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arceespinkgun · 13 days

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Jazz in "The Magnificent Six!" Character Analysis

When I completed my read of the Marvel UK Transformers comics, I was blown away by a text story in one of the annuals: "The Magnificent Six!" Not only is it the darkest this continuity ever got in my opinion, but it also recontextualized the personalities and behaviors of the main characters who appear in it, putting all their previous appearances in a different light. This was especially affecting since this story comes right near the end of the entire continuity, so that's years' worth of material that it made me reassess.

"The Magnificent Six!" follows Jazz, Prowl, Wheeljack, Inferno, and Sunstreaker, and how war has changed them. It recounts their experience with attempting to free a neutral town from Decepticon control and how the whole situation goes horribly wrong due to events largely out of their control, while also exploring the impacts of survivor's guilt. In the present, Optimus unknowingly sends them on a mission to that same place and they are forced to confront and work through their trauma. There's a summary of the events in chronological order here or see the story as it's meant to be read, with multiple perspectives and flashbacks throughout, on 🏴‍☠️ websites just by searching, "transformers UK annual read online" and selecting the second-to-final annual.

Content warning: this story includes sadistic torture on top of its other dark themes, and I'll have to make reference to the disturbing content.

In this post, I want to break down how this story made me see Jazz—one of my favorite transformers—differently, and why I think this is such an interesting and effective backstory for him. Something to note about "The Magnificent Six!" is that despite Prowl having been the leader of the titular team, Jazz is the central focus. He gets a flashback to himself, Megadeath (the Decepticon leader they face in the story, particularly sadistic and zealous even for Decepticons) attacks him first, he is the one to tell the whole truth of what happened to Silverbolt, and his words close out the story.

Hint: the Autobot you don't recognize who's standing on the hill is the one who didn't survive

Jazz's Characterization

Jazz's characterization in the rest of this continuity is similar to the way he is in the Sunbow cartoon... at least, on the surface it is. He loves Earth culture, especially music and dancing! He's really good at improvising! He tries to be positive when he talks to people! But he can also be kind of hard to read. There are some less obvious things about Jazz's character as well. There's another annual story I've posted in full that seems to indicate that while being pleasant on the surface, Jazz internally judges the people around him. He gets antsy when he's stuck in one place too long.

And at his core, he seems to want to just soak in the sights and appreciate life quietly without war or other people around.

Jazz meets a deer!

Jazz is very eager to try diplomacy as a strategy, and in an early story, secures a fuel source this way.

I bet Jazz learned about capitalism by listening to "Material Girl"

However, while Jazz is depicted excitedly absorbing human culture, he doesn't necessarily feel like he understands humans or that he's understood in turn. While he interacts with humans, there is often a distance in those interactions.

Jazz was sometimes drawn with triangular eyes under his visor that make him look old and depressed

Jazz also sometimes comes across as being deadened to violence. I remember in one annual comic, he shoots at Starscream and ends up killing a human villain Starscream had abducted, and Jazz never thinks about or talks about it afterward.

In one of his early interactions with humans, he also didn't seem to register that preventing Sparkplug and Buster from running out of the Ark with a flamethrower might hurt them in any way.

A calm also applies to when violence is inflicted upon him: in the Target: 2006 story arc, when he's captured and tortured by Galvatron, he's very calm throughout until the end, when he just laughs at the turn of events.

I love that Galvatron gives a long speech about his origin and fight against Unicron and Jazz's reaction was just to be like, all right, guess that's one less thing I have to worry about LMAO

Speaking of Galvatron, in this continuity, there's an alternate universe in which Unicron ate Cybertron and Galvatron was conquering Earth for him. In that reality, Jazz ended up as one of only three survivors (Jazz, Prowl, and Inferno... hey, also all members of the Magnificent Six lol) and when he was about to face Galvatron in a last stand he believed was suicidal, his dialogue revealed a lot about his character.

All of these traits I've mentioned will be explored in "The Magnificent Six!"

Jazz in "The Magnificent Six!"

In the opening of the story we Jazz from a unique perspective. The first notable thing is that we learn who he was back before Optimus Prime became a leader. Jazz was a freedom fighter who went around liberating territory from Decepticon rule. Not only that, but because this first flashback begins from the perspective of a Decepticon guard (Steamhammer, said to have been a killer even before the War), we get a rare glimpse into what the Decepticon perspective on Jazz was back then. It sounds like he was one of the most dreaded and hated of the Autobots!

And the reputation appears to be well-earned. Jazz in the past here seems noticeably different in personality—he comes across as hot-headed and more of a leader. Notice how unsure the supposed leader of this team, Prowl, comes across in this flashback, in which he instead looks to Jazz for approval.

Later, when we see Jazz's flashback, we get further context into his character, and suddenly his love of other cultures and their media is so bittersweet. In this flashback, he's running over the events in his mind, trying to figure out when everything went wrong. Ultimately, he blames himself for nearly laughing at the offensive joke Sunstreaker told to try and lighten the mood after the citizens' museum was bombed—Jazz believes that's when everything fell apart. So of course he'd be so focused on culture!

And of course he doesn't speak his mind! His guilt would prevent him from doing so.

Especially given the consequences. For people who haven't read the story, note that I'm going to describe the darkest part now. We get to look into Jazz's mind as he's being tortured, melting to death. Laughing maniacally is his response to being pushed past the brink of despair.

This is notable because as shown above, when he's captured and tortured by Galvatron millions of years later, he has this exact same reaction!

Essentially, in retaliation for the seven days the team was able to fend off the Decepticons, Megadeath had them tortured for seven days. That included the melting scene. But he only inflicted physical pain upon five of the six—one, Stampede, a beastformer, he left untouched, but forced to watch as his friends were broken mentally and physically. Then, he gave the five disassociating team members to the count of ten to prevent him from executing Stampede in front of them, knowing they were too mentally damaged to even move, making them feel consumed with guilt.

And as if that wasn't enough, he then told them he'd left a nuclear bomb beneath the town they'd tried so hard to save, and they couldn't find it in time before it blew up. They then ran away in shame and feigned amnesia for millions of years.

I recount all this horrific shit because it explains a lot about Jazz as a character. He is a very pleasant person, and is extremely popular—in Target: 2006 a mind-controlled Jazz takes out all the Autobots just because nobody wanted to lay a finger on him!—but he almost never confides emotionally in anyone and has very few close bonds. I believe the loss of his teammate and the way Megadeath twisted the knife gives a lot of insight into why this is—Jazz of course feels the burden of responsibility and works hard to do good, but how could he bear to let people in after all of that? Especially when he blames an expression of pure emotion for all of those traumatic things happening to so many innocent people?

Prowl and Silverbolt

I also want to touch on two of Jazz's dynamics with other characters, ones that are relevant to "The Magnificent Six!"

As can be seen in some of the excerpts above, Prowl is another important character in the story. While many of the most dramatic beats center Jazz, Prowl also gets some of the spotlight. At the end of the story, when the Autobots find the inner strength to face Megadeath again after talking openly about their traumatic past, everyone beats Megadeath nearly to death. However, Prowl finds it within himself to resist a killing blow, because to kill an unarmed opponent is morally wrong. And while this story closes with Jazz's words, it's Prowl who prompts them.

When I say that Jazz has very few close bonds, Prowl is actually one of those few, probably the most significant one. While reading through the comics I did notice that Jazz shows noticeably more concern for and closeness with Prowl than he does with others (see issues #266 and #268) and also gets uncharacteristically angry with and argues with him in issue #42 (though this doesn't shake their ability to work together—which I feel is also notable). That being said, I didn't think anything of this for quite a while. I had also noticed that Prowl seems to really respect Jazz and defer to him, but I also didn't think that was important because like... who wouldn't respect Jazz? But with the additional context of "The Magnificent Six!" I feel as if this is significant due to the shared trauma and their initial reputation.

It's actually very rare to see Jazz be physically close with anybody

This leads me to Silverbolt. Silverbolt is also a significant character in "The Magnificent Six!" because he's the only person sent on the mission who wasn't part of the original team. In fact, he was created on Earth! Because of this, he's the one who pushes hard for the other Autobots to open up about what is keeping them paralyzed with trauma and shame. You can see how he goads Wheeljack and it spurs Jazz into finally seeing that they have to face the truth because it's been eating away at them for millions of years.

Silverbolt's presence is also what causes Prowl to remember Autobot morality and resist the urge to just kill Megadeath.

Silverbolt's perspective on opening up to others is informed by his experiences with his fellow Aerialbots, who are as young as he is. Throughout this continuity, Silverbolt spent a lot of time struggling and causing erratic behavior when combined with his teammates, because he kept trying to hide his fear of heights from everyone. But he remembers in "The Magnificent Six!" that he was met with more support than he'd ever had before once he did face the truth.

Silverbolt is a big proponent of therapy!

"The Magnificent Six!" is what I consider to be the conclusion to a series of comics known as the Earthforce branch of the Marvel UK run, and Jazz, Silverbolt, and Prowl were all members of the Earthforce together, as were the other Autobots on the mission. But I feel Silverbolt being the one to drive the plot forward is particularly significant due to a thematic connection. Previously I mentioned a fight that Jazz and Prowl got into, which happened early in the UK run—Prowl and his supporters called on Optimus Prime to use the Matrix to give life to Autobot super soldiers and just crush the Decepticons in order to prevent more casualties. Jazz and his supporters said that would be immoral and that there was no way they'd have enough fuel for those super soldiers when they barely had enough for themselves.

Optimus was incredibly distraught by this argument but came down firmly on the side of not using the Matrix for such things. ...At least, for a little bit, until he reconsidered after Megatron reemerged. Optimus went back on his original decision and made the Aerialbots. Perhaps Optimus's guilt over using the Matrix in this fashion caused him to be exceedingly harsh toward the young bots multiple times throughout this continuity, seemingly having little faith in their abilities.

I think there's something especially resonant about one of the people who was created as a result of that disagreement being the one who ended up giving them the support they needed to face their own traumatic past.

BFFs share laughter as a coping strategy for dealing with the most painful moments in life!

Conclusion

While I get the sense that this may change, particularly with the new Skybound comics featuring Jazz and showing more of his friendship with Cliffjumper which has its source in the Sunbow cartoon, I don't feel like we've ever had this much of a window into Jazz's past and such a deep look at his personality and relationships. I don't think that any future content needs to be this dark, but I hope that as much attention is given to Jazz in the future! As it is, I think this is some of the most compelling material Jazz ever had.

#transformers g1 #transformers marvel #maccadam #Jazz #Prowl #Silverbolt #my analysis #long post #I mean it this is long #and yet this is somehow only scratching the surface LMAO

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