Jazz

**Jazz** (ジャズ, *Jazu*), is a fictional character and protagonist from the *DC* series. He a cool and collected Autobot and Optimus Prime's right-hand man. Unlike Prowl, Prime's military strategist, Jazz responds well to change and improvisation. Before the war he was part of the caste tasked with cultural observation and analysis, which gave him more freedom and a wider perspective on the world than his good friend Orion Pax. Whatever surprises the Decepticons spring, Jazz can deal with it. His position as Special Operations head calls for all the skills he possesses, yet he still has time to add some style to everything he does. Though the war has changed much of his life (he is now a skilled and deadly combatant), two things remain constant: his dedication to the friend who is now also his leader Optimus Prime, and the interest he takes in all facets of culture, wherever his travels lead. Jazz's upbeat and outgoing personality make him one of the most popular Autobots among the Ark's crew.

An admirer of Earth music of every kind, Jazz loves culture. More than most other Autobots, he has his finger on the pulse of Earth trends and lingo, effortlessly incorporating human slang into his vocabulary. Chances are, Jazz could tell you the status of almost any reality television show and each week's Top 40 list. Jazz has also adopted many popular human idioms into his vocabulary, and his fascination with their music has led him to implement speakers that fire a hundred sonic booms per second into his weaponry.

"*Have your own style of doing things or have none at all.*"

—Jazz.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor:* Arif S. Kinchen (English), Wataru Takagi (Japanese), Reginaldo Primo (Brazilian), Reinhard Brock (German) Gabriele Calindri (Italian), Not Known (Russian), Francis Lax (French), Xia Zhiqing (Chinese), Petri Hanttu (Finnish), Antônio Patiño (Brazilian Portuguese), Carlos Nieto (Latin-American Spanish)

### Appearance

#### Vehicle Mode

He transforms into a Cybertronian Car, when arriving to Earth, Jazz adapts the Earth vehicle mode of a modified Porsche 935 Sports Race Car.

## History

### Past

#### During the War

Jazz was one of many Autobots who was captured by the Decepticons and sent to the Kaon prison complex. He passed the time in incarceration by doing push ups in his cell, waiting for the day he would be able to break out. That chance came when Optimus, Bumblebee and Sideswipe (who had allowed themselves to be captured) opened all the cells in Kaon during a daring attempted rescue mission of Zeta Prime. Air Raid led the prisoners to transport ships, with which they escaped. He could be seen waving Autobots onto the closest ship through the window from above.

Blacker than the inside of a drive shaft—that's how Jazz described the north side of Cybertron. The slang-talking operations specialist was on a recon mission to ascertain Cybertron's bleak energy reserves, and his reports were what prompted the Autobot mission to search for new sources of energy outside of their home world.

##### Dark Spark Incident

Jazz led the Autobot attack on Kaon to reclaim the Dark Spark from the Decepticons. When Bruticus incapacitated and captured Cliffjumper, Jazz called for a ceasefire and begged Shockwave to return Cliffjumper, claiming that the Decepticons had got what they wanted, and didn't need to take Cliffjumper. Shockwave responded by simply laughing as he led Bruticus and unconscious Cliffjumper into Kaon.

Jazz had then reported Cliffjumper's capture to Optimus, and subsequently accompanied his leader to the Decepticon base Kolkular to retrieve their comrade and destroy the Dark Spark. Jazz was responsible for freeing Cliffjumper while Optimus covered them, but was captured, along with Optimus and Cliffjumper, by Megatron. They were freed when Jetfire commandeered the wrecked Trypticon's weapons systems and fired upon Kolkular, and the 'bots parted ways when Optimus ordered Jazz to take Cliffjumper and escape the base while Prime faced Megatron himself in order to reclaim the Dark Spark.

#### Departing Cybertron

After Grimlock went missing from his post, Optimus Prime met Cliffjumper and Jazz in the armory as they were preparing to go find Grimlock and his team. Sideswipe took the duo in a dropship to the Sea of Rust where they explored the ruins, with Cliff managing to save Jazz's life when he was trapped under debris. The pair tracked a distress signal to a huge pit, which Jazz opted to venture into alone. He immediately got into trouble in the form of Insecticons. He escaped by flooding the pit with toxic waste. Exploring further, they found an energon lake and spotted the huge tower in which Shockwave was conducting his space bridge experiments. Jazz and Cliffjumper infiltrated the facility, eventually finding Shockwave himself. The Decepticon trapped Cliff behind a force field and Jazz was forced to fight off wave after wave of Insecticons while the other Autobot worked out a way to destroy the base. They escaped just before the place exploded and reported the energon lake back to Optimus before returning to finish preparing the Ark for launch.

After takeoff, the Ark headed for a space bridge Shockwave had opened but was pursued by the Decepticons aboard their flagship the Nemesis. Jazz served as pilot for the Ark until severe asteroid turbulence knocked him from his seat. The Decepticons took advantage of the confusion and attacked the Ark and Jazz responded to a report that Bruticus was on board. His arrival was cheered by the defending Autobots, but even though Jazz made full use of his grapple and shot Bruticus repeatedly in the face the giant Decepticon seemed unstoppable. However, with the help of air strikes from Jetfire and the Aerialbots, Jazz managed to knock Bruticus off-balance enough for the air strikes to knock him clean off the Ark and back to the Nemesis, but both vessels and parties crash-landed on Earth.

## External links

* Jazz *Wikipedia*
* Jazz *TTeletraan 1: The ransformers Database*
* Jazz *Transformers Wiki*