- General Jumbo
General Jumbo (called Admiral Jumbo for a brief period in the early 1970s) was a
fictional character in acomic strip in the UK comic "The Beano ", originally drawn byPaddy Brennan .Alfie "Jumbo" Johnson was a 12 year old boy who served as "general" to a remote control model
army ,navy andair force created byscientist Professor Carter. Storylines involved crime-fighting and/or rescue missions. Jumbo made his first appearance in issue 583, dated19 September 1953 , and the strip continued intermittently until issue 1734, dated11 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, dated1 August 1998 ).Betrayal
He briefly turned evil during The Beano Annual 2008 in the 3-part Billy the Cat story THE GENERAL. However, in part 2 it is revealed that he was under mind-control. His controller was Private Pike who has turned against Jumbo and built a mind-control device into his controller unit made from electrons. Billy used the device against Pike who was seemingly killed by the power of the electrons. Jumbo made him safe by stamping on him, after which Billy suggested they could have just taken his batteries out. He survived however as his eyes turn red once more in the last panel. He might return because they didn't destroy him but this is highly unlikely, especially as artist Nigel Dobbyn won't even be contributing a Billy the Cat story for the 2009 annual.
Inspiration
General Jumbo was the inspiration of several other characters in British comics, including:
* Colonel Tusker, killed by the Fury in
Alan Moore 'sCaptain Britain series.* unnamed character killed by the Lloigor in Zenith.
* General Tubbs in
Jack Staff .* Colonel Liliput in
Alan Moore 's Top 10 series.External links
* [http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/j/jumbo.htm General Jumbo at International Superheroes]
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