Out June 17, 2009.

Yes, we have the preview thread, but I'd rather start fresh. Keep them reviews clean!

Cross-posted from the IDW boards.

Glad I read this at BotCon.

Considering this Spotlight's focused character, I was expecting a good ol' gung-ho trigger-happy-to-rival-movie-Ironhide Cliffjumper. A bit like how he was portrayed at the beginning of Jazz's SL and if we're going by his bio.

Instead, I'm surprised by a slightly more verbose and quieter (HA!) Cliff when he encounters Kita and Coll. And he's a bit, dare I put it, gentler than what I remember of the red guy. Love how Shane, Robby, and Joana brought a glimpse of color (pun intended on Joana's part ) to the "drabness" that is the war between the factions. It's a bit of fresh air, having nothing to do with Autobots versus Decepticons until the later half of the Spotlight.

I like how Shane continues the theme of forgiveness in this issue. We, the readers and fans, know that Cliffjumper has, and will, killed when necessary. On Kita mentioning her people's philosophy that to injure, much less kill, another being is the worst thing possible, you can't help but feel the shame coming from Cliff. In a sense, all he wants is peace like most others, but circumstances prevents him from ever truly attaining it. When the Decepticons that inevitably shows up and cruelly reveals to Kita that Cliffjumper has killed in the past, you can almost feel the additional guilt from him on omitting that part, even though it's the harsh truth compared to the idyllic lifestyle Kita and Coll lives in.

It's kinda funny how most of the lower ranking Decepticons act so derisive of Cliffjumper's single and diminutive status, contrast to the one who immediately asks about his description in an urgent tone and we know that they're in for it. He takes out three of those guys with simply spears and tactics that looks like something the Marines or Green Berets - heck, Black Ops! - would pull off in jungle/forest warfare. I'd hate to see what he could pull off it he had more resources in that type of warfare.

Going back to the first page with Cliffjumper talking to someone off-panel, it ties up when you realize who it was. Yes, cliched, but I sort of see it as a form of closure for him.

Joana's colors might bring to mind the cheerful Carebear sense - or My Little Pony, if we're going to stick with companies - but it brings the effect of "breath of fresh air" here. Of course, that's contrasted by the slightly sharpness Robby drew on the Decepticons alongside the darker colors they bear, as if harsh reality crashing down on the bright fantasy. That's easily demonstrated by Robby's cover variant with Priscilla's colors (also excellent).

Overall, nicely done Spotlight for Cliffjumper.

The amount of plot-armor on Cliffjumper in this issue was a bit silly. And the plot was predictable. In any case, better than Drift, worse than Blurr. And Blurr was pretty damn tame at best. I guess "characterization" for McCarthy is "show how this guy kicks all the asses!".

Well...this was short and depressing.

I tend to associate the former with Cliffjumper, but not the latter. We do get a glimpse of what CJ's capable of, and it's nice to see him when he isn't gung-ho and fighting off Decepticons...but still, this is kinda saddening.

I thought it was ok. Not the greatest story ever written nor the worst.

It was nice to see Cliffjumper get his due. In G1 he was largely a "joke" character with his conspiracy schtick and always biting off more then he could handle. Here he is actually a force to be reckoned with.

I'll give Shane credit for making the axed Decepticons generic no-names rather than using any post-86 characters, G2 characters or worse, Gobots as cannon fodder.

The self-contained/character-focused nature was something that I've missed in some Spotlights, and I was glad to see it mined here. I like when the Spotlight can tell a story from the character's past, and then, when we see them in the main title, we know a little bit more about them than is mentioned in the text/than other characters might know. In fact, I prefer it very much to when the Spotlight ties directly into the ongoing in a 'You need to read this as part of a crossover' sense.

At the same time, I appreciate the thematic tie-in to the idea of "acceptable losses" that was initiated when Prime decided to prioritize Garrus-9 over protecting the Earth in Devastation. That was a pretty bold move for a version of Optimus Prime, so I'm glad to see it coming up here and in AHM. (And I like the idea that the Autobots aren't 100% reconciled to "This is the way it needs to be," even Prime, who's allowed to have developed doubts.)

Cliffjumper's inner conflict/discomfort with his actions was well-played-out via his hesitation to speak on his acts and difficulty in explaining what he did for a living/what differentiated him from the 'Cons.

It was also fun to see a TF finally have to try to explain to a humanoid organic WHAT he was, and how he worked. We don't see that too often.

This came across in the dialogue, but also very well in his facial expressions, which could induce sympathy, but also be hilarious. The whole "sheepish" look. And man, his sinister look when he says he's not scared of them, "There's just more of them"...SCARY moment, Cliff.

With that brown Seeker who was leading the Decepticon search party, I really got the idea that the Decepticons have a warrior culture; extremely practical, and no fluff. Instead of saying that they were better than the Autobots (In terms of morality) or even inherently superior, it was interesting to see him almost pulling them down to "their level," i.e. acknowledging exactly what the Decepticons are (Brutal conquerers) when he said that we're all killers, and have nothing to differentiate us, "Save weakness". (Nice little barb.)

Have to say I found Kita's death scene very affecting, especially the part about C not being able to feel the heat/cold. (Tying back to the earlier, humorous instance.) I liked how it looked like he was crying (Due to the damage to his face), too.

The Butch Cassidy moment of charging out with guns blazing was really neat, too; I almost would have ended it there, and skipped the last page, but I guess it wouldn't do for people who haven't read AHM to be left in doubt as to whether he survived.

Overall, there was a good balance between humor (Red guy? So high? Horns? Hurry, arm yourselves!) and menace, even within the same scenes (Cliffjumper being HARDCORE spearing guys to death (Robby, love the panel where he throws the javelin. Awesome.) and then the Cons saying, "There must be at least five of them".).

while I feel like the driving purpose of the story was to highlight the fantasy setting, a sharp contrast to the typical sci-fi setting of Transformers, I feel the core story itself was just incredible generic, yes they're on a soft planet of peace and whatever, but that doesn't impact Cliffjumper's saga that much beyond some mourning.

IF the planet had some unique and surprising attributes that helped Cliffjumper out in the fight, I think it would have been a much more filling piece of comic. But instead of that, we get a flash-forward at the start which makes us wonder "How did things go this bad?" - but in Transformers, that's a kind dull question since the answer is usually the same.

This type of story was done better back in Marvel US # 20. And oh, nameless Decepticons are made of cardboard and carry useless grenades apparently.

I thought it was pretty good. The art was pretty, and the story was decent enough.

The thing I found weird about it was the dynamic between the girl and Cliffjumper. It seemed romantic. I think it would have been a bit better and added a bit more weight to their bond if she was depicted more as an elderly mother type of figure, as opposed to love interest.

Who were the Decepticons in this issue? One of them looked like Blot.

They were generic, unnamed Decepticons - none of them is really meant to be anyone we know. They're just there because of contractual obligations.

Kind of a shame, that...as saddening and decent as this story was, it would've been interesting to see a story about Cliffjumper arguing with himself over whether or not he should stay with a couple kids who could use his help or return to the war and help his fellow Autobots and the galaxy - small picture vs. big picture, and all that. Probably would've made for a far less depressing tale, too.

Well, that was disappointing.

Really enjoyed the preview, and I was actually hoping this was going to be the first thing McCarthy had written that I'd like, right up until the Cons showed up, and it all just went to back into the same old clichés, generic 'badass'-ery and insults towards the ‘ations series.

Really, I think I mostly don't get why this is Spotlight Cliffjumper. There's just nothing about it that gives you any kind of insight into him as the character we know, and the only real new traits it presents us with, is that this version of him is an unstoppable killing machine. It's like the bastard child of spotlights Wheelie and Sixshot, thrown into the Zelda universe.

Like MrBlud said, Cliffjumper is usually shown to be an almost, if not flat out, comedic character, paranoid and trigger-happy, and jumping into things headfirst without considering the consequences, or whether he can even handle them

That's not to say I don't like new interpretations of pre-established characters, because I honestly do, but this just feels like throwing the baby out with the bath water. It's not adding to Cliffjumper, not reinterpreting his character for a new setting and purpose.

By replacing everything that made him, him, with just 'super assassin', it negates the point in bothering to use Cliffjumper in the first place. He's a badass killer, in a sea of badass killers. Pretty much any other Autobot could have taken his place, and nothing would have seemed out of place.

I'm left with the feeling I learnt more about him in those few panels of him staring at a light for hours, on the off chance of a fight, than I did from this whole issue. There's no real motivations, no insight into what makes him tick, no great internal conflict, no sense of any real uniqueness.

I'm also so very, very sick of McCarthy making digs about how immoral the Autobots were before he 'fixed' them, that the only reason they fought a cold war was because they simply didn't care enough about doing the right thing and saving lives. I find it especially ironic that someone who writes almost incomprehensibly vague plots and unexplained mysteries, could so thoroughly miss the point of the 'ations series more mature and intelligently written interplanetary war.

I never saw anything the Bots did before as immoral. War is a terrible thing, the good guys don't always win, can't always win, and sometimes you have to accept that it's more important to save the many than the few, especially when untold trillions of lives must rest on your decisions, and you don't have unlimited resources and manpower to accomplish your objectives with.

Besides which, McCarthy’s message that being an Autobot means something beyond just a faction, was already done vastly better in the Spotlight Wheelie, a story that does everything this Spotlight does, but so much better, it astonishes me it was even green lit.

This was a pointless story, and a waste of a Spotlight issue.

They weren't Decepticons, they were Genericons.

I agree with this.

What I did enjoy about this Spotlight is how it touched upon little things that I'd never really stopped to think about, such as Cliffjumper's body being incredibly hot after being in the sun all day, and going into detail about energon-consumption, the "universal translator", etc.

I liked what McCarthy was trying to say about the difference between Autobots and Decepticons not being so black and white in some respects.

I thought the setting was a little weird and unnecessary, and that the Cliffjumper/alien girl dynamic was teetering a lil too close to being uncomfortable and excessively cheesy. But taking into consideration the fact that he was able to touch upon the lil things I mentioned above, as well as being able to tell a short, contained, and cohesive story of Rambo Cliffjumper (the leader's dialogue at the end "with the horns, etc" was good)...it was alright.

Not as good as Blurr, or Drift, but it was still an enjoyable read. Different, but I guess that's one of the good things about Spotlights, you can afford to experiment a lil.

Edit- Musso's art was fantastic, and the colours were nice and vibrant (really suited the story).

I'm with you on this. Every point.

Horrible, horrible issue.

why?

i care nothing for these decepticons. to not be able to care for like half the cast is pretty bad. i can't even bring care over from my memories of the characters since there are none.

i look in their faces and feel nothing. they don't evoke any reaction from me. whether they live or die is meaningless because i don't know them.



I WANT TO FEEL. I WANT TO FEEL ANGUISH AT THE DEATH OF A CHARACTER, EVEN A LOWLY OBSCURE DECEPTICON. I WANT DEATHS TO MATTER AND HAVE SIGNIFICANCE.

Easy there Bass

I too have never enjoyed the deaths of nameless generics throughout the history of Transformer comics. Difference is, I don't mind a character being introduced into a story for the sole purpose of dying, just so long as they've got some character and a name given to them (although if the situation warrents it, and it isn't really viable having 6 established characters die for the sake of dying within one issue, then I'd rather they used genericons as opposed to removing the story-telling potential the established characters could potentially bring to the table.) Even then, I rather they had a character if only in name.

Hopper dying? Cool.

Generic blue Autobot who isn't named? Lame.

As a kid, one of my favourite Transformers was Megadeath who appeared in one UK annual story, "The Magnificent Six"...that same story also had a few interesting decepticon designs with names (such as Steamhammer) as well as the loveable Autobot Stampede. Definately had a lasting impression on me as a kid and made me think of the Transformer story as being something even greater than I had previously imagined.

... i enjoyed this issue.

Well yes, if a comic only character is decently written then we can evoke emotion towards them. But in cases like this when we get mostly silent background characters, it just does nothing for me. I can't imagine their character or their background. If they had been an existing character even a obscure late eighties, G2, European or Japanese only character then I would have had at least some knowledge of who they are already and can apply that to their appearance in the comic.

Also, these Decepticons had a somewhat significant part in this story. Not enough to make them important in the overall IDW continuity of course but I really do think the story would have been richer had we seen some familar faces. Now some people say if they're only in the comic to die then why use a toy character. I say because toy characters don't get used that often in relation to how many there are, only pretty much a small cast focused on the first three years. There are still a number of toys from the eighties and early nineties still whose character has yet to make a brief cameo in the comics. Also, those characters from the later years of G1 who did manage to make a brief appearance and survive aren't likely to be used again in some sort of signifant role. I think its about exposure most of all; had these Decepticons been familar faces, I would have considered them more significant even though they died than a brief cameo of a familar face who survived. And the fact that the likes of Pretenders, Action Masters and G2 guys are lucky to get a single panel cameo while generic no-names like these get more significant roles is something that doesn't sit right with me.

I can see where both sides are coming from... guess because i'm in the middle... on a hill. Hate town is way over there on my left while loveville is on the other side of the hill equal distance away on the right.

The Issue takes what we know about Cliffjumper and things we've inferred upon him over 25 years and then sits him down somewhere that not only are his skills useless, but he is put in a position to question the very nature of being good at something bad -for a good reason.

then there's the blushing girl crush... sure she's an alien and we have no idea what her species is like other than they are simple folk of an agrarian nature who have a 2 parent social/biological system.

its not the greatest comic ever written but it is a good look into the workings of the Autobot Justification system and beyond that, its a story that we'd have never known about CJ if he had his way. this isn't one you bring out to rally the troops.

Its also a story that Could only be about Cliffjumper. all the other badass autobots look the part. I also wouldn't work with any of the other minibots.

he looks like Bumblebee and has a personality like Roadbuster...

This issue was a waste of paper and ink.

It's not BAD, it's just so incredibly generic as to be not worth the time. Much like SL Jazz, you could've replaced the title character with pretty much ANY Autobot, and the story would've been exactly the same. I didn't really even feel this was Cliffjumper, given his portrayal in the rest of his IDW appearances (and McCarthy's Cliffjumper is actually one of the few things I like about McCarthy's run). There's none of his edge or gung-ho-ness. Trying to put CJ into a "killer meets innocent person, tries to lay down his weapons for peaceful life, but violent past catches up to him" scenario doesn't help the character, if anything it actually kinda hurts it.

Now, if you really think the point of the story is to be "Cliffjumper is fronting when he acts all badass"... well, this issue is better, but to me it still strikes me as just inconsistent characterization. CJ's whole deal so far has been that he actively enjoys the fighting, and posing him as the reluctant warrior doesn't exactly make him unique among Autobots.

As for the generics, I'm torn. On one hand, I'd like to see guys we know and can ascribe SOME personality too, even if they're just gonna get destroyed. On the other, I don't like seeing guys show up just to get wasted. So I'm alright with them. And at least the designs here are usually close enough to real TFs that they fit. (The blue-and-red 'con kinda reminds me of Heatwave, and the brown Seekerish guy reminded me a bit of that Onslaught-colored seeker from Season 3 of the G1 cartoon).

Is it me or did the girl die way too easily? Knocked down by a Transformer and hitting the floor is something many humans or humanoids have survived in the past. The Decepticon must really have smacked her down hard - if her brother survived the blast from the bomb unscathed then so must she.


And notice that she changed direction to the way she fell as she layed on the floor?

People in McCarthy stories don't die for biologically sound reasons, they die because it's the only emotional button Shane knows how to hit.

For what it's worth, here's a repeat of something I posted elsewhere:

Damn. I really wanted to like this - partly to prove to anyone who might doubt it that I can give McCarthy credit where it's due, and partly because 'Keep him on spotlights' is a much nicer line to take than the one I've generally been taking.

The opening set-up was decent, but this Spotlight is downed by two huge flaws. Firstly, it disembowels its own moral and dramatic centre by giving Cliffjumper such an easy choice. Had the Decepticons ignored Kita and her brother completely and merely set about hunting down their foe, Cliffy would have actually had to make an important decision: does he fight back and risk showing himself up to be a monster in front of his hippy friends, endangering them unnecessarily, or does he keep them and himself out of trouble, risking capture and death? Choices like this make characters who they are.

Instead, it's a complete no-brainer - save the kids, kill the 'cons, preserve the planet - which removes any ambitions the writers had for this to say anything about war or how it changes us. It only underlines what we already know - that the Autobots feel bad about other lifeforms dying and not being able to get a bit of peace themselves once in a while, but there's no real option other than to keep fighting. It's really just a retread of The Golden Lagoon, but with killing.

The second big flaw is that this spotlight does exactly the opposite to what it's supposed to do - it actually devolves the central character. With previous incarnations of Cliffjumper, the major appeal of the character was that he was a little guy who acted big. He wasn't particularly powerful or deadly - he was just ludicrously headstrong. He's the guy who makes a difference not because he's an elite warrior, but because he thinks, "Sure, I'll take on Megatron. Why the hell shouldn't I?"

Now he's a weapons master and assassin? Seriously? This is a new continuity and characters can, of course, be reinvented but what exactly is the point of yet another hard-as-nails ass-kicker? Literally the only thing that differentiates Cliffjumper from Drift, Jazz, Grimlock, Prime, the Wreckers or any other combat specialist is that he's a bit shorter, ie. the surface. Underneath, he's been made as dull as ditchwater.

And perhaps this is a bit nitpicky, but seriously, assassin? First a ninja, now an assassin? What stock fantasy character type are we going to get next? Hound the highwayman? Bumblebee the thief? Mirage the wizard?

I cast Electro Disruptor at Darkwing!

I'm hoping for Kobolds.

And maybe a LEGENDARY DREADNOUGHT.

Still, if the majority are going to stand around grimacing and then just die later...might as well use a genericon instead of using an established character.

Yes, maybe the brown con should have been someone else, or should have had his character fleshed out further like with a name, etc.

But like Furman did with his Hot Rod story, I think it's better to use a bunch of Red-shirts in this instance.

Personally, I'm not bothered either way. Prefer generics to at least get names, and a bit of character before the off, but I don't object to them, and I think it helps make them feel more like a real army/species to have guys beyond the toy cast showing up.

But in this case, it's been so long since we've had any post 84-86 guys show up, I'd have liked someone I recognised, just as a novelty.

I see the sense in making the brown con who threw the grenade someone like Windsweeper since he actually does something noteworthy. The others, not so much.

Wow, a lot of hating on this. I'm sure a decent amount of it is because of how much people hate Shane, but even I, an avid Shane hater probably enjoyed this more than any other Spotlight yet. I don't see cheesy as a bad thing is the thing, the whole Kita blushing crush thing is the reason I liked this, but that would probably be a combination of past experiences and my own sometimes crippling sensitivity...uh, yeah. Regardless, the art was solid, and as mentioned there were little touches in the writing that were nice. Solid issue for me.

Yes, the art was lovely in this issue with some very nice use of shadows to depict being under trees.

I liked the idea but it was way too generic, & too little introspective. It didn't add anything to the Cliffjumper character, really.

Pretty much everything negative anyone's said thus far. Read it on Wednesday, and I was thoroughly underwhelmed. I cared so little for this story I really had nothing to say. Honestly, I would have to say this is the worst spotlight yet. As of yet, I still hold that Spotlight Blurr and AHM 8 are the only good issues McCarthy has written to date. I wasn't big on Spotlight Drift, and I thought Jazz was even worse, but ugh... If McCarthy has brought the forseeable cancellation of Spotlights upon us... We still have Metroplex coming, and not by him, and I don't want to pass any premature judgments... but things look a bit bleak IMO.

I honestly thought this would be a decent issue from the 5-page preview. But then the genericons showed up and it went downhill. At least Robby Musso was on art. I enjoyed his work on Ramjet moreso than a lot of the other unknowns who've contributed to the spotlights, and it was nice more from him.

Initially, most of the spotlights gave us an exciting glimpse of a larger universe with unlimited possibilities going on outside the regular story. I guess it bothers me that since the recent spotlights have only depicted past events featuring the characters McCarthy has chosen to plant in AHM and give little characterization in what I assume is HIS idea of developing characters (as opposed to actually developing characters). And since Metroplex features Sixshot, I can only assume it's doing the exact same thing. Is the next writer doing the EXACT same thing and prepping Metroplex for the ongoing? Who knows at this point... >.<

In fairness, Spotlight Jazz wasn't McCarthy’s fault, that'd be Josh Van Reyk and Shaun Knowler. I think they're related to the Mosaics, if memory serves, but I can't remember, and the Wiki is down for me. Still, it's one mess that wasn't McCarthy's doing at least.

But I do agree on the art being absolutely delightful. And Metroplex looks good from the preview, and it might not degenerate into clichés and buckets of Blood.

...McCarthy didn't write Spotlight: Jazz. That was Knowler and van Reyk who wrote that one.

Whoops. Thanks for correcting me on that. Well my point still remains that all of the recent spotlights have been of the same ilk.

I actually WANTED McCarthy to write SL Jazz, considering that he was the one who started using him in an important role position. Yes, "super special black ops commando" can be cliche, but at least it's better than "random guy in Prowl's infiltration unit." Not to mention there was an interesting angle on having a guy with a secret command position essentially hiding in the background as a grunt. But yeah... instead that issue was just Generic Autobot Adventure #1, of which Cliffjumper becomes the #2 in the series.

I think right now everything is focused more on the past because the direction of the IDW universe after AHM/Coda is still up in the air.

What gets me is that, so long as we're going to run with Jazz suddenly being a Black Ops guy, his Spotlight was a perfect chance for someone to show how he became one, why he ended up as a seemingly random guy in Prowl's unit, or at least show us one of his Black Ops missions.

Instead, according to comments elsewhere they "...ultimately chose to go with something a bit more uplifting. Transformers as a whole has a bunch of dark and gritty anti-hero types and/or uber-cocky ultra-rebels at this point..." So we get what could have been something really interesting about Jazz wasted on, yeah, a Generic Autobot Adventure that could have been about anybody and not changed a whit. (But then, based on their Mosaics, that seems to be the two fellows' main problem in general... I think they're competant writers, but they keep squandering that talent on unimaginative, generic ideas.)

I dunno.

A lot of people liked it because it was happy go lucky, and feel good, etc. Like I said in that thread, I would've preferred a black-op story myself, but I understand their decision to go the other way after hearing hteir explanation.

It's not a bad story, it's actually quite good in many respects (especially for the writers' first comic outing). It's just not the story I wanted from Jazz considering the comments made about his shady past in AHM, but if the majority of the fandom's happy...ah well.

Then again, if it was up to me it'd probably have been about Jazz teaming up with Frank Castle, Boy Blue and Warbot in order to infiltrate the McNinja household

I don't, personally. While Black Ops could never be happy-go-lucky, I could still think of ways to handle it that would still have humor and/or a feel-good ending. (Something that involves infiltrating a quirky alien species and produces a happy result, for instance.) After all, this is Jazz we're talking about... he does everything with a cool, laid-back flair, so even that alone would keep it from being too "heavy".

...I guess that it's emblematic of IDW's G1 output as a whole in recent months... potentially interesting opportunities and possibilities that end up getting squandered/underutilized somehow. The fact that I've gone from being wowed by the pros showing me why they're pros, to actually being able to think of ways it could be done better, is a bad sign.

I see what you're saying. But I guess if they were going for the cheesy saturday afternoon movie feel, they wanted to grab it with both hands...steering clear of the black-ops stuff entirely.

I've already said I wasn't the biggest fan of this Spotlight, but many people were pleased with it though. So I guess Reyk and Knowler got it right, could it have been better if they had introduced other grittier elements into their story? Maybe (imo yes). Hopefully they'll get another chance to show their growth as writers.

My first story wasn't that good, I can tell you that much

Well, this isn't their first TF story. In addition to their Mosaics, van Reyk co-wrote the TF War Journal fanproject, which IMHO was pretty damn good... probably in part, I hate to say, because it was the other fellow who came up with the overall idea. Like I said, they've got good writing talent; they just need better ideas to use it on. (This coming from someone who's generally bad at thinking up good ideas herself... it's not an easy skill.)

I don't think it's fair to count the Mosaics, since that's really a whole other kettle of fish in terms of having to tell a story (their ability to do so effectively with a diverse array of characters and concepts is impressive though, even if some are closer to the mark than others).

But yeah, I remember reading that War Journal thing a while back (maybe it was linked in the Iacon forum?). Was pretty good. That's what I meant, a writer putting out their first comic as well as having to shoulder the burden of an established franchise...that's a lot of pressure. I was under the impression that this was Reyk and Knowler's first published work for a comic (I could well be wrong, I just assumed that this was the case).