Didja Notice?

 

The story opens in the Marquesas Islands. This is an island group in French Polynesia.

 

On page 2, Indy remarks to Manahiki that if it wasn't for him, "...my head would be the size of a walnut right now!" It would seem that Indy is referring to a narrow escape from a tribe of headhunters who practice the process of shrinking severed human heads. However, I don't think there has ever been a human head shrunk to the size of a walnut! Most were down to about the size of a large orange.

 

Hearing that Indy has found a map to the fabled Shrine of the Sea Devil, Captain Whitby exclaims, "Well, I'll retire to Bedlam!" The idiom "I'll retire to Bedlam" was a popular British idiom. This refers to Bethlem Royal Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in London; it was nicknamed Bedlam almost from its founding as a priory in 1247 (it began housing the insane in the late 14th Century). The Shrine of the Sea Devil appears to be a fictitious legend invented for the story.

 

On page 3, Caspar Zzyzx mentions the statues of Easter Island and the legend that the statues walked to their locations. Easter Island (aka Rapa Nui) is a Chilean island in the Pacific Ocean, known for its monolithic statues called moai. Native legends actually say the moai walked to their locations from the quarry, guided by powerful priests. Modern researchers believe this may have been true, with the statues "walked" using ropes from two sides and tilting and swiveling them in a back-and-forth motion across the ground. Indy visited Easter Island in The Interior World.

 

The last name of Caspar Zzyzx is likely borrowed from the desert community of Zzyzx, California, a name made up by the founder of the Zzyzx Mineral Springs resort in 1944 as the purported last word in the English language.

 

It's a little hard to read, but on page 3, panel 6, the crewman has a tattoo on his right arm that reads "Mother".

 

After losing Pete overboard, Captain Whitby worries there will be a court of inquiry when they reach San Francisco.

 

On pages 5-6, First Mate Turps tells of a museum heist he once pulled (but was foiled by Indiana Jones) in Kafiristan. Kafiristan is an historical region of Afghanistan in what is today Nuristan Province.

 

Page 7 reveals the name of Captain Whitby's ship is the Julie Anne.

 

On page 8, Captain Whitby, watching Indy descend into the ocean depths in a diving suit, asserts, "I wouldn't go down there for King Solomon's gold!" King Solomon (or Jedidiah) is a Biblical monarch of ancient Israel, the son of King David, and was famed for his wealth and wisdom. 

 

The giant statues Indy stumbles upon under the sea in the shrine appear nearly identical to the moai of Easter Island.

 

On page 10, Indy thinks to himself, "Get National Geographic on the line--the Jones boy has stumbled onto something really big." National Geographic is a magazine published since 1888 by the National Geographic Society, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization.

 

The "sea devil" of the shrine turns out to be a very giant octopus, maybe more properly called a kraken, a tentacled mythical monster of the sea. Indy also faced a giant octopus in Journey to the Underworld and The Interior World, and will face a kraken again not too long after this in The Emperor's Tomb.

 

On page 19, Indy heads for the stern of the Julie Anne as the bow sinks into the water, hoping to avoid sharing space in Davy Jones' locker. This is a reference to the nautical euphemism "Davy Jones' locker" which stands for the drowning death of sailors in the sea.

 

Trying to figure how to get off the rapidly sinking ship and onto the buzzing airplane, Indy wonders what Doug Fairbanks would do in a jam like that. Douglas Fairbanks (1883-1939) was one of the most popular actors of the era. Indy attended a party held by Fairbanks and his wife, Mary Pickford, in 1920 in Hollywood Follies.

 

On page 21, Indy, wishing he had his whip to lash onto the landing struts of the buzzing plane, says to himself, "Rule number one--never leave whip at home." He said something similar about always travelling with his whip in Secret of the Sphinx.

 

On page 23, Indy wonders who it was who said, "We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger!" This was the French playwright Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), known for his tragic dramas.

 

The pilot who "picks up" Indy turns out to be Amelia Earhart, and the two are apparently already familiar with each other. Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) was an American aviatrix who disappeared in 1937 during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe in a small airplane. Here, she is attempting to set a record for the first solo flight out of Hawaii to the United States. This was an actual flight she made, leaving Honolulu, Hawaii on January 11, 1935 and arriving in Oakland, California on January 13 in a time of 18 hours and 15 minutes, just as shown on the newspaper headline at the end of the story. As far as I can tell, the Evening Sun newspaper seen here is fictitious.

 

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