Didja Notice?

 

The character of Alec Sutherland here previously appeared in "Tower of Tears" and "Shot By Both Sides". The deceased professor Arthur Hecht mentioned here was also mentioned in those two earlier stories, which feature Indy and Alec's expedition to Iran mentioned by Indy on page 2.

 

Marcus and Tavistock assign Indy to escort a representative from the British Museum around the National Museum.

 

On the tour with Indy, Victoria remarks on a beautiful urn on display and he tells her he found it in the labyrinths of Crete and he nearly got lost in there. He seems to be referring to a mythological labyrinth beneath the city of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Knossos is a Bronze Age archeological site from the Minoan civilization, known in Greek mythology as the site of an underground labyrinth in which a person may easily become lost.

 

The Hotel Vance, where Victoria is staying, appears to be a fictitious one for Connecticut.

 

After Victoria kisses him and he's walking back home on page 6, he sings lyrics from "Night And Day", a 1932 Cole Porter song.

 

On page 9, Indy finds the museum guard, Otto, knocked cold (by Victoria), and thinks, Doesn't take an Einstein to figure out who gave him that! Einstein, of course, is a reference to Albert Einstein, the renowned German theoretical physicist who refused, during a visit to America in the 1930s, to return to Germany after Hitler came into power, and became an American citizen.

 

On page 11, Victoria threatens Indy with an arrow from the museum's Amazon Indian exhibit, pointing out that the Indians tip their arrow points with curare, a poison that will stop the heart. While curare is a poison (derived from plant sources) used on arrow tips by South American Indians, studies have shown it does not effect the heart; it causes weakness in muscles, resulting in paralysis and, eventually, asphyxiation from paralysis of the diaphragm.

 

Victoria uses a pair of wings designed by Leonardo da Vinci from the "man in flight" exhibit to escape the National Museum with the Cretan urn through an upper story window. Da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the most noted polymaths of the Renaissance period and he did design a pair of wings on paper that were never built in his time.

 

On page 14, the pilot Indy commandeers to chase after Victoria's plane says that the plane is a de Havilland Puss Moth. This was an actual aeroplane model manufactured from 1929-1933, but it looks nothing like the plane Victoria is seen flying here!

 

Indy's fedora appears to blow off his head in the bi-plane in panel 2 of page 15. Yet, he has it back somehow in the next issue ("Magic, Murder, and the Weather").

 

After Indy jumps from the bi-plane to Victoria's plane and then back again with the stolen urn, he tells the pilot, "Home, James." Most likely, the pilot is not named James, it is simply Indy using a variation of the popular idiom, "Home, James, and don't spare the horses," believed to have originated in the late 1800s with Queen Victoria of England, who had a carriage driver named James Darling. Normally the surname would be used, but it might have been construed as inappropriate for her to refer to her driver as "Darling", so she called him by his given name instead!

 

While Indy gets back the urn from Victoria, she escapes with an amulet that is described in a Sumerian clay tablet that Indy later translates, relating to the sun god Shamash. Shamash is the sun god of ancient Mesopotamian mythology.

 

On page 22, Tavistock tells Indy and Brody he's phoned Scotland Yard about the theft of the amulet by Victoria Keith and learned she is actually a thief-for-hire named Amanda Knight. Scotland Yard is the name for the headquarters building of the Metropolitan Police of London.

 

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