Entry 22: The Arms of Gold

Indy Timeline: 1937

“Arms of Gold” is a four-part Dark Horse comic book series that was released in 1994.  The trend for these comics (as discussed in Entry 6 and Entry 21) has generally been to take a strong idea and more or less make hash of it through inconsistent artwork and worse storytelling.  Does the trend continue here?  The answer is “pretty much.”  

The plot surrounds a mysterious and beautiful woman, Professor Francisca Uribe Del Arco, who has joined the staff of Barnett College where Indy is teaching.  She has a secret to share with Indy regarding the location of the golden Chimu Taya Arms of Cuzco (yes, THOSE golden arms!).  And so, the two are set off on an adventure to South America involving a quest for the gold and to find Francisca’s missing brother.  This is pretty much standard Indy fare, and I thought that it got off to a good enough start with a campy, up-tempo feel.  There is a brawl just off campus in which some jocks help Indy take on some thugs, there is a fight on a giant ship, and some other action pieces along the way.  The fact that this comic was only 4 issues rather than 6 worked to its advantage in terms of the story telling- there are less opportunities for the authors to meander off into plotlines that go nowhere.  While this marks an improvement over the Atlantis and Orient book, there are still moments when the “herky-jerky” feel comes back and the transitions/action sequences seem poor and underdeveloped. 

The artwork here is funny at times, but I think I prefer it to the previous two series.  Indy looks a little big-eared and goofy in some panels, but this look is better than his portrayal as a crotchety old kook in the other two books.  He also seems to be stronger, tougher and more athletic – performing feats that require quick reflexes (dodging knives thrown at him) and enduring difficult situations (like being buried naked in snow). 

Ultimately though, I thought this book added up to not very much, just more piffle to add to the pile of Indiana Jones stories.  Nothing of any real significance happens and the story does little to enhance the canon - this amounts to a collective shrug.  For fans of the franchise, the most interesting aspect of the book will be the random similarities to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  There are certain frames of the book that might as well have been (and possibly were?) used to storyboard some key scenes from that movie.  Specifically look for the scenes in Cuzco with the tombs of buried kings wearing golden armor, the elongated conical skulls on some of the corpses, and the image of the ruins being swept away by a tsunami of water.  

Indy rating: 5/10