Good afternoon all,
Hope everyone's been having a great weekend. The topic of this article is the fourth issue of Marvel's ongoing Indiana Jones comic book. The cover showed Indy and a female companion running from a train behind them, right into a trio of gun barrels pointed at them in the foreground. The tale was titled "Gateway to Infinity!" The issue had a publication date of April 1983.
The story started somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, as Indy was informed by the pilot of the plane that they were both riding in was having a technical malfunction with its landing gear. Jones went to the rear of the vessel per Smitty's suggestion, not knowing that the door would lock shut behind him or that his pilot's last name was really Schmidt. Jones felt the plane going into a nosedive and looked out the nearest window to see that Smitty had abandoned the craft.
Thinking quickly, Indiana rummaged through the luggage and grabbed a large blanket before using his pistol to open the side door. He jumped out of the opening and thought that he would float down gently until he looked up and saw a large hole sliced in the middle of the blanket. He tossed it aside and went into a headfirst dive toward the icy waters below.
Indy resurfaced a few moments later and donned his fedora just before he saw a British naval ship and swung his arms wildly to draw its attention. Some time later, Jones was conferring with local officials in a government building. The men who'd rescued him were telling Indy about a crystal cylinder that had recently been discovered inside one of the blocks at Stonehenge that had been knocked over in a storm.
The cylinder had a series of symbols carved into it in a language that none of their experts had ever seen before. They figured that it was important, and that the Nazis would also be interested in if they weren't already. Jones agreed to help them after meeting their expert on foreign languages, Professor Karen Mays.
None of them knew that their conversations were being listened to by German spies from afar. The Nazi soldiers were about to move in, right after admonishing their colleague Schmidt for his recent failure. Karen and Indy went to dinner at a local restaurant, but Indy suspected foul play as soon as he spied a fly in his soup that had been fried to a crisp.
The Nazis' plans to poison the American archaeologist were spoiled thanks to "verdamnt British sanitation standards." The duo left the restaurant soon after and settled for dining on fish and chips procured from a street vendor. They walked back to the government building and spent several long hours dedicated to deciphering the strange symbols.
After several long days and nights, Jones and Mays were finally able to make some sense of the markings. What they'd learned was that the writings were made by beings who fled to another realm many centuries ago and were planning on returning when things were safe or when needed. The stars had to be in precise alignment at that time, and the cylinder had to be placed exactly in the middle of the Stonehenge monument then. Such a discovery was important from a historical standpoint, but it could also be quite dangerous.
Indiana preferred sharing what they learned in person, knowing now that the Nazis were very likely interested. Neither of them was aware just yet that their conversations were still being monitored by the proponents of the Third Reich. At a hotel forty-five minutes later, Indy and Karen prepared to depart for Stonehenge, since the stars were supposed to be in the required alignment at midnight. A sneeze from behind them alerted the heroes to the presence of a trio of armed men who emerged from the fireplace screen behind them.
Jones fired his pistol at one of the gunmen before knocking the table at them. They then jumped out of the window and landed on the awning below. The professors hailed a taxi and fled briefly until being caught in a traffic jam. They opted to leave on foot and were assisted by the taxi driver, who slammed his front passenger side door at the lead Nazi.
This gave Jones and Mays enough time to escape into the subway station. However, the Nazis were soon hot on their trail. They evaded an oncoming train and slipped past their foes for several minutes before their leader, Hauptman, was alerted to an open ventilation grid in the ceiling that led to the sidewalk above.
Indy spotted a hotel valet and took the opportunity to "borrow" a customer's car. He forgot that drivers use the left side of the road in England, and that mistake proved to be costly. While trying to dodge cars coming at him from the opposite direction, Indy crashed the stolen vehicle into a wall. They were hanging on by the rear bumper until it started to slowly give way.
This was another one of those issues that Indy fans just had to read and wait patiently until the next issue arrived to find out what happened next. I was familiar with writer David Michelinie from his run on the Star Wars title, and I liked his injections of humor in this fast-paced yarn. I also enjoyed Ron Frenz and Danny Bulanadi's artwork. One of the reasons why this title had a premature end was its frequent changes of creative teams, but the late Bulanadi was a rare constant who would go on to ink several issues during its run. It was printed a couple of years after Raiders of the Lost Ark was in theaters, so I wasn't surprised to learn that the primary foes were Nazis. They would feature prominently in many of Indiana's comic book exploits. I was also interested in the mythology that surrounds Stonehenge, and would still like to visit that site someday.
I'll kick off tomorrow with a discussion of the fifth issue of The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones. That issue wraps up this storyline. We'll find out if Indy and Karen were able to avoid a fall into the cold waters, and just what secrets the unearthly crystal cylinder had in store. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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