Reading Marvel - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Marvel wraps up the original Indiana Jones trilogy.

A comic book adaptation of director Steven Spielberg’s 1981 adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark was published as part of the Marvel Super Special series - and, to be exact, it was issue #18 of that series. Writer Walt Simonson and artists John Buscema and Klaus Janson were tasked with bringing a condensed version of the Raiders of the Lost Ark screenplay to the page for that one. Three years later, Marvel published a comic book adaptation of the prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, with writer David Michelinie and artists Jackson “Butch” Guice, Ian Akin, Brian Garvey, and Bob Camp telling that story in the pages of Marvel Super Special #30. The Temple of Doom adaptation was also released as a separate, three-issue special.

By the time the sequel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came around in 1989, Marvel Super Special had come to an end – but that didn’t stop Marvel from publishing a comic book adaptation of the film’s script, which was written by Jeffrey Boam from a story by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes. This one turned out to be the longest adaptation yet, as writer David Michelinie, artist Bret Blevins, letterer Bill Oakley, and colorist Gregory Wright had the luxury of spreading the story out over four issues.

The opening sequence of the third adventure takes us far back into Indiana Jones's past, all the way back to 1912. This sequence does what the typical prequel does, providing a bunch of unnecessary answers to unasked questions. While out on a field trip in the Utah desert, young Indy witnesses a group of shady characters unearthing the Cross of Coronado and celebrating the riches that it will bring them. At this point in his life, Indy has the pure "that's an important artifact, it belongs in a museum" outlook and does his best to get the cross out of their hands. Turns out that Indy gained his fashion sense, the scar on his chin (which Harrison Ford got in a car accident), his predilection for using a whip, and his fear of snakes all in this one fateful afternoon. It's ridiculous, but it is entertaining.

The film then jumps ahead to 1938, when the rest of the story plays out. After Indy finally obtains the Cross of Coronado for his friend Marcus Brody's museum. As he leaves Marshall College after a day of teaching class, Indy is picked up by a carload of men and taken to meet with their employer, Walter Donovan, a man who has a passion for antiquities and has contributed some to Brody's museum over the years. Donovan has in his possession a broken stone tablet from the mid-12th century that has enscribed it in some directions pointing to the final resting place of the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend, the chalice Jesus Christ drank from at the Last Supper and was later used to catch his blood at the crucifixion. As the tablet says, whoever drinks water from the cup will gain eternal life.

Donovan is heading up an attempt to recover the Holy Grail, and to aid in his quest he also has a manuscript that details the legend of three knights of the First Crusade who hid the cup away. Two of the knights died of extreme old age 150 years later, leaving two markers pointing to the location of the cup, over which the third knight still stood guard. One of the markers is the tablet Donovan has, the second is believed to be buried in a tomb in Venice... But Donovan's search has hit a snag. His project leader has vanished. He wants Indy to find him, "find the man and you will find the Grail." Indy doesn't seem interested in this mission at first, but then he's told the identity of the missing man: his father, Henry Jones.

Researching the Holy Grail and following its trail has been an obsessive hobby of Henry Jones's for forty years, he has a journal packed with all of his notes on the subject. A journal that Indy receives in the mail the same day he's told that his father is missing, sent from Venice.

Indy sets off to find his father, bringing the bumbling Marcus Brody along into the field with him to follow the clues in the journal to the second marker in Venice, where he meets Doctor Elsa Schneider and immediately develops a crush on her.

From Venice, Indy goes on to rescue his father from a castle on the Austrian/German border. The interaction between father and son is very amusing, as Indy constantly tries to impress the father who was always strict and distant, while dad continues to disapprove of most of what his son does. Indy has to drag his father through the extensive action sequences that ensue; a motorcycle chase, trouble aboard a zeppelin, an aerial dogfight, Indy taking on a tank while on horseback. The adventure takes Indy on a trip to Berlin that brings him face-to-face with Hitler, off to the coast of Turkey, where Sallah returns to the series and becomes involved, and out into the desert to search for a temple carved into the side of a cliff. As with the Ark of the Covenant, Indy is again racing against the Nazis in his search for the Holy Grail, with his father warning him that if the cup ends up in the hands of Hitler, "the armies of darkness will march all over the earth."

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a really entertaining movie, and the Marvel adaptation of the story makes for a fun read. As he previously proved with the Temple of Doom adaptation, writer Michelinie was a great match for the Indiana Jones character, and it was nice that he was able to let this story breathe over the span of four issues instead of trying to cram it into three issues – especially since Last Crusade has a whole lot of action sequences that needed to be shown properly. Blevins did a great job drawing those sequences.

Temple of Doom is my favorite of the original Indiana Jones trilogy, I have the strongest childhood connection to it, but Marvel’s Last Crusade is my favorite of these comic book adaptations.