Of course, but the key difference is that development usually follows a natural order. Prowl's change makes Prequel Anakin's fall look Shakespearean in comparison.  

Actually, either could be development, you just have to work for either. I'm just saying that I don't feel like Furman nor IDW worked for the difference we now see in Prowl.

 

^^ This. Very much so.

Prowl needs to have some social skills and not becoming wise ass only to antagonize everyone makes more harder to manipulate them in first place. Right now no one trust Prowl to say that Earth Sky is blue. This whole fiasco of Combiner Wars cost Prowl much in ways of trust of his comrades. He pulled a gun on Jazz. Arcee is working for Prime. Mirage, Ironhide and Sunstreaker went with Optimus Prime instead of Prowl. Not mention the Constructicons.

 

I rather have Prowl be the Autobots version on Quintus Batiatus. A manipulative jerkass that is able to manipulate people through anything ranging from his personality to outright blackmailing, to get what he wants.

 

So... An Autobot Starscream?

 

Kinda, (although I don´remember Starscream wining people with his personality, unlike Batiatus in the first season of Blood and Sand) yes, but one that on the good guys side.

Good guys don´t have to be squeaky clean. And the Autobots need to have their own bastards.

 

See the fallout of Megatron's attempt to take over Cybertron. (So basically an Autobot Sima Yi --- sorry, couldn't resist  )

I agree that the good guys don't have to be squeaky clean, but the Autobots already have plenty for options for that kind of character, I wish that they had not hijacked one who wasn't one to start with.

 

It´s not like they ruined the other incarnations of Prowl. They are still there. IDW´s Prowl is not the only Prowl. For me it´s THE Prowl, but there´s other countless incarnation who have no been erased by this one existing.

 

Idw made a mess of Sunstreaker too. Dreamwave's version was a sociopath and a badass

 

True, but it doesn't mean that I can't point out how terribly written he is.

Eh, DW SS was coldblooded, but not sure I'd call him a sociopath. But yeah, IDW has made a mess of things with a lot of characters.

 

Probably, but since the bar for Transformers fiction is so low, I still think it´s the best of the lot. In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king and all.  

 

Until eventually when it turns out Prowl is right, which he actually is about Starscream, and probably will be right again someday when Megatron is done resting and everything goes to hell all over again.

 

Probably the day I leave the comics.

 

the issue I have with this prowl is he's written at the expense of prime

prime was always the moral choice saving as many lives as possible while not sacrificing his principles taking the third path between pragmatism and narcissism

this prime is compromising in nearly everything and making bad choices so they can say prowl was right. I wouldn't mind if prime had a better solution but so far he doesn't!

 

That's too bad, as this time Megatron will probably have the will of the people on his side, too, proving Prowl right about his fears again.

 

It'll probably be from the backlash of some plot of Prowl's too.

 

He smiles a half smile and goes "heh." This is the extent of his character.

His plans never work because he is clever, they only work because all characters surrounding him instantly beome either the morons incapable of seeing through his deception or the ridiculously overpowered agents of his will.

 

You people have given me an idea.
What if the Lost Light somehow passes a colony that's just opening contact to Starscream-controlled Cybertron? I'm not sure what kind of events might transpire, but an Autobot!Megatron versus Manipulative!Starscream brawl is too awesome to unsee. Megatron defeats and/or kills Screamer (preferrably with a one-liner like "You could never beat me in a fight, Starscream.") but in the process is witnessed by the colony ambassadors, who think he's just killed Cybertron's leader. What happens from then on... is best left to imagination.

 

I'm not entirely convinced of this myself but...

Prowl has perhaps become somewhat unhinged. Ultra Magnus was described as having had a nervous breakdown when the war ended, perhaps the same thing has happened to Prowl?

Then add to that Chromedome's splashdash shadowplay, bombshells mind control and the mental issues surrounding being press-ganged into a combiner, I think his mental health has taken a pounding.

We have seen him suffering 'nose bleeds' and occasionally saying things like 'get out of my head'.

So now he is less subtle in his scheming and less restrained in his actions.

How I imagine Batman would be if he went completely off the rails.

 

Oh, he's certainly unhinged from how he used to be, from what got him his position in the first place. I intensely doubt that Optimus would have given him the position if he had always been like he is now.

All that's happened to him has pushed him to the brink. The things that effect him from the exterior have pushed and pulled and cracked in on him. I don't know that he is necessarily "losing it", but he's certainly showing the stress of it all in his escalatingly extreme actions.

 

You don't go through a four million year war without picking up some issues. Seeing a few sessions between Prowl and Rung could be very interesting.

Also like Spartan Prime said, Prowl keeps getting more extreme. And I would say more reckless. Just what did he expect to have happen after his little spacebridge stunt? Or trying to force Prime to do what he wanted by forcing the combination? Sometimes the biggest lines seperating a hero from being a villian are the ones they won't cross.