For the Adherent of Pop Culture
Adventures of Jack Burton ] Back to the Future ] Battlestar Galactica ] Buckaroo Banzai ] Cliffhangers! ] Earth 2 ] The Expendables ] Firefly/Serenity ] The Fly ] Galaxy Quest ] Indiana Jones ] Jurassic Park ] Land of the Lost ] Lost in Space ] The Matrix ] The Mummy/The Scorpion King ] The Prisoner ] Sapphire & Steel ] Snake Plissken Chronicles ] Star Trek ] Terminator ] The Thing ] Total Recall ] Tron ] Twin Peaks ] UFO ] V the series ] Valley of the Dinosaurs ] Waterworld ] PopApostle Home ] Links ] Privacy ]


Episode Studies by Clayton Barr

enik1138
-at-popapostle-dot-com

Indiana Jones: The Devil's Cradle Indiana Jones
"The Devil's Cradle"
The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones
#3
Marvel Comics
Writer: Denny O'Neil
Pencilers: Gene Day & Richard Howell
Inkers: Mel Candido & Danny Bulanadi
Colorist: Bob Sharen
Letterer: Janice Chiang
Cover: Richard Howell and Danny Bulanadi
March 1983


Indy parachutes out of Edith Dunne's doomed airplane and into a lynch mob.

 

Notes from the Indiana Jones chronology

 

This issue takes place immediately after the events of "22-Karat Doom". A remark by Indy in this issue seems to place the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark a few months before this, which would seem to place this story roughly around the end of October or beginning of November. But the following issue ("Gateway to Infinity") has a remark about trying out for the upcoming Olympics, which took place August 1-16 of 1936. It might be considered a slip of the tongue by Indy when he said "months", when he really meant "weeks", placing this story at the end of July.

 

Notes from The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones

 

The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones is a 2008 publication that purports to be Indy's journal as seen throughout The Young Indiana Chronicles TV series and the big screen Indiana Jones movies. The publication is also annotated with notes from a functionary of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation, the successor agency of the Soviet Union's KGB security agency. The KGB relieved Indy of his journal in 1957 during the events of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The notations imply the journal was released to other governments by the FSB in the early 21st Century. However, some bookend segments of The Young Indiana Chronicles depict Old Indy still in possession of the journal in 1992. The discrepancy has never been resolved. 

 

The journal as published does not mention the events of this issue, going from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1936 to Indy's recovery of the Cross of Coronado in 1938 in The Last Crusade.

 

Characters appearing or mentioned in this issue

 

Indiana Jones

Edith Dunne (mentioned only)

lynch mob

Prospero's grandson

Colonel Bulldog Hannigan

U.S. Army soldiers

Prospero 

 

Didja Notice?

 

Seeing an old style lynch mob chase down and prepare to hang a victim, Indy muses he could maybe get a paper for the Folklore Society out of it rather than risk his own neck trying to stop it. He is presumably referring to the British organization called The Folklore Society, founded in 1878.

 

On page 5, Indy and his new charge begin to cross a rope or vine foot bridge over a creek, but the soldiers chasing them cut the bridge loose, leaving Indy and the other man clinging to the dangling bridge for life. Indy was in a similar situation in The Temple of Doom.

 

On page 7, Indy remarks that a few months ago, he didn't believe in the power of an ancient Jewish relic, but saw it destroy a Nazi regiment. He is referring to the Ark of the Covenant and the events at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. His comment implies that it occurred "a few months ago." However, see the NOTES FROM THE INDIANA JONES CHRONOLOGY above for a correction to this.

 

The special spring from which Prospero makes his immortality elixir is in a cave under a rock formation called the Devil's Cradle. As far as I can tell, this is a fictitious formation. The name of the U.S. state this story takes place in is never said (Indy doesn't even know what state he bailed out of Edith Dunne's plane over). It would seem to be a state on the east coast because Indy had set the doomed plane's autopilot in "22-Karat Doom" to take it over the Atlantic Ocean. There is a creek called Devils Cradle Creek in North Carolina, which would fit the scenario, but I've been unable to find any evidence a rock formation called the Devil's Cradle as the namesake of the creek.

 

The old man's name of Prospero is likely borrowed from that of the sorcerer in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

 

It's never explained why, but the cave has a number of stone statues that appear to be of ancient South American origin, along the lines of Olmec, Maya, or Aztec cultures.

 

Indy gets a swallow of the immortality elixir when he is thrown into the mixing tub. On page 13, his thoughts indicate it tasted like a combination of grape Nehi and soap. Nehi was a U.S. soft drink company known for its fruit-flavored sodas from 1924-1955. In 1955, the company changed its name to Royal Crown Company. Nehi is now a brand of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.

 

On page 18, Indy steals what appears to be a common military Jeep from the army camp. But the first Willys Jeep was not produced until 1941.

 

On page 18, Indy once again thinks about "making it up as I go along", as he so often does.

 

On page 20, Indy fires the field gun artillery piece towed by the Jeep at the Devil's Cradle rock to knock the formation down the far side of the mountain, away from the army camp. As he preps it, he thinks, I saw one of these things demonstrated once...wish I'd paid more attention. I think the shell goes in here..." Of course, Indy was a soldier in WWI, so he should probably already know a fair amount about how artillery works, more than seeing it "demonstrated" once!

 

At the end of the story, Prospero claims to be over four centuries old, and his grandson two centuries old.

 

Back to Indiana Jones Episode Studies