Indiana Jones comics

[Doctorwhovian]

There's been a lot of hype about Marvel getting the Star Wars comics license back because of their mutual ownership by Disney, and for the most part the early issues have been well-received.


However, what about Star Wars "sister" franchise, the Indiana Jones series?

Like with Star Wars, Indiana Jones comics were published by Marvel, and later Dark Horse. Like the movies, the continuity of each story from both companies was mostly self-contained, although other characters from the movies such as Marcus, Marion, Short Round and Captain Katanga made appearences in the Marvel comic, ("The further adventures of Indiana Jones). However the comic only lasted about 34 issues, although they did adapt all three original movies in limited series. The series was OK, but reportedly Lucasfilm (or Lucas himself) was not too keen on the series, which might have helped lead to the cancellation.

Dark Horse's stuff mainly consisted of limited series, but like with Marvel the quality was kind of iffy (They did adapt the Lucasarts video game Fate Of Atlantis but with several changes to the story). Continuity with the movies was again pretty much self-contained although Marcus and later Henry sr. showed up a few times. However, despite a brief revival in 2008 (to coincide with the new movie) and a fun, extremely non-canon story in the comic Star Wars tales anthology where he 'met' Han Solo, poor sales pretty much ended the Indiana Jones comics by Dark Horse in the late 90s.


So with Marvel reviving the Star Wars brand, should Indiana Jones also get a series, especially if we get a fifth film, with either Harrison Ford back (for probably the last time) or Chris Pratt as a new lead? Granted, as I mentioned above there were quality issues, but the same could be said for a good chunk of the late 70's/early 80's Star Wars stuff (Lucas in particular wasn't too fond of the Jaxxon the rabbit character from the early issues).

 

[Saga]

if there is to be a new Indy film you can bet Marvel will not only produce new comics but re-release the older stuff.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Strangely I don't even recall ever seeing the Marvel series. I didn't necessarily read every comic out there but going through the bins I am at least peripherally aware of most series if only from covers.

 

[Beagleman]

I haven't bought a comic book in years but I would definately be interested in a quality Indy series!

 

[Gaith]

I can see Indy being a tough character to build comics around - you want him to explore awesome places and tangle with supernatural stuff, but you also don't want to overshadow the stories told in the movies. Keep things too low-key, however, and it might be hard to keep an audience; my brief glimpses of mainstream American comics suggest they tend towards the gigantic (flying aircraft carriers and interstellar travels) - a perfect fit for Star Wars, but maybe not quite so much a part-time history professor who lives in a modest house and can't quite seem to hold down a girlfriend.

Of course, as a lifelong Tintin fan, I'm reminded of that comic hero, and the historical Spielberg/Indy-Hergé/Tintin connection. Tintin had Snowy from the start, and of course soon built up a core cast of supporting characters who joined him on almost every adventure, giving him a whole surrogate family to play off on the page. When I went to Venice, I was disappointed that Tintin had never been there in the books, as that would have been amazing, so I consoled myself by remembering that Indy had.

So, by all means let there be more and better Indy comics, but it'll be a tough job for sure. Maybe the ideal course would be to make a Temple/Raiders/Crusade continuation along an alternate timeline from the presumed real-world history of Skull - start with Indy joining the military, show some of his early missions, than introduce a cornucopia of magical artifacts and stuff that drastically re-draws the historical map, with werewolf Nazis and dragon battles and all kinds of outrageous stuff even future movies wouldn't do...