Jumpa
29 years ago - Jumpa is born in the Kanga stables of Themyscira.
27 years ago - 2-year-old Jumpa first meets Diana.
21 years ago - 8-year-old Jumpa joins Diana, Donna, and her Kanga Flicka as they join the fight against The Count of Corruption, a follower of Ares from the Paths Beyond, as he attempts to invade Themyscira.
17 years ago - 12-year-old Jumpa starts learning to jump far enough to breach the barriers of Themyscira.
10 years ago - 19-year-old Jumpa carries Diana when she returns to Themyscira to protect the island from Felix Faust. When Diana is banished, Jumpa is among those she comes to say goodbye to.
7 years ago - 22-year-old Jumpa comes to Diana Prince in Man's World to help her during the Godwar.
6 years ago - 23-year-old Jumpa carries Diana Prince as she returns to Themyscira without her powers to protect the island from the lost Amazons.
If you start adding the various pets to a project like this, sooner or later once you've gotten past all the dogs and and cats, you're going to find yourself squarely in the imagination of one William Moulton Marston, who is not messing around. I do not know where the idea that the Amazons ride giant Kangaroos comes from, especially given the fact that artist Harry G Peter had clearly only ever had Kangaroos described to him by someone on Mescaline.
We love Kangas here, and we love Jumpa, Wonder Woman's faithful Kanga mount. We hope you enjoy our take on her!
We love Kangas here, and we love Jumpa, Wonder Woman's faithful Kanga mount. We hope you enjoy our take on her!
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Jumpa's Comic HistoryJumpa appeared for the first time all the way back in Sensation Comics #6 from 1942, VERY early in Wonder Woman's career. This was the very first time Diana went back home to Themyscira, and she arrives in the middle of one of the Amazons athletic competitions which she decides to join. This one involved them lassoing each other off the backs of their Kangas, which are giant riding Kangaroos and are absolute nightmare fuel. (why do they have HOOVES?!?!?). Diana mounts her old steed, Jumpa, and wins the competition. When Wonder Woman's solo book started shortly afterward, the very first panel included her riding Jumpa. We eventually learn that the Kanga's have a very particular backstory; they are SKY Kangas, able to jump between planets. When Diana was a little girl, Themyscia was invaded by mysterious space invaders riding Kangas. Once they were defeated they turned out to be a lost tribe of Amazons, which meant the Kangas were now a regular part of the Amazons world.
Jumpa was a little bit different than the pets that Batman and Superman would later aquire during the Silver Age. She was never a pet, but was rather a faithful mount. We never actually saw Jumpa during the Silver Age, which means that for some time she's remained an almost exclusive element of Marston's Wonder Woman. An exception might actually be an entirely different Kanga, Flicka, who was ridden by Diana's daughter Lyta in the pages of Infinity Inc. |
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Jumpa is often mentioned as one of the Super-Pets, whenever they gather a team of the pets of superheroes... Although originally Super-Pets actually referred to gathering specifically Superman's animal companions, so other characters like Jumpa or Ace the Bat Hound or Ch'p shouldn't necessarily count... but for some reason no one is policing the canon membership of pet team-ups in DC.
We've had two really neat new developments in the last few years that have done a great job of bringing Jumpa back into continuity after being ignored for decades. One is all the new young reader comics we're getting telling stories about Diana's childhood or teen years on Themyscira. Whether it's back-up stories in the main book or the webcomic Warriors and a Wee Wonder, It's becoming very clear that Jumpa was a regular companion for Diana in her childhood. The second is the 2021 Grant Morrison series Wonder Woman: Earth One which did a ton of extremely exciting worldbuilding for their take on Themyscira which included Kangas as war-mounts and depicted Diana riding Jumpa looking incredibly cool. I'm unfamiliar with any stories that have EVER been published that featured Diana riding on Jumpa that are not set on Themyscira; other than the occasional tongue-in-cheek Super-Pets appearance, I believe that Jumpa and the other Kangas have always stayed on the island. |
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Our Jumpa StoryBelieve it or not, I've actually gotten some pushback on including Jumpa. Personally I can't imagine not wanting to include this incredibly fun element of her lore. I guess you could argue that this is quite a bit different from the other pets. The inclusion of giant riding Sky Kangas requires a little bit more buy-in than just giving Supergirl a cat, but at the same time... this is comics. Her plane is invisible. Get into it.
We wanted to make sure that Jumpa is a regular part of Diana's childhood. They befriended each other when they were both very small. and would go on to get into adventures with Diana and he little sister Donna, the sort of adventures that they definitely should not be getting into. Later, when Diana is an adult and is off in Man's World, we did have to exercise a little restraint. Jumpa shouldn't be part of every story, she should remain on Themyscira. She becomes a part of practically every adventure Diana has back on the island and of course participates in all of her various trials and tournaments there, but she's not hanging out at Gateway University or the Themysciran Embassy. We do, however, want to establish that even way back in her childhood, Diana was teaching Jumpa to one day jump all the way through the barriers into Man's World... and then later on Diana would be in the Embassy when suddenly a loud crash shakes the room... and Diana is suddenly SO EXCITED, because she knows that crash means that Jumpa is here! We want just one story where Jump orbital skydrop kicks a badguy, and i don't think that's asking too much. |