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Rodimus and Prowl- Transformers; Energon, Hasbro Meat and Potatoes; 4.5 Perks; 5.0 Homer Facor; 5.0
				Description; Ah, the Spark of Combination!  Prowl and Hot Rod, er, RODIMUS are back, with a few changes. Prowl and Rodimus keep most of their colors; Prowl is blue and black while Rodimus is maroon and orange.  However, Prowl is now a formula-one type race car and Rodimus is... well... he's a monster truck, but a COOL looking monster truck.  Both figures are about 5" tall in robot mode and have a large amount of articulation as seperate 'bots and merged. Each 'bot comes with a rifle that fires a missile.  The 'bots tranform from vehicle to Autobot mode AND merge into two different forms.
Hasbro has gone all out in revitalizing the Transformers name with the new 'Energon' line.  Ok, technically this started last year, but 'Armada' was rather 'eh'.  Not horrible by any means, but rehashing the Targetmasters didn't work well.  But an interesting trend began; Transformers began to combine beyond the usual mergers we saw.  Sure, you have Predaking and Computron, but how about having Prime merge with Ultra Magnus?  Oohhhhh.  Tidal Wave merging with Megatron may seem odd, and a bit cumbersome, but it looks very impressive. Now Hasbro took that concept and ran with it by applying that ability to the Autobots in the 'Energon' line!  Case in point are Prowl and Hot Rod... er, sorry, I mean RODIMUS.  Both are big names in the Transformers pantheon, and their newest incarnations have been given the Spark of Combination.  Considering how impressive Prime is merged, this had a ton o' possibilities.  How awesome are these new pieces?  It's not bad.  Meat and potatoes are both amazing... and the problem.  Individually the vehicles are decent for 'deluxe' vehicles, provided you get past the fact Rodimus is a monster truck.  Stop blinking, you read it right.  I keep telling myself it's supposed to be some kinda futuristic, high-powered all-terrain vehicle... but it's a monster truck.  Oh well, at least it's a COOL looking monster truck: maroon body, cool flames, the works.  Prowl steals Mirage's G-1 racecar form.  In all forms, vehicle, robot, and merged, the sculpting and paint are well done on both pieces.  Even the articulation is very good.  There are some limitations with the articulation since the pieces merge, but that's not surprising.  Something ends up sacrificed to get the pieces to fit, so it's usually articulation. Unfortunately, in order to merge these smaller figures into a medium-size, merged, robot without detaching anything, all sorts of things had to be folded and contorted like origami.  As a result, the figures look like they're folded in half then connected at the hip.  The results are pretty clunky.  Power Links Rodimus (Rodimus' body forms the arms and torso while Prowl forms the hips and legs) is top-heavy while Power links Prowl (Prowl's the head and arms, while Rodimus is the legs) is bottom heavy.  Whatever looks better is in the eye of the beholder, but I prefer Rodimus. Perks are solid.  Both pieces have this wide range of transformations that are cool to look at but not that hard to do.  And both come with obligatory hand-weapons.  Woohoo!  Homer factor?  Hey, I LOVE mergers, so I couldn't stay away.  Using Rodimus and Prowl just made it impossible to resist. So are these pieces worth it?  Yes.  The multiple transformations and the over-all good craftsmanship keep the pieces in line with the other great work Hasbro is putting into 'Energon'.  BUT, keep in mind these things are pretty dang clunky when merged.  Oh well, think of it this way, just a little something to keep you busy while Megatron sloooooooowly makes it's way out.  Woohoo!