Wednesday, September 22, 2021

TFtember: Cliffjumper

Cliffjumper 

Or, the Not Quite Bumblebee 

Let's look at the toy first. A mini vehicle, Cliff is a super deformed Porsche 924 Turbo from the Microchange line. Bright red, although some of the foreign releases have him in gold, green, and white. Same transforming action as Bumblebee. Speaking of the 'bee, most of Cliff's toys since then have just been red redeco's of our favorite scout. 

The file card is actually pretty close to how Cliff would be on the show, namely a gung-ho, glass gun toting, shoot first and never ask questions kind of guy, although they do mention this attitude gets him into trouble every so often.

As for the comic, funny enough, Cliff really didn't do that much. He stayed to the background mostly, participating in the fighting but never getting the spotlight. He last showed up in #47, his final fate unknown. 

Then we have the cartoon. Voiced by the legendary Casey Kasem, here is the best version I found. He's exactly like his file card, with some added paranoia tossed in for good measure. He's also one of the few to survive the horror show that was Transformers: The Movie, despite his toy not being made anymore.  

Sadly it seems that in every subsequent bit of Transformers media Cliffjumper gets offed for some reason. Guess they have to make up for that? The later comics have him being a major player in the Shattered Glass series, but we'll get to that later. 

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