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Indiana Jones
"Tomb of
the Gods" Part 1
Indiana Jones and the Tomb of
the Gods #1
Dark Horse Comics
Story: Rob Williams
Pencils: Steve Scott
Inks: Nathan Massengill
Colors: Michael Atiyeh
Letters: Michael Heisler
Cover: Tony Harris
June 2008
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Indy is ambushed by an ancestral
heritage branch of the Nazi SS while answering a summons from
Dr. Henrik Mellberg.
Read the
story summary at the Indiana Jones Wiki
Notes from the Indiana Jones chronology
This issue has a one-page prologue sequence taking place in
Siberia, 1931, but then moves ahead to 1936. A mock-up of Indy's
passport on the inside front cover of all four issues of this
mini-series suggests it takes place in late May and early June
of 1936.
Didja Know?
Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Gods is a
four-issue comic book mini-series that was published by Dark
Horse Comics in 2008.
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
mini-series, going from the end of
The Temple of Doom to
Indy trying to track the whereabouts of Dr. Abner Ravenwood and
segueing into the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this issue
Russian guide
Henrik Mellberg (dies in this issue)
Francis Beresford-Hope
Marwell O'Brien
Dr. Friedrich Von Hassell
Nazi Ahnenerbe
Indiana Jones
Janice Le Roi (housekeeper/treasure hunter)
construction workers
NYPD officers
Marcus Brody
Didja Notice?
The prologue of this issue opens in Siberia, 1931, north of
the city of
Norilsk.
Siberia is a large, often harsh, thinly-populated region of
Russia.
In the prologue, the Russian guide fears what will happen if
he and his charges are discovered in the mine as, he says,
"Stalin values his diamond mines."
Josef Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the
mid-1920s through 1952.
Von Hassell claims that
the snake kept in a terrarium in Mellberg's apartment is a
king cobra. But it appears to be an Indian cobra, based on
the spectacle pattern on the back of its hood. King cobras
do not have that pattern, they have chevron-shaped stripes
instead. The agent's claim that the king cobra mainly eats
other snakes is accurate.
When a housekeeper walks in on the Nazi agents threatening
Indy,
Von Hassell claims they are rehearsing a play by
Bertolt Brecht and tells her to go away. Bertolt Brecht
(1898-1956) was a German playwright and poet known for using
his plays as forums for his political ideas, which largely leant
towards communism.
Mellberg informs Indy that Von Hassell and his agents are
with the Ahnenerbe, the ancestral heritage branch of the SS,
dedicated to archaeology surrounding the superiority of the
Aryan race and the occult. This is an accurate description
of the Ahnenerbe branch of Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel), the
secret police of Nazi Germany from 1925-1945.
As Indy and Mellberg exit the secret passageway onto the
roof of Mellberg's apartment building on a double-page
spread of the New
York City skyline, the
Empire State
Building and the
Chrysler Building are seen prominently on the left and
right pages, respectively. A few biplanes are also seen
flying over the city, including the closest, yellow-colored
one with aircraft registration number C3PO, which happens to
be the name of the golden-hued protocol droid character in
the Star Wars films! However, this would not have
been a legitimate registration number for the time, as it should be
letters only and be in the format of A-BCDE.
On page 10, Manhattan is a borough of New York City.
| Page 18 correctly
depicts Indy as a professor at Marshall College. The image
of the college in panel 1 is essentially a "posterized"
version of a film shot from Raiders of the Lost Ark. |
 |
 |
| Marshall
College in this issue. |
Marshall College in
Raiders of the Lost Ark. |
Marcus says he knew Beresford-Hope back in
Oxford
University.
The airplane Indy and Marcus take to Tibet on page 19
appears to be a DC-3. The plane seen here as aircraft
registration number OB1, a completely unreal airplane
registration number, meant as another wink to the Star
Wars saga and its sage character of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Indy tells Marcus the cave they've finally reached is where
a guy he paid in Lhasa said a crazy Englishman lives, whom
they are hoping is the missing Beresford-Hope.
Lhasa
is the capital city of Tibet.
As Indy says on page 21, chang is a type of beer, brewed in
Nepal and Tibet.
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