Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Transformers Spotlight Cliffjumper

Transformers Spotlight: Cliffjumper
IDW Comics
MCarthy, Musso & LaFuente

Cliffjumper, we are told, is a one man army. He is a master of weapons, he is unstoppable, unbeatable! Unfortunately, this comic only tells us that and it doesn’t show us and therefore, ultimately, it isn’t very believable. It’s a good story with very good artwork but in a one and done issue you need to establish what you want the story to tell and then execute it. This story wanted to show how Cliffjumper is a one man wrecking crew and instead it showed us how he is a survivor and how he has a high level of humanity.

Cliffjumper is stranded on a planet. He is all alone. He sends out a distress signal. While he waits he meets two locals. The three of them begin to get to know one another. Eventually the Decepticons show up and spoil everything.

Cliffjumper shows some hunting skills when the Decepticons split up to search for him and there are some cool ways he kills a couple of them. Cliffjumper is pushed to the brink when his new friends are in harm’s way as he battles the ridiculous numbers he’s stacked against.

It’s a perfectly good story except it isn’t convincing that this little Autobot could take out so many Decepticons. Nothing about Cliffjumper looks special and we learn nothing about his skills that tells us he is capable of out dueling anyone. The other problem here is that the Decepticons are completely nameless. For all we know he’s fighting the medical crew. One other problem with this issue is it doesn’t seem to fall into any point in time within the larger Transformers timeline. This is okay except one of the Decepticons makes mention of the commander that Cliffjumper killed. It would have been nice to get a little more context for this development. It couldn’t have added some legitimacy to his claim to being unstoppable.

The artwork is very good. We aren’t used to the Transformers interacting with beings other than humans, but the beings and their environment in this issue look very unique and well done. Cliffjumper is also depicted with tremendous details. The art has a good story to tell in this issue.

The comic is a nice piece to showcase Cliffjumper. However, with a $4 price tag the comic needs to be more than just a one shot that mildly describes a character’s traits instead of building them up. I would say this one is strictly for the die-hard fans. It’s not a comic with glaring flaws or mistakes, but it just doesn’t provide a ton of value for its cost.

2 out of 5 geek goggles