Didja Notice?

 

Page 4 quickly retells the events of "The Grecian Earn".

 

On page 5, a Ra-Lundin man speaks the words "Waneenjiko! Pala-hoi!" to Indy. According to Google Translate, this appears to be Hawaiian for "I love you! Back again!"

 

Entering the hidden, domed city of Ra-Lundi, Indy reflects that it's as warm inside as Chicago in May. Chicago tends to average in the high 60's to lower '70's in May. Indy lived in Chicago to attend school at the University of Chicago from 1919-1922 (and also, for a short time, when he was 14, according to The Peril at Delphi).

 

On page 9, Marion awakens Indy, telling him, "It's the early bird catches the artifact, y'know." This is a play on the English idiom "the early bird catches the worm", which originated in a 1605 book of proverbs (Remaines Concerning Britain) by William Camden.

 

On page 10, Indy awakens and exclaims Marion's name, surprised and delighted to see her still alive after her fall from the mountain. Marion responds to him, "Good thing you remembered my name, Jones, if you'da called me 'Alice'--I'd have knocked you back to dreamland myself!" This may be a play by writer Michelinie on Alice in Wonderland, or on the oft-used phrase by the character of Ralph Kramden on the 1955-66 American television sitcom The Honeymooners, where Ralph would tell his wife, Alice, in mock-seriousness when he was upset with her that he would "knock her to the moon."

 

The F'han tal that provides heat, energy, healing, and long life to the inhabitants of Ra-Lundi turns out to be a meteorite worshipped by the Ra-Lundins. Indy encountered another sacred meteorite when he was a youth in, well, The Sacred Meteorite.

 

On page 16, Lafonte uses both monsieur and m'sieur, the French word for "sir". He also says "Mon dieu!", French for "My God!"

 

On page 21, Lafonte says "mon ami" and "Ma foi!" These are French for "my friend" and "My faith!"

 

On page 22, Indy is wearing square eyeglasses instead of the round style lenses he is usually seen in.

 

The end of this issue sets up a new story where the Arnhem Ring recovered by Indy in "Blood and Sand" and placed on display in the National Museum in "Demons" is found to have been a forgery. But the story that follows in The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #19 ("Dragon by the Tail") has nothing to do with it, and does not even mention it. This is because that issue was a fill-in, with the Arnhem Ring follow-up then beginning in issue 20 ("The Cuban Connection"). For this reason, the PopApostle chronology has issue 19 taking place after issue 22, the completion of the three-part Arnhem Ring story.

 

Unanswered Questions

 

Was the white man behind the mask in Ra-Lundi actually Abner Ravenwood? If so, why does he not acknowledge Marion and Indy's presence? He does mumble Marion's name at one point after Marion and the student leave the chamber, but he could have simply been repeating the name she told him as she tried to get a response from him. Also, recall the Chen Sha said that a number of foreign men had stumbled across Ra-Lundi in the past and been trapped there by the eternal curse of the F'han tal, so the masked man could be any white man.

 

Why the mask? Why was it sealed so it could not be removed? It's convenient for the story so we don't get an answer as to who the man is, but why would the Ra-Lundins find it necessary to do that to the man? 

 

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