Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The Official Comic Book Adaptation
Adapted by John Jackson Miller
From the script by David Koepp
Pencils by Luke Ross
Inks by Fabio Laguna
Colors by Dan Jackson
Cover Artist(s): Drew Struzan, Hugh Fleming
Dark Horse
On sale: May 20, 2008

Oh, comic book adaptations, I am not a fan of you, and what’s more, I wasn’t a big fan of the newest Indiana Jones adventure. So, why would I pick this up? Well, I guess I’m a glutton for punishment. And that’s pretty much what reading the comic book adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull felt like; Punishment. There’s just nothing here for me to recommend, even to people who enjoyed the movie (yes, they are out there). It’s just poorly done and takes out the few things I did enjoy about the film.

Okay, first things first about this is an interesting marketing gimmick on Dark Horse’s part. They decided to release the story as a handy trade paperback the Wednesday before the movie was released for thirteen dollars, or you could have waited for the story to be broken up into two issues over two weeks for a total of twelve dollars. It’s an odd case where the single issues are actually cheaper than the trade, and if you’re bound and determined to pick it up, I’d say save yourself the dollar and pick up the issues.

As for the product itself, it follows the plot of the movie note for note. My problem with that is that there’s not much reason for anyone to read it. There’s no new information or insight into the story or characters, so it’s like, what’s the point? Anyone who’s going to read this will probably have seen the movie. If there was something new brought to the table, I may have liked this better. The even bigger problem is that there are large chunks of action taken away, and the chase scenes were the best part of the film. The book just skips from talking scene to talking scene, and those parts bored me to tears when I saw the movie.

And again, I could have forgiven this if the art had been interesting, which I was hoping for since the usually talented Luke Ross was doing the art. I thought his photo-referenced style would be a good fit for this, and while the art is decent enough, and he does get the likenesses of the actors right, there’s just nothing for him to draw. With the script for the comic focusing on the talking scenes, there’s no action left for him to draw. Which is a shame, because Ross (and fellow artist Cliff Richards, who works on the second issue) is capable of much better work, and this will get in front of more eyes then some of his other work.

So we’ve got a boring story and mediocre art, and not much reason for anyone to buy this. This is the kind of thing I think of when it comes to movie adaptations. Much like the movie, this is just a large letdown. I think I’ll watch Raiders of the Lost Ark again just so I can see a decent Indy story. They can’t take that away from me.