Happy Thursday, all,
It's time for me to begin my series chronicling the first regular Indiana Jones comic book series. The cover of the first issue, illustrated by Terry Austin, showed Indy in the foreground, and four other characters in the background that would be revealed in the storyline. The issue had a cover date of January 1983.
It all began in Doctor Jones' classroom, as the professor was using his bullwhip to knock a cigarette from his young student's lips, much to the surprise of Marcus Brody. Indy completed the task successfully, which qualified as an extra credit assignment for Miss Greeley, moving her A to an A+. Jones admitted to Brody later that he'd needed a little practice and was willing to face the repercussions if he'd missed.
As the colleagues walked the halls, Brody was reminded that an old student of Indiana's had come to visit. They arrived at Indy's office to find Charlie Dunne waiting for them. The former student and pupil greeted each other warmly. Dunne explained that he wanted to share the news that he and his sister had discovered the location of the legendary Ikons of Ikammanen. He was about to share more details when Charlie suddenly fell forward to the desk in front of him, with a knife lodged firmly in his back.
Dunne had just been murdered, and his assailant, who'd tossed the weapon through the open window that Charlie had been standing in front of, had escaped. Jones opened Dunne's satchel and brought out a map of a portion of the African coast that had areas circled in red. There was also a photograph of a temple and an address for Charlie's sister Edith.
Indy asked Marcus to call the authorities and inform them about what had just happened. He took his fedora and whip and announced that he was on a leave of absence, effective immediately. Jones was about to send a wire to Edith and then go home to pack.
The second part of the tale, titled "Interested Parties," started more than a day later. It took Jones a couple of days to travel, but he finally reached his destination. Edith was waiting for him, wearing an outfit that definitely made her look out of place. She guided him to the hotel room that she'd reserved and talked about the idols, even though Indy was concerned about speaking of them in public, since they were rumored to be made of solid gold.
They entered Indy's room, only to find that it had already been ransacked. Seconds later, a pair of robed men wielding knives entered the doorway. During the scuffle, one of them threw Edith out the window. Indiana defeated his opponents in time to see one of their associates carrying her away, screaming in his arms. Indy used his bullwhip to launch himself down to the busy streets below.
Indy followed the stranger until he ducked inside an alley. When Indy turned the corner, no one else was there. A doorway shut behind him, and a trapdoor swung open beneath him. Jones fell a dozen feet onto a deserted mattress. He lit a match, finding only rats nearby. Jones soon came across a locked door and used his pistol to open it. On the other side sat a man who had been waiting for him.
That's where chapter 3, entitled 'Dealing in the Dark," began. Indiana was in an underground lair. A man named Solomon Black sat opposite him, with a pair of masked guards beside him, one of which was holding Edith. Black admitted that his men had been following Edith, which explained why she was able to survive. Indy assumed that Black was only after the icons because of the gold, a point that the villain stressed by ordering his soldier to put his knife to Edith's throat.
Realizing that he couldn't save her in time, Jones agreed to Black's conditions. The next morning, they set sail aboard a Czechoslovakian ship. The captain laid out a map before Indy, Edith, and Black and showed them their target, which was an unlisted island in the middle of the ocean. A few days later, they came across another similar vessel that had been beached.
Black instructed Indy to take two of his men on a dinghy toward the island. He and Dunne would remain where they were. However, Jones was able to persuade Black to let him bring Edith along.
The smaller boat took its time approaching the island. They were just about to bring it to shore when one of Black's men was assaulted by waves of deadly arrows. Indy had a theory, which he tested by tossing a bag onto the beach sand. Another barrage of arrows followed, indicating that the area had been booby-trapped.
The other guard insisted that Jones lead the way, which he did by crawling forward until they'd eluded the trap. Indy led them as they climbed higher and farther until they crested the summit a half hour later. What they saw before them was something that Indiana hoped would be remembered by history.
Chapter 4, called "The Ikons of Ikammanen," began with Jones and Dunne staring at the temple we saw in the photo from the first part of this story. It stood in the center of the buildings that surrounded it. Indy and Edith climbed down, not recognizing any of the architecture around them.
As the duo walked inside the temple, they learned that the icons were indeed real. Several of them were affixed to the walls opposite them. Edith mentioned that the inscriptions on the wall were supposed to say how to bring the icons to life. There was a chain of gold hanging from the ceiling that was several thousand years younger than the building itself.
Edith noticed that the altar stone was warm and examined the tortured faces of the icons. Indiana went to get a closer look at one of them. He tried to pull a statue loose and managed to do so, but when he pulled it up, he saw bones falling from the bottom. Indy knew then that they weren't looking at statues, and was about to warn Edith when he was struck from behind by a chain link attached to a rope that was tossed at the back of his head.
When he awoke, Jones found he and Edith tied together to the chain they'd seen. Several natives adorned in tribal garb were chanting. As the chain lowered, the pit opened, revealing a pool of molten gold. It appeared that the two adventurers were about to become the latest additions to the icons that stared at them painfully.
This storyline was written by Denny O'Neil and John Byrne and illustrated by the well-renowned team of Byrne and Austin. I still have the copy of this issue that I first bought when I was eleven years old, and it's one of my favorite comics of all time. It had a natural flow from the events that occurred in the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, and was an intriguing whodunit. I remember begging for my allowance when the next issue came out, so I could read what happened next.
The continuation of that epic will be the focus of my next blog article. In the second issue of The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones, we'll learn what happened to Indy and Edith. We'll also learn why there was such an interest in this particular site, and dig deeper into the role that Edith played in this expedition. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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