There’s some Transformers news making the rounds that I have to admit a bit of disappointment in. Now, I’m not a die-hard Transformers fan by any means. Watching the movie this summer was probably the longest I’ve spent paying attention to the iconic ‘80s toy line. I did enjoy the movie, however, even if I didn’t grok it on a total geek level.

One of the things I admired about the movie was its willingness to destroy beloved characters, namely the Autobot character Jazz. However, a new rumor making the rounds indicates that Jazz may not be as dead as we all thought he was. Actor Darius McCrary, who voiced the scout, is listed in a “where are they now” column as being in talks to reprise the role of Jazz in the Transformers sequel. The news comes courtesy of Black America Web.

I know in the Transformers canon, Optimus Prime is killed in battle – a death that shook the foundation of Transformers fandom for quite some time. New fans to the franchise won’t experience that same death, but I expected the loss of Jazz to mean something, perhaps a minor tribute to the loss of Optimus in the old days. Instead, if this news is to be believed, Jazz’s death will be meaningless, with the character popping back up in the sequel. It also establishes that none of the consequences of the movie have any permanency – something that may help bring back the series antagonist, but is a form of storytelling I find a bit disappointing.