A Cliffjumper(s) Tale

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"A Cliffjumper(s) Tale"
Published by Yolopark
First published June 12, 2025
Written by Pierre Jean Saint-Clair
Line art by Robby Musso
Color art by Jesse Wittenrich
Packaged with Cliffjumper

Frustrated at being regarded as a "Cliffjumper", a rouge rogue goes wild in the multiverse to... save Cliffjumpers?

Synopsis

On the Cybertron of Primax 625.12 Gamma, everybody has a unique identity... except one unfortunate soul. After being endlessly compared to the generic service bots known as Cliffjumpers due to their shared design cues of red coloration, small size, and horns, the angry robot drops a strain of the Hate Plague that specifically targets the Cliffjumpers and they kill each other, taking care of her problem. Even still, after discovering the multiversal Vector Sigma gestalt, "Cliffjumper" has decided to continue her mission to make herself the Cliffjumper. But after Pick-Up finds that 99.98% of Cliffjumpers across 15 million universes have already died, "Cliffjumper" realizes that her actions have, in turn, been the continuation of a cosmic joke and decides to adjust her plans for revenge—she will now save Cliffjumpers instead!

In Uniend 911.05 Alpha, "Cliffjumper" takes care to blow up the Nemesis before Cliffjumper's untimely demise.

In Tyran 207.28 Gamma, Cliffjumper is saved from Shatter and Dropkick before he can be bisected himself.

In Malgus 1207.26 Alpha, "Cliffjumper" takes Cliffjumper's place in a confrontation with Toxitron where the Decepticon clone asks "C.J." to join him on a mission that would have ended in his death.

After 12.025 million timelines of saving Cliffjumpers, "Cliffjumper" is satisfied that Cliffjumpers across the multiverse are no longer "cannon fodder" for the powers that rule over their existence. She does find one last signal from a Cliffjumper in a "pillar reality" from far into the future. She's shocked to find that this particular iteration has survived his adventures, even to the end of existence 18 billion years later. Realizing what an ideal existence this is for a Cliffjumper, "Cliffjumper" travels into the past of Primax 984.17 Alpha, finds the newly-manufactured Cliffjumper, and takes his place! Onward, she ends up on Earth in 1984, before Optimus Prime as he announces that the Autobots are the first line of defense against Decepticons. She gives a knowing wink—she never said she gave up on being the Cliffjumper...

Characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons

Notes

Continuity notes

BotCon staff and organisers repeatedly emphasised that this story and its ramifications for the multiverse should not be taken too seriously. If we were to take it seriously, we would note:

  • "Cliffjumper" travels to the universe of the Transformers: Prime cartoon during the events of the episode "Darkness Rising, Part 1", where she bombs the Nemesis before the Vehicons can descend to attack Cliffjumper. Preventing Cliffjumper's death here would majorly alter the cartoon's timeline, in particular Megatron's experiments with Dark Energon.
  • "Cliffjumper" then goes to a universe featuring events similar to the Bumblebee movie, in a scene recalling Cliffjumper's execution by Shatter and Dropkick. While this would alter the plot of the film, it's notable that the universal stream she travels to is that of the movie expanded universe timeline, which only includes the first three instalments of the live-action film series and their ancillary comic media. Cliffjumper's survival here is congruent with his appearances both in the distant past and contemporary present of that timeline; was "Cliffjumper" always fated to prevent his death in 1987...?
    • The only incompatible aspect of this being set in the expanded movie universe is that unless he was revived or survived his bisection, Dropkick gets killed prior to his appearance in Transformers: Alliance.
  • Her third trip takes "Cliffjumper" to the Animated cartoon continuity, in particular the post-Season 3 playground seen in Fun Publications' tie-in media such as "The Stunti-Con Job". The sequence is original to this story, as Animated Cliffjumper is never seen to have died in any of his prior appearances.
    • Accompanying Toxitron is Number 2, a walking potty joke an original fan character created by Agabyss for BotCon 2024 merchandise. The similarly-unlicensed script reading at that convention saw Number 2 erase her own existence from reality, so what she's doing here is anybody's guess... But since it was non-canon material, should we care?
  • Finally, "Cliffjumper" travels to the Generation 1 cartoon timeline, where her namesake survives until the end of the universe. She travels back to some time around "War Dawn", judging by Alpha Trion's design, and lives out the native Cliffjumper's life at least up to and including the roll call scene of "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1". A free Action Card given out at the convention also shows her recreating the scene with the bazooka from the same episode.

Transformers references

  • The Cliffjumpers of "Cliffjumper"'s native universe are "generic service bots" with no unique identity as a meta joke on Cliffjumper being usually pushed as a red variant of Bumblebee (and, indeed, "Cliffjumper" being the original "red Bumblebee" plays into this).
  • The discovery that 99.98% of Cliffjumpers are already dead is a product of the popular fan belief that Cliffjumpers die very often. However, this isn't really true, as evidenced by the fact that the story can only produce two existing canon examples of it happening (the ones that inspired the misconception in the first place!), having to invent an original third example.
  • The Cliffjumper of this story is in actuality a different character, originally intended to be named "Ladybug" (a trace of which can be seen when Pick-Up refers to her as "La-" before being interrupted). Ladybug is based on the red variant of the 1983 Micro Change MC-04 Mini Car Robo 03 Volkswagen, sold in the original Transformers toyline as Bumblebee and thus isn't really a "Cliffjumper". This story plays with the wider franchise's consideration of Cliffjumper as "red Bumblebee" (due to them having similar bodyforms and it being an easy redeco), inadvertently muscling into the territory of the "original" red Bumblebee.
  • The universal stream designations refer to different works of Transformers fiction:
  • During the roll call scene, the colorist deliberately recreates the animation errors from the same sequence in "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1", coloring one of Sunstreaker's shoulder missiles silver instead of yellow and Sideswipe's head red instead of black.

Real-world references

Errors

  • The art of the second page is aligned too low on the page, and the overlay for word bubbles is aligned too high, so the two elements are disjointed.
  • Trailbreaker's face is coloured silver rather than grey.

References

  1. ↑ "The censored "What the #%!&???" is a Deadpool reference."—Sabrblade, Transformers Wiki, "BotCon 2025 report", 2025/06/18
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