General Jumbo

General Jumbo (called Admiral Jumbo for a brief period in the early 1970s) was a British comic strip, published in the comics magazine The Beano and originally drawn by Paddy Brennan and, subsequently, by Sandy Calder. It debuted in 1953.

Alfie "Jumbo" Johnson was a 12-year-old boy who served as "general" to a remote control model army, navy and air force created by scientist Professor Carter. He also appeared in Nutty and Buddy in the early 1980s. The Buddy version called him Jimmy instead of Alfie.

Publication history

Storylines involved crime-fighting and/or rescue missions. Jumbo made his first appearance in issue 583, dated 19 September 1953, and the strip continued intermittently until issue 1734, dated 11 October 1975, at which point it was the last adventure story in The Beano. However, he continued to appear in The Beano Book until 1979, and then every year from 1990–2008 (except 2007), and made a one-off appearance in the 60th birthday issue (2924, dated 1 August 1998).

Betrayal

He briefly turned evil during The Beano Annual 2008 in the 3-part Billy the Cat story "The General" written by Kev F Sutherland and drawn by Nigel Dobbyn. However, in part 2 it is revealed that he was under mind-control. His controller was Private Pike, one of Jumbo's soldiers who had gained sentience through an experimental learning chip, and had built an electronic mind-control device into his controller unit. Billy used the device against Pike, who was seemingly killed when he was subjected to the devices electronic feed back. Jumbo made him safe by stamping on him, after which Billy suggested they could have just taken his batteries out. Pike survived however as his eyes are seen glowing red once more in the last panel.

In the 2009 Annual Private Pike returned in a General Jumbo story that was not a crossover, again written by Sutherland. He was now housed in the body of a teddy bear and leading a revolution of broken and discarded toys, also equipped with copies of Pike's "learning chip". Jumbo was better prepared this time and successfully disabled his captors before they could carry out their plot to discredit him in the eyes of the public at a fete. He unmasked Pike by alertly spotting that every other toy in the creche was being played with, and put paid to the nuisance for what should prove to be the last time.

Inspiration

General Jumbo was the inspiration of several other characters in British comics, including:

Notes
  1. Who's Who in Top Ten by Jess Nevins

References
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