Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Gods !!!

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
InexorableTash said:
* I always think of TOD as "what Indy does on the average weekend" as opposed to ROTLA/LC which are "big outings". Maybe I'm crazy, but if Indy spends every weekend (i.e. every comic, every novel) saving the world (as in ROTLA) it takes away from the import of the movie and minimizes the particular adventure as well.

I certainly agree with this!

In the entire Indy canon, films and expanded universe material alike, I think "Raiders" should stand apart as one of - if not THE - biggest single adventures Indy embarks upon in his lifetime.

I agree that it diminishes the import of that extraordinary chapter if we see him on missions of similar scale time and time again.

Which is why the Nazi thing really is played out at this point. It was already a little tired back in "Crusade", though they managed to squeak by.

But, in 2009, do we really need to see another Indy Vs. Nazi adventure where they're racing for an apocalyptic artifact?

It's lazy, unimaginative writing.

Time to break the mold, Indy writers. Been there, done that. It'll never be better than "Raiders", so get yourself back to the drawing board!

*BTW, I always thought of the prologue of "ToD" as the stuff Indy does on the "average week-end" (and even the Portugal prologue in "LC.") The rest of "ToD" was still significant enough in scope that it should be fairly rare in Indy's life, limited to say, once every 2-4 years.
 
Stoo Thanks for the crossword link

and yes, I am a Van Halen fan: ) Thanks for asking!

More TotG commentary: did the ending of the arc remind anyone else of the Hellboy movie ending? Tentacled God comes to Earth to destory it, gets defeated by a simple bomb up the wazoo! (Actually it swallowed Hellboy but he had a belt of explosives in the HB movie, in the TotG Indy just tosses a few sticks of dynamite at it before it completely crosses into this world).
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
punisher5150 said:
and yes, I am a Van Halen fan: ) Thanks for asking!

More TotG commentary: did the ending of the arc remind anyone else of the Hellboy movie ending? Tentacled God comes to Earth to destory it, gets defeated by a simple bomb up the wazoo! (Actually it swallowed Hellboy but he had a belt of explosives in the HB movie, in the TotG Indy just tosses a few sticks of dynamite at it before it completely crosses into this world).

Yeah, excellent point. Both are basically lifted from Lovecraft.

But I guess since Hellboy borrowed from "Raiders", they felt it was only fair. ;)

Hellboy, the film, had a lot going for it and was generally a lot of fun, but I think they made a mistake by using the Ogru Jahad villains from the comic.

A bunch of weird, gigantic, space-based, dormant, demon creatures? They were very clunky and hard to understand as the main threat in the movie. And any film in which the villain's goal is to literally obliterate the world is going to be problematic. What did Rasputin hope to achieve by laying waste to the whole planet? Being the rule of a post-apocalyptic nothing?
 

yodazone

Member
Issue #4 ranks #137 in the Top 300 for comics sold in March:

#137 INDIANA JONES & TOMB O/GODS #4 (OF 4) $2.99 DAR 11,353

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14743.html

#195 INDIANA JONES & TOMB O/GODS #3 (Of 4) $2.99 DAR 12,020


Good numbers for a book that was delayed as long as this one was and it didn't have the typical big steep/dropoff in numbers from issue #3. Cool stuff.
It shows the fans still stuck around for the entire run!

(y) :whip:
 
Those rankings look pretty decent.

Hopefully DH will give us some more Indy mini series as well as the Indy Adventures. I'd also love to see some adaptations of the novels, like they did with Splinter of the Mind's Eye for Star Wars.
 

QBComics

Active member
I got my issue 4 of TOTG, and loved it! I actually liked it so much, I wish they could do a movie on it, but I do know that it would be very hard to pull off.

Great action, great pace, and great characters. Someone needs to get the same artist from the 1st three issues (Though I did like issue #4's artist) and the same writer and have them team up again.

Overall 4/5 for the entire book.
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
yodazone said:
Issue #4 ranks #137 in the Top 300 for comics sold in March:

#137 INDIANA JONES & TOMB O/GODS #4 (OF 4) $2.99 DAR 11,353

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14743.html

#195 INDIANA JONES & TOMB O/GODS #3 (Of 4) $2.99 DAR 12,020


Good numbers for a book that was delayed as long as this one was and it didn't have the typical big steep/dropoff in numbers from issue #3. Cool stuff.
It shows the fans still stuck around for the entire run!

(y) :whip:

On the one hand, I'm glad they made an Indy comic like this and hope they make more.

But at the same time, this particular comic was so mediocre that I find it hard to get behind its success (relative though that may be).

Ideally, I'd love to see them make more, with much, much better writing.

But, as with the substandard KOTCS, I'd rather have no Indy product that shoddy product.

Until I see them make something worthwhile, I can't find myself caring about the future of this series.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
punisher5150 said:
and yes, I am a Van Halen fan: ) Thanks for asking!
Right on.:cool: Considering your screen name I should have said Van Hagar!:p Anyway, you are welcome for the crossword puzzle. Enjoy!

punisher5150 said:
Hopefully DH will give us some more Indy mini series as well as the Indy Adventures. I'd also love to see some adaptations of the novels, like they did with Splinter of the Mind's Eye for Star Wars.
Motion seconded. I would love to take a crack at "Peril of Delphi" myself. (Aaaah..."Splinter of the Mind's Eye". Now, that takes me waaaay back. I'm trying to recall what came out 1st: "Splinter"? Marvel #7? or the Russ Manning newspaper strips? Which is the first expanded material for SW? I bought one of the comic issues for "Splinter" and loved it!)

JimmyPSHayes said:
Does anyone else think that we should show our support by starting a letter writing campaign or an online petition?
If you would start one, I'm sure there would be loads of signatures. Writer Rob Williams even said in this very thread to write to the Dark Horse website. According to Mitchell Hallock's inside scoop from his recent Comic-Con experience, the series is planned to continue (but perhaps not as regularly as some would like).

Lance Quazar said:
Until I see them make something worthwhile, I can't find myself caring about the future of this series.
Boy, Lance, you sure are one, tough customer!:D Thanks for breathing life into this discussion.
 

indyclone25

Well-known member
i found this on youtube where a guy has done this as a motion comic --- with music and sound effects --- he's hoping to find actors to do the voice overs --- part 1 of issue one
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part two of issue one

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Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Stoo said:
Boy, Lance, you sure are one, tough customer!:D Thanks for breathing life into this discussion.

Heh. It's been fun.

In fairness, I've gone back and re-read the comic. My opinion on the artwork has changed. I now only hate Chapter 4's artwork. The rest is cool.

And I will admit that the Chapter 2 Tibet sequence is pretty cool, but could have been better. It's just way too short. I wish they had expanded that segment.

I also think having the plane engines just HAPPEN to fail during their escape was sloppy storytelling. That should have happened organically - by having them damaged by the horde of bandits. It's an easy and blindingly obvious fix the writer should have figured out on his own.

But I still love them chucking the "stowaway" out the door....
 

TennesseBuck

New member
Lance Quazar said:
As I said above, I agree that my initial comment about the "lousy" artwork was unfair, dismissive and harsh and I could have (and should have) explained myself better.

However, I really wasn't a fan of the artwork.

The artwork wasn't bad at all...though I got confused about Marcus Brody's appearance in issue #4.


On its own terms, as a stand-alone Indiana Jones story, I think it falls flat.

I'm actually not a huge fan of the Hellboy style of art, either, but at least there is an aesthetic vision there.

This comic, well, the art just felt very straightforward, very generic, without much real style to it.

I think they captured the cinematic feel of the movies...but I agree that it felt a little too generic at best. Some of the best Indy comics were from the Marvel series, especially the search for the Stonehenge Cylinder, the Fourth Nail, etc. In fact, I believe it was issue #8-9 with the return of Marion and the Hovitos that were among the best. This Dark Horse series captures the spirit but it is not as involving overall. I love the ending of #4 with the villain's greed nicely laid out for us. And I like the line: "You are some treasure hunter." In other words, it isn't always about Indy getting the artifact...something fans forget from the progression of the movie series.



The premise of a key split into several pieces and scattered is a fairly tired concept, not particularly imaginative or original.

The villains and supporting characters are consistently one-note and the fourth issue is an extraordinary anticlimax.

I'm not saying it's easy to do these things. Lucas and Spielberg have lamented how hard it is coming up with a good supernatural macguffin for the film series. It's damn hard and, on one level, I applaud the writer for trying to come up with a way around the typical ending.

I have attempted writing an Indy script that involved an ancient Russian sword - all based on Russian fairy tales - and combined them with an alien intelligence (I know, I know, not many have fond memories of Crystal Skull but my idea came into prominence long before CS). I am working on a new story but it is very hard to come up with a compelling new artifact(s).



:gun: :whip:
 

YouNeverKnow

New member
Just read all four at once. It's a thing of beauty when all of the parts are put together. I'd still like to know precisely what the "Tomb of the Gods" was and all of the petrified/frozen/whatever tentacle-y remains given some attention, but when I think on the nature of the IJ movies themselves it's often that the "lightning...fire...power a' God" just occurs, and I think this did the same thing.

While a comic could rarely be as cinematic as we'd like them to be (there simply isn't enough room to spend time panning across a huge underground landscape filled with bizarre and intriguing architecture) I think that this story succeeds in replicating the classic Indiana Jones adventure, which is coincidentally the same argument I have for KotCS, and that I love it for that success.

However, as per Mr. Williams' comments however many posts up, I still wish that panel had something more visible coming round the bend. Perhaps, if the TPB rectifies this issue ::hint hint:: Dark Horse will make another $20 off me just for that panel alone. ;)
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Lance Quazar said:
I definitely want to hear your thoughts when you finish the final issue, Stoo...
YouNeverKnow said:
Just read all four at once. It's a thing of beauty when all of the parts are put together.
A little late but I finally managed to get my hands on #4 and must say, it was a tad disappointing. After reading all the issues back-to-back, I agree with others that the change of artists was a bit jarring. The colours are still fanastic and the rendering/inking of the characters is decent but the panels lack the cinematic scope of #1-3 (apart from a few) and resemble more standard comic-fare. Steve Scott set the bar pretty high in the previous issues so it's unfortunate that he didn't work on this one. What happened?:confused:

As for the story, the dialogue remains characteristic & snappy but the ending is, indeed, rather abrupt without much explanation. Perhaps a 6 issue run could have served the story a bit better? Despite the shortcomings in #4, "Tomb of Gods" is one of the superior Indy comic tales and I'm glad that it was published. Looking forward to the next one...but, please DH , don't have it take place in 1936. There's no room left in the timeline!:D
 

Jono11

New member
Stoo said:
I would love to take a crack at "Peril of Delphi" myself. (Aaaah..."Splinter of the Mind's Eye". Now, that takes me waaaay back. I'm trying to recall what came out 1st: "Splinter"? Marvel #7? or the Russ Manning newspaper strips? Which is the first expanded material for SW? I bought one of the comic issues for "Splinter" and loved it!)
If anyone still cares, I'm pretty sure it was Splinter. It was commissioned to be a possible low-budget sequel if the original film did crappy in its theatrical run. The film did well, so Splinter came out on schedule as a novel. It should be noted that, depending on your definition of expanded-universe, the first actual expanded material would be the original Star Wars novelization that came out before the film and had some now-apocryphal material that was not in the film--or anything else--at all.
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Stoo said:
A little late but I finally managed to get my hands on #4 and must say, it was a tad disappointing. After reading all the issues back-to-back, I agree with others that the change of artists was a bit jarring. The colours are still fanastic and the rendering/inking of the characters is decent but the panels lack the cinematic scope of #1-3 (apart from a few) and resemble more standard comic-fare. Steve Scott set the bar pretty high in the previous issues so it's unfortunate that he didn't work on this one. What happened?:confused:

As for the story, the dialogue remains characteristic & snappy but the ending is, indeed, rather abrupt without much explanation. Perhaps a 6 issue run could have served the story a bit better? Despite the shortcomings in #4, "Tomb of Gods" is one of the superior Indy comic tales and I'm glad that it was published. Looking forward to the next one...but, please DH , don't have it take place in 1936. There's no room left in the timeline!:D

Glad you finally got a chance to finish, Stoo!

My opinion about this comic has only gotten worse as time has gone by, particularly in light of my reading of "Indiana Jones Adventures Vol. 1."

Considering that "IJ Adv Vo. 1" was the supposedly "kiddie" targeted comic, it is downright embarrassing how superior it is to TotG on every level - artwork, writing, storytelling, characterization, etc.

The story has actual twists, the female sidekick has an actual, gasp, personality! The dialogue is witty and actually sounds like things Indy (and Marcus and Belloq) would say! It's fast-paced, clever, exciting and intriguing, qualities that barely register at all in the tepid, by the numbers and ultimately extremely anticlimactic TotG.

But, hey, it's nice to know that I'm haven't become a complete crank in my old age and can actually still enjoy quality when I find it.

Considering the passion many folks inexplicably show for KotCS and TotG, I was worried I was out of touch.

But, no, I was right all along.

:hat:
 

Violet

Moderator Emeritus
Just bought the TPB yesterday coz I missed out on the fouth issue. I was happy to see that the cover was the 4th issue's cover rather than Issue 1's cover (it's not a bad cover, I'm just sick of seeing it).

I read it altogether, and yes, I did enjoy it though I felt the climax was kind of short and not too well explained. It also mirrors a certain theme from KOTCS. I don't know if that was on purpose.

Personally I love Issue 3. It's so damn funny with the whole shirt argument and Marcus' ridiculous dress sense!
 

Stoo

Well-known member
QBComics said:
I am curious is TOG a four part or a 6 part story?
Lao_Che said:
Four. Originally five.
Five, really? Where did you hear this, Lao?:confused: The ending might have fared a bit better had the story not been constrained to four issues. I still liked it, though!(y)
 
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