Post by Philip Ayres on Aug 30, 2010 20:05:51 GMT
This review is dedicated to Ian Cook, Shockprowl on the Hub Forum, whose Prowl obsession knows no end and provides us all with endless entertainment every time a new limited edition Prowl comes out which is quite regularly of recent.
He'd love it to be all about Prowl, but sadly we can be pretty sure that Bluestreak is the original and Prowl is merely the Emergency Services repaint.
No he hasn't gone and died, he just loves Prowl!
Bluestreak
Settle yourselves down. This one is a little complicated. Bluestreak starts life as a Diaclone toy, Diaclone #7 Fairlady Z, modelled on the real life Nissan Fairlady Z. There's two version of the Diaclone toy, both sold in the same packaging. They are easily told apart while in car mode. One is dark blue, with a silver bonnet and it's this version that's used on the Diaclone box art inherited by the Transformers toy. The second version is silver, with a black bonnet and roof. This version is used as the model for Bluestreak's animated and comic colours. Neither of these though are the Transformers Bluestreak who has an entirely silver body. So the two most common depictions of this Transformers toy are both made using a different toy. The box art in particular has caused no end of problems leading people to believe that a blue Transformers Bluestreak exists. It doesn't help that the blue version of the toy appears on several 1984 catalogue inserts! This version also features some noticeably differences in the robot robot mode which I'll describe later while the second version of the Diaclone toy is pretty close to the Transformers Bluestreak, save for the black bonnet and roof.
The vehicle mode itself is a pretty faithful representation of the car including it's long nose with recessed headlights. The doors open in this mode allowing a Diaclone driver access to his seat in the centre of the car. The seat is nowhere near as obvious as on other Diaclone originated toys like Inferno or Skids.
Transformation: Two stage process this and either stage can be performed in either order:
Turn the car over and look at the underside. Under the bonnet are the arms with a shoulder behind each wheel, the arm reaching across and the fist grasping a peg on the opposing shoulder. List the fist off the peg. Fold one arm up & towards the middle of the bonnet and then out to the sides taking the wheel with it, then repeat for the other arm. Fold both arms down so the pegs on the shoulders poke out the front of the car. Open the car doors and fold the bonnet down.
Pull the rear of the car back. Pull the back of the car up, forcing the middle down, to form the feet. Separate in two down the middle and pull out to the sides by about 5mm. Open the latch on the middle of the underside of the car, rotate the rear half of the car 180 degrees, close the latch and stand. Peg the missile launchers into the sides of the head and place the gun in his hand.
Our resulting robot ends up with the vehicle's front as it's chest, with the doors forming shoulder wings, the top of the car his back and the rear of the car his feet. Introduced in this mode are several new pieces of plastic:
Red plastic is used for his missile launchers, upper legs and lower chest.
Silver grey plastic is used for his head, upper arms and his hands
Black plastic is used for his lower legs (behind the car's rear window), his waist and his lower arms.
Chromed plastic is used for his missiles and gun.
While the toy is pretty much fixed from the waist down it can move by rolling backwards or forwards on it's wheels which support the toy along with the front of the feet. All the toy/'s articulation is concentrated in the arms: The shoulders shrug up, turn and allow the arms to swing to the sides while the elbows bend and the wrists turn. That's not bad for a toy first made in 1982! The missile launchers dwarf the head they're attached into: a peg from the launcher goes into a hole roughly where the ear should be! The range of the launcher will vary depending on if you have a Japanese (very good), original western (poor) or Commemorative series (completely neutered with the trigger removed). The head itself is a lovely little piece of sculpting with a central crest with horns projecting out from it.
As we've already said this version, including the robot mode is pretty close to the second Diaclone version. The first however is very different in robot mode:
Red plastic is now white: used for his missile launchers, upper legs and lower chest.
Silver grey plastic is now blue: used for his head, upper arms and his hands
Black plastic stays the same: used for his lower legs (behind the car's rear window), his waist and his lower arms.
Chromed plastic stays the same: used for his missiles and gun.
Bluestreak as a Transformer doesn't get a lot of exposure in the comics. Since his tech specs indicate he's a gunner, I've always pictured him as sitting in Metroplex's forehead, which obviously would be clear in city mode, operating the twin cannons there. He is somewhat over shadowed by his more prominent repaint.
Bluestreak was first released in 1984. He was released in Japan as Transformers toy 08 and renamed Streak. Bluestreak's one definite reissue in his original form is as Commemorative Series III Silverstreak. The copyright to the name being lost, Hasbro settled on something close enough to the original. And since there's no actual blue on this car..... This release features black plastic, non chromed weapons and missile launchers with no triggers or springs.
Of late Bluestreak has been living an interesting life as various re-imagined versions - see his TFU Entry for details which has resulted in the excellent Universe Silverstreak (Hasbro still having trouble with the original name) which is a minor remould of Universe Prowl.
Prowl
Prowl also has his origins as a Diaclone toy, in this case Diaclone #13 Police Car Fairlady Z. What's not so widely known is that Prowl is the *SECOND* Diaclone repaint/remould of Diaclone #7 Fairlady Z: The toy that went on to become Smokescreen, the Fairlady Z/racing type is Diaclone car #11! But Prowl is the second Transformers release of this toy, appearing alongside Bluestreak in the USA, but in a second group of five cars here in the UK.
The car's bodywork is now all white with the bottom half being painted black. The roof of the car now has a lightbar mounted on it, a chrome plastic border in which is mounted two rectangular clear red lights. The decals on the car are altered and now proclaim it to be a Police and Highway Patrol vehicle.
Transforming it to robot mode reveals that the robot only parts have been altered too:
Red plastic is now silver grey: used for his missile launchers, upper legs and lower chest.
Silver grey plastic is now white: used for his head, upper arms and his hands
Black plastic stays the same: used for his lower legs (behind the car's rear window), his waist and his lower arms.
Chromed plastic stays the same: used for his missiles and gun.
I love the monochrome emergency team repaints, and Prowl is no exception to that. My favourite out of the six sets of colours applied to this toy by a country mile. When I went looking for a toy to write this review from - I always try to have at least one of a toy to hand when writing about it - Prowl was the one I went for. He obviously has appealed to both Marvel and Sunbow because he has a lead role in the comics and his remakes are legion starting with the Action Master (who curiously wasn't repainted as Bluestreak or Smokescreen) through to Universe Prowl (who was) via Beast Wars, Robots in Disguise and others. See TFU's Prowl page for more details. And there's more than one Prowl for most of those series!
Prowl was first sold in the USA in 1984, appearing in the UK later that year/early in 1985: It's uncertain quite when Prowl, Ironhide, Sunstreaker and Wheeljack *did* show up here. Like Megatron, they're not shown on the first UK Transformers catalogue but do show up in the UK at some point. Prowl was released in Japan as Transformer #09.
Prowl's first re-release as part of 1990's range of European exclusive gold boxed classics is a little odd: He comes packed with a Diaclone rather than Transformers sticker sheet. He was re-issued in Japan in 2002 as one of the first pair of releases in the Transformers Collection where he was numbered 2 alongside release #1 Jazz. He was re-released in the USA in 2003 as Commemorative Series IV Prowl with the springs & triggers removed from the launchers and the chrome of the weapons replaced with plain black plastic.
Smokescreen
The third Transformers version of the Fairlady Z, Smokescreen, also has his roots as a Diaclone toy, in this case Diaclone #11 Fairlady Z Racing Type.
It's a little difficult from the car mode to say what it's main colour is. There's a wide blue stripe, roughly to the height of the door framed at the top & bottom by a thin white stripe round the side of the car while he's got a red bonnet, roof, rear window frame and added spoiler. Investigation will reveal the base colour for the car shell, silver on Bluestreak and white on Prowl is blue here. He's got white square panels with rounded corners on the doors and bonnet saying it's #38 which is a tribute to a real life rally car with these colours & number(thank you TF Wiki for that titbit).
Smokescreen's robot parts use the same colour swaps as the blue version of Diaclone Bluestreak:
Red plastic is now white: used for his missile launchers, upper legs and lower chest.
Silver grey plastic is now blue: used for his head, upper arms and his hands
Black plastic stays the same: used for his lower legs (behind the car's rear window), his waist and his lower arms.
Chromed plastic stays the same: used for his missiles and gun.
I'm not so fond of the Smokescreen colours. I think I felt as a youngster that two versions of this toy were enough. After all the Fairlady Z is the only Autobot car to get three different Generation One releases, albeit with minor mould changes to each version. But I'm aware this isn't a widely held view.
Smokescreen was released in the west 1985 and was sold the same ear in Japan as Transformer number 45.
He was first re-released in 2003 as Transformers Collection toy number 5 alongside release 6 Megatron. The following year he was sold in the USA as Commemorative Series VI Smokescreen with the springs & triggers removed from the launchers and the chrome of the weapons replaced with plain black plastic.
Someone at Hasbro loves Smokescreen. Odd toys named Smokescreen or in his colours have been popping up for a while including a repaint of Mini-con Prowl, the first Binaltech/Alternator and a superb Legends version. But the most famous new version of the character is probably Universe Smokescreen a repaint of Universe Prowl. A tip: Buy the Henkei version, it's much better and more accurate to the original colour design.
E-Hobby Anime Bluestreak
"Anime" Bluestreak was released in 2002 to complement the release of Prowl. He was released with Transformers Collection 02 Electrum Jazz a gold chromed repaint of Transformers Collection 02 Jazz.
It's a bit hard to release a Prowl repaint, but an all black version in the manner of Movie Decepticon Barricade. Instead Takara went for an earlier Diaclone version of the mould for Prowl, releasing the version of Bluestreak with the black bonnet & roof and silver sides that his animation model is based on. Several fans got a bit annoyed with Bluestreak only being an exclusive, but this version left it open for Takara to do the real Bluestreak in the Transformers Collection and use the blue version for a future eHobby repaint to accompany it. In the event neither scenario came to pass so there's a lot of Commemorative Series III Silverstreak sitting on people's shelves instead.
E-Hobby Chrome Bluestreak
A second E-Hobby Bluestreak was released in 2003 to compliment the released of Transformers Collection 05 Smokescreen. Every part of this toy is covered in silver chrome.
I'm not sure I'd want to risk even touching it for fear of scratching or blemishing the chrome.
He'd love it to be all about Prowl, but sadly we can be pretty sure that Bluestreak is the original and Prowl is merely the Emergency Services repaint.
No he hasn't gone and died, he just loves Prowl!
Bluestreak
Settle yourselves down. This one is a little complicated. Bluestreak starts life as a Diaclone toy, Diaclone #7 Fairlady Z, modelled on the real life Nissan Fairlady Z. There's two version of the Diaclone toy, both sold in the same packaging. They are easily told apart while in car mode. One is dark blue, with a silver bonnet and it's this version that's used on the Diaclone box art inherited by the Transformers toy. The second version is silver, with a black bonnet and roof. This version is used as the model for Bluestreak's animated and comic colours. Neither of these though are the Transformers Bluestreak who has an entirely silver body. So the two most common depictions of this Transformers toy are both made using a different toy. The box art in particular has caused no end of problems leading people to believe that a blue Transformers Bluestreak exists. It doesn't help that the blue version of the toy appears on several 1984 catalogue inserts! This version also features some noticeably differences in the robot robot mode which I'll describe later while the second version of the Diaclone toy is pretty close to the Transformers Bluestreak, save for the black bonnet and roof.
The vehicle mode itself is a pretty faithful representation of the car including it's long nose with recessed headlights. The doors open in this mode allowing a Diaclone driver access to his seat in the centre of the car. The seat is nowhere near as obvious as on other Diaclone originated toys like Inferno or Skids.
Transformation: Two stage process this and either stage can be performed in either order:
Turn the car over and look at the underside. Under the bonnet are the arms with a shoulder behind each wheel, the arm reaching across and the fist grasping a peg on the opposing shoulder. List the fist off the peg. Fold one arm up & towards the middle of the bonnet and then out to the sides taking the wheel with it, then repeat for the other arm. Fold both arms down so the pegs on the shoulders poke out the front of the car. Open the car doors and fold the bonnet down.
Pull the rear of the car back. Pull the back of the car up, forcing the middle down, to form the feet. Separate in two down the middle and pull out to the sides by about 5mm. Open the latch on the middle of the underside of the car, rotate the rear half of the car 180 degrees, close the latch and stand. Peg the missile launchers into the sides of the head and place the gun in his hand.
Our resulting robot ends up with the vehicle's front as it's chest, with the doors forming shoulder wings, the top of the car his back and the rear of the car his feet. Introduced in this mode are several new pieces of plastic:
Red plastic is used for his missile launchers, upper legs and lower chest.
Silver grey plastic is used for his head, upper arms and his hands
Black plastic is used for his lower legs (behind the car's rear window), his waist and his lower arms.
Chromed plastic is used for his missiles and gun.
While the toy is pretty much fixed from the waist down it can move by rolling backwards or forwards on it's wheels which support the toy along with the front of the feet. All the toy/'s articulation is concentrated in the arms: The shoulders shrug up, turn and allow the arms to swing to the sides while the elbows bend and the wrists turn. That's not bad for a toy first made in 1982! The missile launchers dwarf the head they're attached into: a peg from the launcher goes into a hole roughly where the ear should be! The range of the launcher will vary depending on if you have a Japanese (very good), original western (poor) or Commemorative series (completely neutered with the trigger removed). The head itself is a lovely little piece of sculpting with a central crest with horns projecting out from it.
As we've already said this version, including the robot mode is pretty close to the second Diaclone version. The first however is very different in robot mode:
Red plastic is now white: used for his missile launchers, upper legs and lower chest.
Silver grey plastic is now blue: used for his head, upper arms and his hands
Black plastic stays the same: used for his lower legs (behind the car's rear window), his waist and his lower arms.
Chromed plastic stays the same: used for his missiles and gun.
Bluestreak as a Transformer doesn't get a lot of exposure in the comics. Since his tech specs indicate he's a gunner, I've always pictured him as sitting in Metroplex's forehead, which obviously would be clear in city mode, operating the twin cannons there. He is somewhat over shadowed by his more prominent repaint.
Bluestreak was first released in 1984. He was released in Japan as Transformers toy 08 and renamed Streak. Bluestreak's one definite reissue in his original form is as Commemorative Series III Silverstreak. The copyright to the name being lost, Hasbro settled on something close enough to the original. And since there's no actual blue on this car..... This release features black plastic, non chromed weapons and missile launchers with no triggers or springs.
Of late Bluestreak has been living an interesting life as various re-imagined versions - see his TFU Entry for details which has resulted in the excellent Universe Silverstreak (Hasbro still having trouble with the original name) which is a minor remould of Universe Prowl.
Prowl
Prowl also has his origins as a Diaclone toy, in this case Diaclone #13 Police Car Fairlady Z. What's not so widely known is that Prowl is the *SECOND* Diaclone repaint/remould of Diaclone #7 Fairlady Z: The toy that went on to become Smokescreen, the Fairlady Z/racing type is Diaclone car #11! But Prowl is the second Transformers release of this toy, appearing alongside Bluestreak in the USA, but in a second group of five cars here in the UK.
The car's bodywork is now all white with the bottom half being painted black. The roof of the car now has a lightbar mounted on it, a chrome plastic border in which is mounted two rectangular clear red lights. The decals on the car are altered and now proclaim it to be a Police and Highway Patrol vehicle.
Transforming it to robot mode reveals that the robot only parts have been altered too:
Red plastic is now silver grey: used for his missile launchers, upper legs and lower chest.
Silver grey plastic is now white: used for his head, upper arms and his hands
Black plastic stays the same: used for his lower legs (behind the car's rear window), his waist and his lower arms.
Chromed plastic stays the same: used for his missiles and gun.
I love the monochrome emergency team repaints, and Prowl is no exception to that. My favourite out of the six sets of colours applied to this toy by a country mile. When I went looking for a toy to write this review from - I always try to have at least one of a toy to hand when writing about it - Prowl was the one I went for. He obviously has appealed to both Marvel and Sunbow because he has a lead role in the comics and his remakes are legion starting with the Action Master (who curiously wasn't repainted as Bluestreak or Smokescreen) through to Universe Prowl (who was) via Beast Wars, Robots in Disguise and others. See TFU's Prowl page for more details. And there's more than one Prowl for most of those series!
Prowl was first sold in the USA in 1984, appearing in the UK later that year/early in 1985: It's uncertain quite when Prowl, Ironhide, Sunstreaker and Wheeljack *did* show up here. Like Megatron, they're not shown on the first UK Transformers catalogue but do show up in the UK at some point. Prowl was released in Japan as Transformer #09.
Prowl's first re-release as part of 1990's range of European exclusive gold boxed classics is a little odd: He comes packed with a Diaclone rather than Transformers sticker sheet. He was re-issued in Japan in 2002 as one of the first pair of releases in the Transformers Collection where he was numbered 2 alongside release #1 Jazz. He was re-released in the USA in 2003 as Commemorative Series IV Prowl with the springs & triggers removed from the launchers and the chrome of the weapons replaced with plain black plastic.
Smokescreen
The third Transformers version of the Fairlady Z, Smokescreen, also has his roots as a Diaclone toy, in this case Diaclone #11 Fairlady Z Racing Type.
It's a little difficult from the car mode to say what it's main colour is. There's a wide blue stripe, roughly to the height of the door framed at the top & bottom by a thin white stripe round the side of the car while he's got a red bonnet, roof, rear window frame and added spoiler. Investigation will reveal the base colour for the car shell, silver on Bluestreak and white on Prowl is blue here. He's got white square panels with rounded corners on the doors and bonnet saying it's #38 which is a tribute to a real life rally car with these colours & number(thank you TF Wiki for that titbit).
Smokescreen's robot parts use the same colour swaps as the blue version of Diaclone Bluestreak:
Red plastic is now white: used for his missile launchers, upper legs and lower chest.
Silver grey plastic is now blue: used for his head, upper arms and his hands
Black plastic stays the same: used for his lower legs (behind the car's rear window), his waist and his lower arms.
Chromed plastic stays the same: used for his missiles and gun.
I'm not so fond of the Smokescreen colours. I think I felt as a youngster that two versions of this toy were enough. After all the Fairlady Z is the only Autobot car to get three different Generation One releases, albeit with minor mould changes to each version. But I'm aware this isn't a widely held view.
Smokescreen was released in the west 1985 and was sold the same ear in Japan as Transformer number 45.
He was first re-released in 2003 as Transformers Collection toy number 5 alongside release 6 Megatron. The following year he was sold in the USA as Commemorative Series VI Smokescreen with the springs & triggers removed from the launchers and the chrome of the weapons replaced with plain black plastic.
Someone at Hasbro loves Smokescreen. Odd toys named Smokescreen or in his colours have been popping up for a while including a repaint of Mini-con Prowl, the first Binaltech/Alternator and a superb Legends version. But the most famous new version of the character is probably Universe Smokescreen a repaint of Universe Prowl. A tip: Buy the Henkei version, it's much better and more accurate to the original colour design.
E-Hobby Anime Bluestreak
"Anime" Bluestreak was released in 2002 to complement the release of Prowl. He was released with Transformers Collection 02 Electrum Jazz a gold chromed repaint of Transformers Collection 02 Jazz.
It's a bit hard to release a Prowl repaint, but an all black version in the manner of Movie Decepticon Barricade. Instead Takara went for an earlier Diaclone version of the mould for Prowl, releasing the version of Bluestreak with the black bonnet & roof and silver sides that his animation model is based on. Several fans got a bit annoyed with Bluestreak only being an exclusive, but this version left it open for Takara to do the real Bluestreak in the Transformers Collection and use the blue version for a future eHobby repaint to accompany it. In the event neither scenario came to pass so there's a lot of Commemorative Series III Silverstreak sitting on people's shelves instead.
E-Hobby Chrome Bluestreak
A second E-Hobby Bluestreak was released in 2003 to compliment the released of Transformers Collection 05 Smokescreen. Every part of this toy is covered in silver chrome.
I'm not sure I'd want to risk even touching it for fear of scratching or blemishing the chrome.
