Product Description

For Old and New Indy Fans Alike, Friday, June 19, 2009

If you were a kid during the 1980s, chances are you were obsessed with "Raiders of the Lost Ark." When Marvel Comics began publishing new stories featuring the archeological exploits of Indiana Jones with "The Further Adentures of Indiana Jones" (TFAOIJ), it really hit the spot. With this "Further Adventures" Omnibus, Dark Horse Comics has reprinted the first 12 issues of TFAOIJ as well as the three-issue Marvel Comics "Raiders of the Lost Ark" film adaptation. The Omnibus format is somehwat smaller in size than the original comics they're taken from, but now the artwork is in rich, vivid color and they are a revelation! I don't think I can go back to looking at my original Indy comics, because seeing the old newsprint-style print and poor-quality paper is like looking through a dirty window with a cataract. The "Further Adventures" Omnibus is the best treatment these comics are ever going to get, so if you're an original Indiana Jones fan like me, get the Omnibus to bring back some cherished memories. If you're a more recent Indy fan, you're in for an interesting, somewhat different take on the legend that is Indiana Jones.

Rating: 5 out of 5

"Indiana Jones and the Lost Comics of the 1980's", Saturday, March 21, 2009

The man in the hat is back!

I picked up a few of Marvel's "Further Adventures of Indiana Jones" comics when they first came out in the early 1980's, and years later I wished that I had gotten them all (though back then, as a kid, I had transportation and money issues... yes, even at just 60 cents each, I couldn't buy EVERY comic I liked, particularly when such goodies as Topps' baseball cards and Snow Cones from the beloved Ice-Cream Man were competing for my limited funds!). So it's great to finally have the opportunity to snap up a nicely done, full-color collection of many of these old issues. The "Raiders" movie adaptation is a nice bonus, too, providing an appropriate opening to the book.

I share the hope of the other reviewers that further volumes of "The Further Adventures" will soon be released. Indiana Jones himself would surely agree: nothing beats unearthing lost treasures from the past!

Rating: 4 out of 5

Indy from the Marvel "House of Ideas" - a match made in Heaven!, Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Many of the younger Indiana Jones fans might just think of Dark Horse when it comes to Indy in comic books, but they are missing a huge chapter if Marvel didn't come to mind. Now Dark Horse Comics has begun collecting the first four color Indiana Jones adventures that came from the legendary Marvel Bullpen, home of Spider-Man, The Hulk and Captain America. In the just released first volume, Indyfans can read not only the first twelve issues of The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones, but also the one that started it all, Marvel's adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Now, you have to put yourself back into the world of early 1981, and I say early because the magazine-sized edition of Raiders which sported a great painted cover by legendary artist Howard Chaykin (the artist behind the very first Star Wars poster that sold for $1.00, Marvel comic adaptation and the man who also drew the 7 foot tall, green alien rabbit Jaxxon in the first post Star Wars comics) came out a few months before the movie. Fans can see that the story is a bit minimalistic with the art done by Marvel great John Buscema and with inks by Klaus Janson (who had just worked on Frank Miller's breakthrough Daredevil at Marvel a few years before Miller's epic The Dark Knight Returns). You will also read much more dialogue and background information on Indy's quest for the Ark than made it onto the screen, like Indy and Marion's bar kiss and exactly how Indy stayed on the U-Boat. If you have never had the chance to get these issues, it is fun way to look back at this version of Raiders' and see how it looked from a different point of view.

But onto the rest of this collection, with the first ever post-Raiders adventure of Indiana Jones written and drawn by John Byrne and inked by his X-Men partner Terry Austin. Back in the late 70s and early 80s these two were the top artist team in the industry and revitalized the Uncanny X-Men, so when it was announced they would be helming Indy it was a dream come true. Unfortunately, not a very long dream, as changes in the editorial plan, lead by the Marvel Editor in Chief, Jim Shooter, called for all of the storylines to be no longer than two issues, in an attempt making the storylines easily accessible by any new reader. This change, along with the folks at Lucasfilm being pretty protective on the storylines of Indy's further adventures made Byrne leave after the first two issues. It is a shame, as he had planned on longer plot lines stretching over multiple issues and recurring villains. The story starts off in Marshall College and has Indy whipping his students into shape - literally. Along the way there was Marcus, a baddie named Solomon Black, gold-plated bodies, zombies and Indy being rescued by Nazis (I kid you not). The story is great and is written in two to three page chapters with cliffhanger-style action that followed the serials that inspired Indy to begin with. It is a shame that Byrne never continued work on Indy, as his pin-up art for a story called The Sentinel with Indy about to get his head chopped off by a walking skeleton was amazing.

This volume also has Indy meeting up with Marion Ravenwood in a story that takes place in Marion's stateside bar, the Raven, done by Howard Chaykin. Chaykin kept on doing covers for Indy's Marvel series for a few issues, and the art duties were handled by the capable hands of Kerry Gammill and later on by famed Spider-Man co-Creator Steve Ditko. The writing duties equally were passed around between Archie Goodwin and David Micheline. In the Marvel universe, Indiana Jones would go onto a variety of two issue quests, looking for the the Fertility Idol, Fourth Nail of the Crucifixion, the Crystal Cylinder that opens a pathway to another dimension (sound familiar), and a ton of death-defying escapades. The Marvel run would also have Indy meeting up with Captain Katanga, Marcus and even some other surprises, I even remember a crossbow-totting, sister of Toht and they were great way to pass the time until Temple of Doom came along in 1984.

Marvel often gets a bad rap from Indyfans who look back at the Marvel version of the Indy (and Star Wars) series as inferior when compared to the Dark Horse adventures. As one who was reading them month after month back in the 80s, these were cutting-edge Indiana Jones tales, and did not have the benefit of a completed trilogy of films to look back on and use for characters like Dark Horse did. The various teams of writers and artists, kept Indy's whip-cracking and had him scouring the four corners of the Earth looking for mysterious artifacts, and most of all captured the imaginations of early Indyfans.

So do yourself a favor and pick up this volume, and have a nostalgic look back at what the world of Indiana Jones was like when the only web came from Spidey's web-shooters and not a computer, the Commies of Crystal Skull were real and very scary threat, and we still didn't know what an Ewok or Shankara stone was!

Here's hoping Dark Horse packages volume two of the Marvel Indy adventures with adaptations of Temple of Doom and rounds it out with a third one with the Last Crusade before year's end.

Rating: 5 out of 5