
It's still exclusive, the molded detail could've been increased, an alternate head and blast effects could've been included, and there's no lame, un-related alt mode to worry about.
Even if this would've been done well, I would've skipped it.
For me, this really is a worse idea than Coronation Starscream.