Category: Indiana Jones
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Going into this issue, I realized I not only did not care about the resolution, I didn’t even remember all the terms for the Atlantis artifacts. It has something to do with these little pearls of energy. They have a silly name. Barry takes over writing completely this issue and it feels a little smoother.…
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This third issue is the pits. Well, maybe not. Fate of Atlantis has been steadily sinking (sorry, had to do it) since the first page of the first issue. There’s no reason to think the last issue won’t be even worse than this one. The problem, besides Barry’s pencils and composition, is the script. The…
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It’s very hard not to think William Messner-Loebs is just cashing a paycheck with Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. There are some incredible logic holes. First and foremost, Messner-Loebs can’t write Indy’s interaction with the female sidekick. Or, more accurately, her interaction with him. He severely damages her business and reputation and she…
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As far as a last issue goes, this one flops on all accounts. Except one. There are a lot of meta references to the series ending. Or maybe not. If so, kudos to Grant for the winks. If not, well, maybe it was subconscious. The issue wraps up the latest story arc. Indy, the beautiful…
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This comic book is not a good one. I do not recommend it to Indiana Jones fans or even thirties adventure comic fans and certainly not to comic collectors. However, I do recommend it to anyone who ever liked a Steve Ditko comic. I realize that category probably overlaps with the ones previously mentioned but,…
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I hate to admit it, but I like this latter day Steve Ditko pencilling. It’s not good, but it’s still got enough Ditko to make the composition interesting. Shame Grant’s story isn’t up to the same level. She has her supporting cast, but they’re all boring. There’s the annoying kid from Scotland, the jackass trustee…
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For a few pages, I thought maybe Villamonte had improved. Not really. Especially not at the end when a character is supposed to fall off a cliff and instead just isn’t around anymore. Villamonte’s terrible at establishing shots. The story’s a doozy and not particularly digestible. Grant tries real hard though; she doesn’t seem to…
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Villamonte’s apparently sticking around with his terrible pencils. The writing’s decent, but it’s hard to say how the issue should read with so much terrible composition. There’s a lot of talking about Villamonte can’t break out the conversations well. He does small panels–sometimes stylized, which is worse–and can’t fit all the dialogue. Letterer Diana Albers…
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Whew, I thought something happened to Dikto and since the previous issue he forgot everything he knew about composition completely and replaced it with the inept angles of someone without dimension vision. But it’s a new penciller–Ricardo Villamonte–and he’s awful. He ruins a bunch of good action set pieces in Grant’s script. She’s got a…
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For her first issue as regular writer, Linda Grant turns in a rather tepid issue. Even though Indiana Jones has endless sidekicks from the movies, Grant introduces a new one for him here. Alec Sutherland, white guy. Sutherland’s maybe a Brit… or maybe he’s secretly the Sutherland who’ll someday show up in Swamp Thing, but…
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While the Ditko art does leave a lot to be desired–the huge action finale, which takes up about half the issue, is a mess–it’s not a bad comic at all. You just have to get used to people not being in the right place in panels and some terrible action choreography. Oh, and the female…
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David Michelinie is back. Maybe Marvel figured since they just had to adjust for Temple of Doom they would want someone competent on the book. It’s still Ditko and Bulandi on the art and they’re fine. I’m bummed out they waited so long to bring him back. Marion went stale as a character after Michelinie…
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I like this issue and it’s not for particularly good reasons. Linda Grant rips off a bit of Raiders and sends Indy to help some woman with a translation. They bicker, there are bad guys–in a lot of ways, Grant has tapped into what became the Indiana Jones standard. But there is one sincere moment…
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Well, having Danny Bulandi on the finishes certainly helps the Trimpe art. It’s not good and the panels are still boring, but the level of detail is at least adequate. The opening page of Indiana Jones walking through a rainswept street might even be nice. But then there’s Trimpe’s script. Trimpe manages a done-in-one, but…
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Herb Trimpe’s writing is far better than his first art issue and his writing isn’t good at all. It’s just not downright bad. The art is bad and incompetent–though I guess Trimpe does try a couple things as far as panel composition. They’re simplistic and unoriginal, but they do show off the only times Trimpe…
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The art, from Joe Brozowski and Mel Candido, isn’t great or even good (occasional weird background details break the perspective), but it’s generally competent. And generally competent for this issue isn’t bad. Priest continues to play fast and loose with the characters. Indy’s sentiments towards Marion are this odd annoyance thing. I think Priest is…
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There are a bunch of inkers on this issue. They stay consistent until the finish, when it’s very obvious the inker has changed. The final inker changes Steve Ditko’s pencils so much, it barely looks like the same comic. Ditko doesn’t do a great job on Jones, but it’s really cool to see his old…
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The issue opens with a full page spread–Indy looking at an artifact with a magnifying glass–but it’s the only uneconomical use of page space in the issue. Luke McDonnell has to pack panels on the page to get through all the action in Priest’s script. David Michelinie gets a story credit, but it feels like…
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Let me tell you a story about how this issue of Indiana Jones came to be. It’s not true, but it’s far more amusing than the comic book itself. So, once upon a time, the LucasFilm licensing person–who probably had other duties in addition to overseeing Marvel Comics adaptations–quit… or went on leave… or vacation.…
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It’s an interesting issue for a number of reasons. It’s a mix of Lost Horizon and Edgar Rice Burroughs with Indy and Marion finding their way to a lost city in the Himalayas. Yeti-like creatures protect the city, which has many secrets. One of those secrets is the presence of Abner Ravenwood; Michelinie doesn’t resolve…
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One could just sit and admire Michelinie’s storytelling economy. Not even the great character work he does on Indy, but just the economy of how he structures the catch-up. He opens in a dangerous present, resolving a cliffhanger he never did, then (somewhat obviously but still competently) goes back to fill in the blanks. The…
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It’s a very fast paced issue from Michelinie. Maybe he knew he had Trimpe and Colleta back on art and didn’t want to make the reader suffer. That explanation is as good as any, especially when one considers the resolution to the previous issue’s cliffhanger–crabs attacking Indy–is the longest sequence in the comic. For example,…
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Herb Trimpe and Vince Colletta on art. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen more rectangular, two-dimensional headed people. They actually don’t too bad. They don’t do well, but not too bad. Michelinie over writes Indy’s thought balloons for the action scenes, trying to make everything seem logical, so at least one can read…
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David Mazzucchelli does the pencils this issue. Best looking Indiana Jones so far. It’s a strange issue, with Michelinie actually concentrating more on Indy and Marion’s romance than any archeological adventure. He even has a super villain type thing going on, with an irate handyman finding lost artifacts and going insane. In an abandoned old…
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What a difference a penciller makes… Ricardo Villamonte really doesn’t cut it. Indy’s always got a befuddled look. Still, Villamonte isn’t responsible for the lame story. Michelinie send Indy out west on a field trip from the university. He and his students are on a dig, he runs awful bad guys. The plot contrivances are…
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I can’t believe I forgot to mention Indy’s Spanish gypsy sidekick from last issue–he returns here–I think he’s based on Speedy Gonzales. There’s the yellow sombrero and the annoying dialect. That lame character aside (made worse this issue with Marion falling for his “charm”), Michelinie continues to do pretty good work on Further Adventures. There’s…
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It’s another great plot from Michelinie. He writes some decent exposition too. His dialogue is inconsistent though. For whatever reason he can’t write Indy’s dialogue. Everyone else’s is fine though. Very strange. I think it has to do with him writing Indy as a tough guy first, smart guy second. The issue has Indy sort…
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It’s an adequate, underwhelming resolution. Michelinie handles the cliffhanger from last issue well then sends Indy off into the jungle. It’s the jungle from the beginning of Raiders, but there’s no fanfare to its return. There is another Raiders connection–the villain has a secret–but it’s lame. Michelinie also gets history very wrong concerning when the…
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Michelinie–writing off a plot from Archie Goodwin–does a direct sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s practically a reunion issue too. While Marion and Marcus show up all the time, a slimmed down Sallah is in the first half of the issue (Michelinie sticks to the established Further plot structure). Sallah and Indy are…
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