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Indiana Jones
"Thunder in the Orient" Part 3
Indiana Jones: Thunder in the
Orient #3
Dark
Horse Comics
Story, Pencils, & Ink
Finishes: Dan Barry
Inks: Andy Mushynsky
Lettering & Colors: Gail Beckett
Cover: Hugh Fleming
November 1993
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Indy uncovers a map at the latest shrine.
Notes from the Indiana Jones chronology
Indiana Jones: Thunder in the Orient is a 6-issue
mini-series published by Dark Horse Comics in 1993-94. The story
takes place in October
1938.
Notes from
The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones is a 2008 publication
that
purports to be Indy's journal as seen throughout The
Young Indiana Chronicles
TV series
and the big screen Indiana
Jones movies. The publication is also annotated with notes
from a functionary of the
Federal Security
Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation, the successor
agency of the Soviet Union's KGB security agency. The KGB relieved Indy of his
journal in 1957 during the events of Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The notations imply the journal was released to other
governments by the FSB in the early 21st Century. However, some
bookend segments of The
Young Indiana Chronicles
depict Old Indy still in
possession of the journal in 1992. The discrepancy has never
been resolved.
The journal as published does not mention the events of this
issue,
going from entries shortly after the events of The
Last Crusade in
June 1938 to those of The
Fate of Atlantis in
May 1939. Almost a year gap seemingly left un-journaled.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this issue
Dr.
Patar Kali
Indiana Jones
Sophia Hapgood
Khamal
Afridi
tribespeople
Moslem tribespeople
Sonam Tashi
Gurkhas
Japanese soldiers
General Masashi Kyojo
Sgt. Itaki (dies in this issue)
Sherpas
Bamian villagers
Didja Notice?
On page 2, the Moslem tribe refers to the
Khogyanis as kafir. This is a Moslem term
for someone who does not believe in the Islamic God.
Tashi refers to Indy as sahib. Sahib is an
Arabic word, essentially meaning "friend" in modern
parlance, which has passed into numerous other languages.
On page 8, Indy refers to the Japanese prisoner as
"Nipponese". The Japanese refer to their country as Nippon,
a word which can be translated into English as "Land of the
Rising Sun".
On page 9, Indy and his expedition are taken to the Colossus
of Bamian. This would seem to be a fictitious statue
inspired by the real world Buddhas of
Bamiyan, two monumental Buddha statues of the Bamiyan
Valley in Afghanistan, believed to have been built around
the 6th Century. The statues were destroyed by the Taliban
government of Afghanistan in 2001 "so that no one can
worship or respect them in the future", an action condemned
by the international community.
On page 13, General Kyojo tells his cryptologists and
experts in Sanskrit that Japan and the Emperor are demanding
them to find the records and maps of the pilgrimage of
Buddha...or face hiri-kiri. The emperor of Japan at
the time was Hirohito, who held the title 1926-1989 (though
after Japan's surrender to the Allies at the end of WWII in
1945, his title was purely ceremonial and he became only a
figurehead to help adjust the Japanese public to Allied
occupation in defeat). Hiri-kiri (more properly
hara-kiri or sepukku) is a Japanese ritual
suicide by disembowelment with sword.
On page 18, Indy refers to his fedora as
a Stetson brand.
In actuality, most of Indy's fedoras seen in the movies were
provided by Herbert
Johnson, the exception being the one worn in Kingdom
of the Crystal Skulls, provided by Adventurebilt
Hat Company.
The clue found in the Colossus
leads the expedition to the Himalayas. The Himalayan
Mountain Range in Asia hosts the world's highest peaks.
On page 23, India Air Freight
appears to be a fictitious company.
Trekking into the Himalayas, the expedition discovers a city
that Indy compares to James Hilton's Shangri-La. This refers
to the fictitious lost Himalayan city in Hilton's 1933 novel
Lost Horizon. Indy and Marion Ravenwood discovered
another Himalayan city that was compared to Shangri-La
(Ra-Lundi) in
"The City of Yesterday's Forever".
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