Turbo Jones

If you were a fan of British comics in the 1980s, you might remember Wildcat as a short-lived science fiction title from Fleetway. It was given a huge launch, with free copies of the preview comic appearing bagged with your copies of 2000AD, Eagle, Buster, Oink, Whizzer & Chips, Roy of the Rovers and MASK. I'm not sure how many readers of Whizzer & Chips would have been especially interested in this new comic, but I – then a rather older reader than Eagle and Roy of the Rovers was aimed at but still reading them alongside my weekly 2000AD – thought it looked fun.

The artwork for the preview was by Ian Kennedy, who was a regular cover artist on Starblazer, the DC Thomson pocket SF library that I was trying to sell stories to at that time, and I picked up the first issue of the new fortnightly when it appeared on 22 October 1988. In that issue, Kennedy was the artist for the lead strip, 'Turbo Jones', although from the second episode the art was taken over by Vincente Vaño (aka Vanyo).

The stories were written by Barrie Tomlinson, who was also the creator of the Wildcat comic. It was he who created the Wildcat universe and characters, taking the innovative step of publishing four stories each with their own lead characters but which shared a common background.

Set in 2488, Turbo Jones is a scientist who realises that in a mere 12 years, Earth will be destroyed by a meteor shower that will wreck the ozone layer and lead to the few survivors of the initial impacts will die a slow death from radiation. The Supreme Earth Council believe he is scaremongering and he is thrown out, leading Jones to go public in order to raise the finances required to build a spaceship.

He chooses three people as his seconds-in-command: Loner, a former mercenary, Kitten Magee, feminist kick-boxer, and Joe Alien, an alien whose own planet was destroyed. After three years, the mighty spacecraft Wildcat is completed, packed with animals and carefully selected humans who are to become the colonists of a new planet.

With Earth itself destroyed, the Wildcat finds a new Earth-like planet, only to discover that radiation storms and nightmare monsters have prevented the planet's lifeforms from travelling between the four main land masses. Each of the commanders will face a unique environment and inhabitants. Turbo Jones, along with his robotic chimp, Robo, finds himself embroiled in a war between the two main races, the Burroids, ruled by a benevolent brain, and the Arglons, who wish to enslave them.

Turbo Jones is appointed sole commander of the Burroid army to defend the city against an all-out attack. Turbo Jones' attempts to resolve the situation eventually take in his capture, escape, accusations of switching sides and a dinosaur stampede. Even when the battle is won, Jones finds himself on a malfunctioning craft that crashlands elsewhere on the planet and is left facing another meteor strike!

The latest collection from Rebellion reprints all the strips from Wildcat and Eagle & Wildcat, plus stories from Wildcat holiday specials drawn by Keith Page and John Gillatt (the latter in colour). While the concept was an interesting one, Turbo Jones is, first and foremost, a comic strip aimed at young children, and the plots haven't advanced much since the Fifties, when opposing alien nations were discovered on Venus by Dan Dare and Ron Turner was the master of drawing alien dinosaurs. While it is the obvious place to start, some of the other characters – notably Loner (also written by Tomlinson) and Kitten Magee – took off in rather more interesting (and sometimes frankly bizarre) directions.

It's an enjoyable although not outstanding introduction to the whole Wildcat universe. Personally, I'm looking forward more to Loner, which will be released in 2019, but Turbo Jones should keep you entertained while you wait.

Turbo Jones by Barrie Tomlinson, Ian Kennedy, Vanyo, Keith Page & John Gillatt. Rebellion ISBN 978-1781-08665-0, 10 January 2019, 146pp, £14.99 / $19.99. Available via Amazon.