Comic Review - Transformers Spotlight: Cliffjumper

IDW never quite seemed to work out how to best use the Spotlights, which generally tied into the main continuity but also had to function as standalone comics. Some efforts gradually saw more of the main storyline seep in to the point where the featured character felt like a sideshow but the only real alternative was to have stories like this that didn't really go anywhere.


The issue was penned by Shane McCarthy during his stint as head Transformers writer but it's difficult to see why beyond the writer quite liking Cliffjumper. It's a fairly generic story of the titular Minibot crashing on a peaceful alien planet and making friends only for the Decepticons to catch up and bring him back to the reality of war; you can guess at the plot from the first couple of pages and McCarthy doesn't disappoint in this regard. It's the sort of thing you'd expect from the cartoon.

There is a giggle or two to be had from the squadron of tough but crucially generic-looking Decepticons bricking it when they find out just who their prey is but the storyline would basically be the same regardless of who was in it and the generic "friendly to innocents but brutal to enemies" personality Cliffjumper gets effectively negates the point in it even being a Spotlight (McCarthy gets more out of him in odd frames of All Hail Megatron than 22 devoted pages here). That he was no more than a peripheral player in any other IDW comic to date hardly helps matters and the end result is inoffensive but utterly inessential.