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Episode Studies by Clayton Barr

enik1138
-at-popapostle-dot-com

Indiana Jones: The Harbingers Indiana Jones
"The Harbingers"
The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones
#5
Marvel Comics
Plot/Script: David Michelinie
Pencils: Ron Frenz
Inks: Danny Bulanadi
Letters: Joe Rosen
Colors: Bob Sharen
Cover: Ron Frenz and Danny Bulanadi
May 1983


The crystal cylinder is brought back to Stonehenge at the appointed time. What will it reveal?

 

Notes from the Indiana Jones chronology

 

This issue takes place in 1936.

 

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

Karen Mays

Hauptman Loeb

Nazi thugs

Nessel

Mrs. Mays

Mr. Mays (mentioned only)

German radio operator

Arnold 'Smitty' Smith/Schmidt (dies in this issue)

Major Temple (mentioned only)

Anna Jones (mentioned only, deceased)

British military guards 

 

Didja Notice?

 

This issue identifies the bridge on which Indy and Karen are hanging in the Rolls Royce limousine from the end of "Gateway to Infinity" as London Bridge, the one that existed there over the River Thames from 1831–1967 (since replaced with a new bridge and the old one sold to American entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch and deconstructed, shipped, and reconstructed over the Bridgewater Channel of Lake Havasu City, Arizona).

 

On page 4, Indy and Karen wind up at her mother's flat in Egham, Surrey.

 

On page 7, Smith watches Indy and Karen clandestinely on the train to Salisbury Plain behind a copy of yesterday's Times with visible article titles of "Churchill Concerned at Nazi Advances" and "RAF At Ready Says Minister". "Times" refers to the newspaper often called the London Times. Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was a member of Britain's Conservative Party at the time and would become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1940. The Prime Minister in 1936 was Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947). The RAF is the Royal Air Force.

 

The English Channel mentioned on page 7 is the narrow stretch of ocean that separates England from the European mainland.

 

On page 12, Indy notices the British "Bobbies" waiting for them when the train stops are carrying Luger pistols. Luger is a pistol design first patented by Austrian Georg Luger in 1900.

 

His men disguised as English police, Loeb regrets that they don't have the same power as the Gestapo. The Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) was the secret police of Nazi Germany from 1933-1945.

 

On page 13, Indy steals a motorcycle, with a sidecar for Karen to ride in. Karen asks if he's ever driven one before and he says he ran a paper route on a motorbike when he was a kid, but his mom didn't let him go over 5 miles per hour. This is the first mention of his ever having had a paper route. Besides a paper route motorbike, he also rode one as a courier for the French military during WWI, as seen in "Demons of Deception".

 

As Indy and Karen speed away on the motorcycle, Loeb shouts to his driver and other men, "After them! Schnell! Rasch!" "Schnell! Rasch!" is German for "Quickly! Swiftly!"

 

As Indy prepares to run the motorcycle across the fragile-looking rope-and-plank bridge on page 14, he tells Karen, "I'm glad Mom isn't here to see this...she'd give me a lickin' like you wouldn't believe!" Of course, Indy's mother, Anna Jones, died in 1912 of scarlet fever when Indy was 12 years old.

 

On page 16, Loeb says, "Guten abend, Herr Jones," as he leaves him and Karen to sink into the quicksand. Guten abend is German for "good evening".

 

Karen carries a Webley revolver issued to her when she started working for the British government.

 

On page 19, the crystal cylinder sends harsh, pulsing light flows down Loeb's arms like St. Elmo's Fire. St. Elmo's Fire is an electrical weather phenomenon that is known to create a glowing plasma field around a grounded object.

 

On page 20, a German soldier refers to Indy as schwein. This is German for "pig".

 

Also on page 20, Karen swats one of Loeb's men with her handbag, calling him a "bloody brownshirt". "Brownshirt" was used to refer to members of the Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment), the original paramilitary division of the German Nazi Party, founded in 1920 and clothed in brown uniforms.

 

Indy knocks the cylinder out of Loeb's hands, sending it flying into the air and then descending like "sad Icarus in failure", shattering on the ground. This is a reference to the Greek mythological figure Icarus, who used wings made of feathers and wax to fly, but flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax and caused him to plummet to the sea, where he drowned. 

 

Unanswered Questions

 

Why did the British government name the project to decode the writing and workings of the crystal cylinder "The Gateway Project"? They had no idea at the time that the cylinder had anything to do with opening a portal/gateway for otherworldly beings until after Indy and Karen were finally able to decipher the writing.

 

Who or what were the forces that once existed on Earth and who were to return if the crystal had been allowed to complete its summoning function? They seem almost like the Old Gods of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos, described in the narrative as they attempt to emerge from the partially-formed portal as "things reptilian, simian, canine, insectile and utterly, utterly unknown."

 

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