17 Minutes of Jamie Benning’s Raiding The Lost Ark

Raiding the Lost Ark: A Filmumentary - Part 1 from jambe davdar on Vimeo.

Cheers!

mike

The Indiana Jones Comic Book Revue #6

All books are rated on a 0 to 5 Fedoras system.

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #7
(Marvel Comics Group)

Plot/Script by: David Michelinie
Pencilled by: Kerry Gammill
Inked by: Sam de la Rosa
Cover by: Kerry Gammill

"Guess I'd better switch to 'Plan B'. Playin' it by ear!"

Dateline 1936

"Africa Screams!" begins with an adventure in medias res. Indy has infiltrated a monastery in France to retrieve a summoning stone that was stolen from the National Museum by a man named McIver who deals in the trafficking of ancient artifacts. He uses the monastery to house them and transports them in wine barrels so they go unseen by the authorities. Indy is wise to their scheme and, in the process, runs afoul of McIver who gets the drop on Indy and sounds the alarm. A chase ensues where Indy evades McIver's men, steals a truck and gets away, traveling back to Connecticut and home.

There he meets with Marcus Brody who points out that the rock Indy recovered was wrapped in a piece of paper that Indy grabbed, and that paper happens to be a rare map which may show the location of the lost tribe of the Shintay, an offshoot group of Atlanteans who fled the continent. It appears that they may be located in the Congo and Brody tells Indy he will have to leave at once since time will be of the essence.

Marion Ravenwood re-enters the picture as she was 'hiding' in the room during Indy's discussion with Brody and insists on being taken along. Several days later the pair hit Western Africa and try to put together an expedition with some bearers but another group already came through and hired everyone in the small village for a similar expedition. Indy and Marion decide to go on alone and have some misadventures with the local wildlife until they meet up with the aforementioned group led by Dr. Curt Vogel.

Indy suspects this other group of also trying to find the Shintay and does some poking around the camp that night. He is discovered and the enemy is revealed as Vogel admits to being Colonel Vogel and that he is a Nazi. He has been working with McIver, who recognized Indy, and is about to eliminate Jones but is thwarted as Indy escapes, rounds up Marion and hides in a cave with her, waiting for the soldiers to leave before they double back to the camp and gather some supplies before continuing on their own.

Just then, from behind the two of them, a pair of eyes come out of the darkness and an animal growl can be heard...

This was another really good issue with all the right pacing, action and touches to make a proper Indiana Jones adventure. Surprisingly, all the characters from the film are very much in character and, if one really wanted to go there, this story could even be considered canon. I hope Michelinie manages to keep this style and quality of storytelling up for the duration of his run. If he does manage it, this will be a very enjoyable reviewing process for the foreseeable future. The artists, Kerry Gammill and Sam DeLaRosa, do an admirable job of creating a world that I can believe belongs to an Indiana Jones story. Their likenesses of the characters are quite good and their environments are nicely detailed and have a lot of texture. The storytelling is strong and Gammill moves things along at a nice pace, never letting the reader get lost either geographically or in the narrative. After several artist changes, good and bad, I hope this is the new creative team for a little while.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story and look forward to the follow up in #8.

The Indiana Jones Comic Book Revue #5

All books are rated on a 0 to 5 Fedoras system.

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #6
(Marvel Comics Group)

Plot/Script by: David Michelinie (from an idea by Archie Goodwin)
Pencilled by: Howard Chaykin
Inked by: Terry Austin
Cover by: Howard Chaykin & Terry Austin

"I actually enjoy saving a person's life twice in one day for no gratitude whatsoever."

Dateline 1936

"Club Nightmare!" reintroduces Marion Ravenwood to the world of Indiana Jones as our hero joins her in New York for the opening of their new business venture, The Raven. With all the money Marion received from "that lost ark mess", and Indy as a silent partner, she decides to open a club in New York. Eventually, she runs afoul of local gangster, Emil Marko, who wanted to be a partner in the business in order to use it as a front for a gambling setup. Marion tells him to go suck an egg and Marko puts the squeeze on Marion, jeopardizing her life and opening night!

This is a pretty good story and stands as one of the best since the Byrne issues right off the top. Michelinie shows some classic pulp sensibilities, giving the affair a nice '30s New York feel and populates the story with characters that remind me of many of the cast of Casablanca. The wonderful art by Howard Chaykin (also the best in the series since Byrne's departure) only serves to enhance the period look and feel of the story and he does an excellent job with the action sequences. It's a shame that he's only here for a single issue fill-in. At least we get to enjoy Chaykin's work in the future when he lends his considerable talent to some excellent covers for the series.

This issue was a really solid installment in the series. It was nice to see a straight up Indy adventure that did not take place in a jungle (unless you want to argue a concrete one), had no supernatural elements and worked like gangbusters (no pun intended) without relying on Nazis, communists or the occult for an antagonist or a MacGuffin. It was also nice to see Marion return even though this story (and this whole series, for that matter) clearly takes place outside of Indy canon. She was consistent, in character and a really good foil for Indy. From what I can tell, Marion continues on in the series for a few issues so we'll see if that trend holds.

Omar's Garage

Went over to a friend's place tonight to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and I noticed something for the first time. Omar's Garage is part of a scene that I've seen millions of times but, for some reason, I never managed to connect the dots. In the scene prior to the truck chase, Indy says to Sallah and Marion that he'll meet them back at Omar's. After the truck chase, they drive the truck with the Ark in it into Omar's garage and hide it. Why have I never noticed this before?

It's also an entertaining little tidbit because Sallah's brother-in-law gets another mention in Last Crusade during one of the chase scenes. I know, the whole movie is a chase scene, but it's in the desert, involves camels to repay his brother-in-law for the car that got blown up.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind right now.

mike

Awwww, Yeah

I won't be playing this on the Wii, but I'm giddy as a schoolboy waiting on this game to land.



Later!

mike

The Indiana Jones Comic Book Revue #4

All books are rated on a 0 to 5 Fedoras system.

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #5
(Marvel Comics Group)

Plot/Script by: David Michelinie
Pencilled by: Ron Frenz
Inked by: Danny Bulandi
Cover by: Ron Frenz

"I'm just glad mom isn't here to see this..."

Dateline 1936

"The Harbingers" continues right off the cliffhanger from last issue with Indiana Jones and Karen Mays as they dangle precariously off of a bridge in a commandeered Rolls Royce. As they make their escape they find that they are out of the frying pan only to jump into the fire as the Nazis are waiting for them on the bridge. Indy and Karen leap for the Thames and land on a garbage scow which takes them away from the immediate danger.

What follows is a series of misadventures with Indy and Karen dodging the Nazi menace at every turn while they try to make it to Stonehenge with the crystal artifact. Once there, they hope to see if the carvings that tell of the return of ancient beings to our plane of existence are true. What they find is pretty much as advertised and Michelinie describes it as such:

Above the ancient rock towers of Stonehenge the very sky splits open giving hazy glimpses of things reptillian, simian, canine, insectile, and utterly, utterly unknown!

Indy is tempted to let the beasties out so he can learn their secrets but has a change of heart and smashes the crystal, locking them away to wallow in their otherworldly place forever, not to mention foiling those pesky Nazis yet again.

Although I am never a fan of showing Indy too much of the supernatural, it is a necessary element to telling a certain kind of Indiana Jones story so I'm not going to condemn the creative team for going to the places they did in "The Harbingers". It's not the best Indy story I've ever read, but the characterizations were good, the action was fun, there was a fight on top of a train, and it was, overall, a decent pulp-inspired read. I also think this tale succeeds primarily because it mirrors so much of what made Raiders work: the race against time; the Nazi's around every corner; the ancient artifact that promises wondrous things; and a showy SFX finale with swirly ghost-like apparitions.

I honestly thought I was going to dip down with the rating on this one but I think it could be argued that "The Harbingers" was totally consistent with its predecessor and, therefore, earns three well-worn fedoras.

Things I Thought Were Cool in 2008

I never kept any kind of list for a best of '08 post so I wasn't going to bother with one this year, especially since we're 30 days into it already. While doing my usual rounds of the blogosphere, however, I noticed that writer Rob Williams is saying "I don't swing that way" and doing an extremely belated hodge podge list of his own, regardless of the date. Taking his example (or at least using it as an excuse to generate content) I decided I was going to post a few random things I liked in 2008 posts to highlight the stuff that I remember liking. If I have any fun doing it, I'll maybe squeeze in a few things I remember hating, just for some balance.

It's no secret that not everyone was happy to see the return of Indiana Jones to screens in '08, but this was one Indy fan who enjoyed having the man in the hat back. After a very long drought post-Last Crusade it was exciting to have new stuff to be looking forward to, whether it was the comic books, the toys, the DVDs or the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull itself. I won't bother mentioning the Young Indiana Jones DVDs and the new paperbacks here because they're not exclusive to 2008. The first of the Young Indy sets came out in November of 2007, I think, and the new books don't drop until later this year.

Anyway, having new Indy comics has been a blast, especially in the hands of the aforementioned writer, Rob Williams. Many of Dark Horse's attempts at Indy stories in the past have fallen short of greatness and the Temple of the Gods has been a real trip, even if it's been plagued with delays, and the all-ages Indiana Jones Adventures digest/one-shot was marvellous. Probably one of the best Indy stories I've ever read.

The toys I won't really go on about here since I posted on them already a little while back.

I have yet to get my hands on a copy but a complete soundtrack collection was also released featuring all the music and some never before released extras from them man, John Williams.

And lastly, while the new movie is very much disparaged I had a lot of fun with it and have enjoyed it even more since grabbing it on DVD. The story moves at a quick enough pace that a lot of neat little things get lost as the plot zooms on and I love the callbacks to the last film in Indy's dialogue essentially showing that he's becoming his father. Actually, the shout out to the pilot episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was probably my favourite bit of dialogue in the whole film, believe it or not. And the spit after he mentions Victoriano Huerta, classic.

Overall a pretty good year for Dr. Jones and his many fans.

Cheers!

mike

It Figures

Last night at Wal-Mart I picked up another figure from the latest Indiana Jones series of toys. I had heard that the Temple of Doom wave was one of the harder ones to find, so when I ran across a Temple Indy with ripped shirt and Thuggee sword, I had to grab it. I mean, at $3.92 a figure can a guy really go wrong?

I wasn't planning on collecting the Indy toys despite being a huge fan of the character and franchise, but it's really hard to turn away when they're sitting at these costs right now. Granted, it's hard to be too happy when I know the only reason these are being cleared out at these prices is because they've killed the whole line and the shops are trying to get rid of whatever stock they have left, but that's also all the more reason to stock up on whatever I can while I can.

Other Indy figures and what-not that I've picked up include the German jeep from Raiders (from the truck chase), a couple of small Titanium series miniatures of the truck dragging Indy and the rocket sled from Crystal Skull, an Indy Mighty Muggs figure, and my first purchase from when the film came out, the 12" talking Indy figure.

I was going to grab Mola Ram and some Thuggee guards when I made my way back but they've quickly sold out, no doubt to folks just like me. I'm also still debating if I want to grab some of the deluxe figures for $4. We'll see how it goes.

Back to the grind!

mike

Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead

The cover art has been released for Indy's latest literary adventure to be written by Steve Perry and looks like so:



Not as cool as the Drew Struzan covers from the previous 12 books, but if the stuff inside is half-decent I can't complain.

mike

The Indiana Jones Comic Book Revue#3

All books are rated on a 0 to 5 Fedoras system.

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #4
(Marvel Comics Group)

Written by: David Michelinie
Pencilled by: Ron Frenz
Inked by: Danny Bulandi
Cover by: Ron Frenz & Mike Gustovich

"Running's good for ya! Sometimes it keeps ya alive!"

Dateline 1936

"Gateway to Infinity!" kicks off with our intrepid hero airborn and on his way to London. His purpose there is to assist with a very important translation job relating to an artifact found in one of the Stonehenge blocks. In a scene reminiscent of the Lao Che Air Freight incident from Temple of Doom, Indy runs afoul of the Germans whose interest in the artifact leaves Dr. Jones, once again, a Nazi target. After taking a dip into the English Channel, Indy gets picked up by a Navy patrol boat and manages to keep his date with British intelligence.

Once there, he is introduced to Professor Karen Mays, the woman who he will be working with on the project. Mays is, like so many women in Indy's romantic life (at least in the expanded universe), a redhead and is also their top expert on ancient languages. Indy takes a shine to Mays and turns on the charm, convincing her to go out for dinner with him where the Nazis take another crack at eliminating the good doctor. Failing to poison him through his soup as Indy sees through the ruse, Jones and Mays leave the restaurant and spend the next few days translating the artifact.

Turns out the crystal's markings were carved by a civilization that pre-dated man on this Earth and claims that 'they' will return when needed. 'Their' return just happens to coincide, astrologically, with "midnight tonight", according to Mays and the two set off to meet the would be visitors, but not before being attacked, yet again, by the Nazis who are desperate to be the first to meet these creatures. A chase ensues throughout London and the cliffhanger ending leaves Indy and Mays trapped in a Rolls sedan and going off one of London's many bridges. The next issue blurb reads, "What Lurks at Stonehenge? (And Will Indy Live Long Enough To Find Out?)"

I know the recap sounds a little dull, but "Gateway" is a surprisingly entertaining issue. The characterization of Indiana Jones by David Michelinie is, in hindsight, not perfect, but when you consider he was basing everything on Raiders and what he knew of the pulp/serials heroes of the period that influenced Indy's creators, he does a commendable job. Indy has a bit of that Raiders smarminess when dealing with people he doesn't like very much and shows tremendous ingenuity in getting out of a scrape. I like how things move along quickly in the story which keeps the energy up and doesn't let it get too bogged down in the otherworldly creature storyline that drives the A plot. I think, even at this stage of the game, if they tried to intellectualize an alien story, the whole thing would have just fallen apart.

I should also give kudos to Ron Frenz, new artist in residence, who shows that he can take Michelinie's story and turn it into a fun, well-paced read. I've always kind of liked Frenz' earlier work (which can also be seen in some great Amazing Spider-Man issues not long after this) and he is a welcome addition to this series. He also does a good job of capturing the period and injecting some stylistic flourishes that give the whole thing an old adventure strip sort of feel.

I should note for fans of the expanded universe (meaning Young Indy, the novels and comics) it's kind of neat that Indy was sent on a translation job since that was his specialty when he was younger and it's not something that gets mentioned much in the films (he does a lot of reading and translating, but his aptitude for it is rarely brought to anyone's attention). While Dr. Jones is, indeed, an archaeologist, he is first and foremost an expert at languages, modern and ancient. That he was brought in for expressly that purpose (something Michelinie couldn't have possibly foreseen at this stage of the game) is a nice little added plus to the proceedings.

A good effort overall, although I'll admit that I'm dreading the extra-dimensional beings that are going to materialize through Stonehenge in the next issue. I can't see anything good coming of that. Still, it was better than the last issue but not quite as good as Byrne's so I'm going to go with a three fedora salute this time around. Until next time...

Lucas Centric Post

This post is going to cover a few George Lucas related topics from Indy to Red Tails, so if you're just not in the mood, skim this one or pass it over.

Everyone else, read on...

I went out and saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on its last night at the second run theatre in town and it got me in a bit of an Indy mood (surprise, surprise). I enjoyed the film immensely on opening night but found that I liked it even better the second time around. Little details I didn't absorb on my initial viewing popped up, enriching the experience somewhat, and things I may not have liked before were greeted with a little less irritation this time around. It's amazing how knowing what will happen will take the edge off of what may have previously been perceived as "bad scenes".

Still on my Indy buzz after leaving the theatre, I got home and hit the web looking for more info, interviews, and behind the scenes stuff on the film and the expanded universe but found myself running into the same brick wall I've been hitting for years; a lame, uninformative official website. Yeah, I know there are a few decent Indy fan sites out there that pull their respective weight (TheRaider.net, IndianaJones.de and IndyFan.com being a few of the best) but there is so much information and cool stuff that the official site could have, it's really, really disappointing to see the few videos and factoids that reside there.

When the Star Wars prequels started production, the Star Wars site ran web diaries, weekly teaser/set images, and other cool behind-the-scenes stuff. By the prequel trilogy's end, the site launched the Hyperspace fan club, exclusive material like deleted scenes and animatics, the ability to watch the original Clone Wars cartoon before they aired on Cartoon Network, newsletters, DVD ROM features, fiction, videos, web strips...I could go on. It was a website that I enjoyed visiting regularly until they changed it a few months ago, but that's another story.

The Indiana Jones site briefly tried to be as informative a resource as the Star Wars site back when they released the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and the Indy trilogy on VHS. There were many similar features started but not very much of the extras ever materialized. Then, with the anticipated release of the new film, they shut the old site down and we had to wait until they relaunched it as the Crystal Skull site. I always thought that was a bad idea since, as a series, they should have one big umbrella site with mini sites for each film, but what do I know, right? It's not like it didn't service the Galaxy Far, Far Away's site for a decade.

I mean, where are the interviews with cast and crew? Where are the web diaries (one Frank Marshall clip does not count, guys), the development extras, the exclusive web features, the continuing news updates, the archival material, the depth text commentaries, the production blog?

In my desperation I turned to the Indy-Cast, a fan produced podcast on all things Indy. Some of the news bits are interesting (although I can't say as I heard anything on the Indy-Cast that I hadn't already gleaned from other sources), but most of the show is an hour-long marathon of the host reading peoples press releases and e-mails talking about what they think the fifth movie should be about, what the best Indy fist-fight was, random ramblings and what Indy related foodstuffs they had for breakfast. All to a looping backdrop of the John Williams score.

Ugh.

What I wouldn't give to be a content developer (or one of the schmoes producing it) for an Indy site, particularly the official one, which should be the ultimate resource, in my opinion. Lucas Online, you listenin'? One dedicated content droid sitting idle and looking for work. Call me.

Anyway, the DVD will be coming out on October 13th, so maybe I'll get my Kumba-ya-yas out in a few weeks (although, I'm cheesed off that the Blu-Ray has exclusive content not available on the standard definition disc...grrrr).

Update: I picked up an issue of the official Indiana Jones magazine this evening and one of the features inside was a storyboarded, but unused, sequence from Temple of Doom. I seem to recall seeing this stuff up on the old website before it went the way of the dodo and I can't help but theorize that all the really fun content was pulled in favour of showcasing it in something like the magazine for $7 rather than on the web for free. It's a cynical viewpoint, especially when you consider there's a Star Wars magazine that's been running forever and it never impacted the website, but I can't think of anything that makes more sense.

In other Indy related news, I just found out that they will be producing a new set of expanded universe books, which has me all aflutter. I really enjoyed the original series (not quite done all twelve but almost there) and anxiously await the first of the new batch, Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead written by Steve Perry. More good news on the novel front is that Rob McGregor, writer of the Last Crusade novelisation and the first six books of the first set, will return to the character. His book should be the next up after Perry's so we'll see how that works out. The first one should hit bookstores in May of 2009, so there's still a few months to wait. Still, good news for an Indy fan, overall.

By the way, does anybody know if there is going to be a volume two to the Indiana Jones Adventures series? This digest sized gem was one of the best Indy stories I have read in some time. I thought I posted about it a while back but it doesn't appear that I have, so I'll have to post a review of it sometime soon. I'm working on my next Indy Comic Revue so I might slip it in at the same time. Back to the point, though, I haven't seen any news regarding a #2 on the DHC site or in the press, so I'm throwing it out there in case one of y'all happen to know anything. I want to see more of this stuff.

I was going to talk a bit about Clone Wars, but I'm going to pass on it for now and just finish off with the good news I've just heard regarding Lucas' pet project on the Tuskeegee Airmen, Red Tails. It has a writer, John Ridley, and a director, Anthony Hemingway, so we just might be seeing a non-sequel Lucas project in cinemas sometime in the next few years. To be honest, I've been waiting for a non-Star Wars or Indy project from George for almost as long as everyone else wanted the prequel trilogy. I still love Tucker and Radioland Murders remains a guilty pleasure of mine, so I'm really looking forward to RT. You could do a lot worse than John Ridley on script-chores, too.

I gotta run, so I'm going to end the post there. I'll be back to add some images if you happen to be reading this sucker bare and if you are, I commend you.

Later!

mike

The Indiana Jones Comic Book Revue #2

All books are rated on a 0 to 5 Fedoras system.

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #3
(Marvel Comics Group)

Written by: Denny O'Neil
Pencilled by: Gene Day & Richard Howell
Inked by: Mel Candido & Danny Bulandi
Cover by: Richard Howell & Armando Gil

"Here I am again, doing what I seem to do best; making it up as I go along!"

Dateline 1936

"The Devil's Cradle" picks up immediately after the events in the second issue with Indy jumping out of Edith Dunne's ill-fated aircraft. He lands in an undetermined location, described in the story only as 'a mountain'. After landing, he stumbles upon a small mob who are trying to hang an unarmed man. Naturally, Indy intervenes and escapes with the man only to find themselves running afoul of the American military led by Colonel Bulldog Hannigan. They give both groups the slip and then the man leads Indy to a cave where he and his grandfather, Prospero, have been living.

The cave sits below a rock formation known as The Devil's Cradle, and in the cave is a pool of water that is integral to the work being done by Prospero and his grandson. They are working on an elixir that grants long life but the military, believing the rock formation will eventually destabilize and roll down the mountain to the camp below, wish to destroy the Devil's Cradle. This appears to be no skin off Prospero's back, because he intends to blow the thing himself using dynamite. When Indy protests, there's a scuffle and Prospero's enhanced strength helps him physically beat Indy into submission.

Indy wakes up tied to the rock with the explosives ready to go off and escapes only to be captured by the military who think he is a traitor and a saboteur. Another escape leads Indy back up to the Devil's Cradle where he prevents the army from discovering the well, stops Prospero from destroying the army camp, and once again saves Prospero and his grandson from armed thugs. Following this, having no further quarrel with Indy, Prospero and his grandson lead Indy off the mountain helping him get back to civilisation and ending his adventure.

This is not one of the best comics I've ever read, but it wasn't one of those books where you read a few pages and you know that, despite your love for the character, you'll never manage to continue reading, either. It's a little stiff, sometimes pointless, and often downright silly. Still, I can't completely condemn this one. Had it come first in the series, expectations may have been a bit lower and it would have had an easier time passing muster for me.

I think O'Neill never truly found his footing in the Indiana Jones universe. Granted, he wasn't given a whole heck of a lot of time to do so, but in interviews with the man he admits to not having a good time writing the stories and welcomed the opportunity to leave the series. The artwork by Day and Howell is decent but never really grabs me by the collar and gives me a shake, if you know what I mean. There are some nice moments, like the double page spread in the cave, but overall an uninspired offering from a great artist like Gene Day. And in case you were worried I would leave the other artist, Richard Howell, free of criticism, fear not! Howell's contributions were more than a little stale and unsatisfying on several levels.

To be honest, I think this issue suffers mostly from following immediately after the very entertaining two issue debut by Byrne and O'Neill (who clearly was scripting over Byrne's existing outline on issue two). It was a tough act to follow, in my opinion and, had I been buying the series at the time, I don't know if I would have continued beyond this issue. The Coming Next Issue blurb of "Next: Stonehenge" might have drawn me back for number four, but there's no guarantees.

The Indiana Jones Comic Book Revue

I mentioned a little while ago that I had wanted to do this, and I figured now was as good a time as any to get the ball rolling, so...

All books will be rated on a 0 to 5 Fedoras system.

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #1 & 2
(Marvel Comics Group)

Written by: John Byrne & Denny O'Neil
Pencilled by: John Byrne
Inked by: Terry Austin
Covers by: John Byrne & Terry Austin

"...Risky. Risky is the word, Marcus."

Following the success of the first Indy film, Marvel Comics went into the archaeology business with their newest licensed title, The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones. To launch the title, Marvel recruited fan-favourite artist John Byrne to bring Dr. Jones' continuing adventures to life, and brought in writer Denny O'Neil to finish the tale when Byrne and Lucasfilm began having problems.

Dateline 1936

The story, titled "The Ikons of Ikammanen", begins when an old student of Indy's, Charlie Dunne, arrives at Barnett College to inform him of a great discovery he made with his sister, Edith. They believed that they had located the temple of the mythical Ikons of Ikammanen, gold statues that were capable of becoming living avengers. In the process of relating his tale to Indy, he is killed by an unknown assassin sending our hero to Liberia in order to assist Edith in uncovering the Ikons location in her brother's absence.

In true Indiana Jones fashion, our hero gets in a few scrapes with the locals (vaguely remiscient of Raiders) and then comes face to face with the local gangster, Solomon Black. Black, who has captured Edith and is enthralled by the idea of finding a number of solid gold statues, tells Indy that if he doesn't find the Ikons for him, he will kill her. Indy, of course, obliges, and bides his time, waiting for his chance to work his way out of yet another complicated situation.

They travel to a mysterious fog-encrusted island (think Skull Island) where they are knocked unconscious by the locals while examinging their discovery, the Ikon's temple itself. The issue ends with Indy and Edith, tied to a large winch and chain and being lowered into a vat of boiling gold. Will our hero finally meet his end?

The second issue, called "22-Karat Doom!", picks up where the last one left off, with Indy and Edith in peril trying to find a way out of their predicament. A combination of Indy's wits, and the convenient intervention of Solomon Black's men, saves the pair from becoming golden statues themselves but they immediately find themselves having to fight with Black's men against the natives in order to make their way back to the beach and the ship they arrived on.

After getting on Black's last nerve, Indy and Edith are unexpectedly saved by a patrolling German U-Boat that launches a torpedo and ends the threat posed by Solomon Black and his gang. Our heroes, who tossed themselves over the side before the ship exploded (along with one Ikon which survived the blast), hitch a ride with the Germans and make their way back to the States. The only catch is that Edith had been planning a double-cross the whole time and was, in actual fact, the assassin responsible for her brother Charlie's death. She wanted some of the fame and fortune and didn't want to play second fiddle to her brother just because she was a woman. Indy gets the last laugh, though, when he uses an inscription he found in the Ikon's temple to bring the one Ikon they saved from their adventure to life. The Ikon attacks Edith and her pilot boyfriend while Indy grabs a chute and leaps out of the plane, into the great unknown.

It sounds a little cheeseball when I break it down like that, but these are actually pretty entertaining Indy comics. When you consider the existing Indy lore (which was almost non-existent) I think Byrne and O'Neil did a bang up job of capturing the whole pulp '30s feel that George Lucas always said he was going for in the movies. Sure Indy was a bit out of character in a few scenes, but it fit the tone and style of the story so I can go out of my way to cut the guys some slack.

I really liked the way Byrne breaks the story into chapters, evoking that Republic serial feel, and the pacing was brisk and almost of another time. Back in the '80s, we didn't have the deconstructionists taking 12 issues to tell a story that Eisner or his peers would have told in 8 pages, but the speed with which Byrne moves through this story is still something else. It was probably a good thing, too, since he wasn't able to really do anything else with the character other than run him through his paces and showcase a few set-pieces.

It's a shame that Byrne didn't stay on beyond issue two since I don't believe that any artist that followed him had the same universal appeal and pulp approach, but the guy was unhappy and that was almost 30 years ago, so what can you do?

Both Byrne and O'Neil have said that they really didn't enjoy working on the book because of editorial interference from Lucasfilm but, despite their working experiences, they managed to produce two of the most entertaining and visually pleasing Indy books I've seen over the past 27 years. I still go back and reread these issues every now and then when I have a craving for some good Indy comics.

Indy High Then Burn

I have been a fan of the Indy novels since I first discovered them lo those many years ago. Part of what I enjoyed about them was the fact that they weren't like the Star Wars books. It wasn't this literary machine just churning out Indy books from all periods, it was the work of, primarily, one guy, Rob MacGregor. He was followed up by Martin Caidin (the guy who wrote Cyborg) and then the last writer to work on the book series, Max McCoy. Although I didn't totally agree with everything MacGergor did in his stories (Indy purists beware, there is a wedding and a tragic end, a la James Bond, which may, or may not, fit in with your vision of the man with the hat) I thoroughly enjoyed the 5 or 6 stories he wrote and always kept an eye out for the subsequent books in the series.

Now, with the new movie coming out, the books have been brought back into print and are available at one of my local booksellers. Armed with this information, I headed down to the McNally Robinson and grabbed myself a copy of Caidin's first offering, Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates. I've been enjoying reading it for the last couple of days and decided, tonight, that I would peel off the annoying little price label that they stick on every one of their books. I don't usually have problems with them but this time it peeled the finish right off the back cover.

Now, for anyone who knows me, I'm pretty picky with my stuff. And even though I've had this problem before with books I've purchased there (I was pretty ruffled when my Abadazad peeled - grrrr) this one really irks me. Perhaps it's because of how long I've been trying to finish the series, maybe because it's Indy, and maybe because I just need one thing in my life right now that is the way it's supposed to be, I don't know. What I do know is that I'm pretty perturbed about it and I hate to be an idiot and spend another $9 on a book that I already own, but it also burns my butt everytime I see the damn thing now.

You can't see it in the picture. It's just over the explosion, though.

Of course, when I brought this up to Jen expecting a little sympathy, it degraded into a fight with her saying some pretty awful things (yeah, I know how ridiculous this problem is, but come on, give a frazzled mind the proverbial shoulder to lean on) and now I'm down here posting about it and checking out how much it would cost to order the last 5 books that I'm missing from Amazon (5 includes the Sky Pirates).

I need to go chill out.

Until next time...

mike