Welcome back to We Want Comics, a column exploring various intellectual properties — whether they’re movies, TV shows, novels, video games, or whatever else — that we would like to see adapted into comic books. This time round, we’re looking at Indiana Jones, the Ghostbusters, Dirty Harry, and more.
Indiana Jones:
This summer marked the 40th anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first in Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s great film series starring the Nazi-punching archaeologist, and sadly there were no new books to mark the occasion. This might’ve been because of the lengthy gestation period of the fifth movie, directed by James Mangold (which has been delayed until 2023), but also because of the unclear rights situation: Paramount still has the distribution rights to the first four films, and the previous comics are not available digitally on either of Marvel and Dark Horse’s websites.
In any case, it would be great if we got new comics with Dr. Jones: imagine a series exploring his service in the OSS during World War II, or a continuation of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (aka The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, its name on the reedited home releases), exploring Indy’s early encounters with characters like the Ravenwoods, Marcus Brody, René Belloq, or Sallah. There could be spin-offs for characters like Short Round or the Grail Knight, and reimaginings of some of Indy’s adventures from the ’90s Bantam Books series, as well as the video games (other than Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, the most beloved game, which was adapted into Dark Horse’s first miniseries.)
Adventure has a name, and hopefully he’ll return to comics (and storefronts) as well as theaters by 2023.
Ghostbusters:
Some minor spoilers for Ghostbusters: Afterlife follow.
Earlier this year, IDW Publishing’s “Ghostbusters” comics were delisted from digital storefronts, suggesting the company had lost the license for the characters. However, it may be possible Sony Pictures wanted to avoid confusion with Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which paints a very different picture of what the group did after the events of Ghostbusters II, and even in-between the first two films, than the comics did. (In case you missed it, Afterlife director Jason Reitman clarified Egon Spengler’s daughter Callie was a child during the second film, a testament to how lousy a father he was.)
Whatever the reason, it’d be nice if the longtime creative team of Erik Burnham, Dan Schoening, and Luis Antonio Delgado got to continue Spengler, Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore’s adventures in print, whether or not they continue to do so at IDW or a new publisher: their books helped keep the flame alive for a long time, so they deserve to give a proper send-off to their versions of the characters, or to oversee the introduction of the canon continuity into comics (even if they’ll likely only be able to pay lip service to what Afterlife established about Spengler’s offscreen life for the time being.)
The Frighteners:
Speaking of spooky business, this year marked 15 years since 1996’s cult horror comedy The Frighteners, which was the last film directed by Peter Jackson before The Lord of the Rings, and to star Michael J. Fox before he disclosed he had Parkinson’s disease. It’s a fun film, where Fox plays a con man who can speak to ghosts, and uses them to dupe the living into paying him for “exorcisms.” The ghosts in the film — played by actors like John Astin, Chi McBride, and R. Lee Ermey — were really memorable characters, and I’ve always wondered what a follow-up might’ve been like. A TV version was reportedly in the works until a copyright problem emerged, but it was apparently going to be “stripped of humor,” so thank god it didn’t happen. Could a comic book series avoid those pesky right issues, and become the sequel the film deserves?
Tales of Arcadia:
The animated DreamWorks/Netflix metaseries Tales of Arcadia, created by Guillermo del Toro, concluded this summer with the feature length Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, and to be perfectly upfront, it was a letdown, cramming in a season’s worth of developments, and ending with a twist instead of a satisfying wrap-up. A comic book continuation seems like a natural step, but truly (spoilers) retelling the events of the whole show with Toby as the Trollhunter instead of Jim sounds so boring. The third show in the franchise, Wizards, deserves a fairer shake after its truncated run, which shortchanged the premise of wizards running a tech store for a Trollhunters prequel/Rise of the Titans set-up — trouble is, because of how it got rushed out the door, would there be enough interest in a Wizards comic?
Continued below
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe:
This fall saw Netflix launch both the classic series revival/conclusion Masters of the Universe: Revelation, and the CG reboot He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The latter hasn’t had a tie-in comic announced yet, which is understandable: the reboot is a very serialized origin story, and there aren’t a lot of gaps to explore yet, except for what happened to Prince Adam and his uncle Keldor before the series, which wouldn’t be that interesting. Still, it’s something to look forward to.
Dirty Harry:
Today marks 50 years since the release of Dirty Harry, the first in the classic crime series starring Clint Eastwood as police inspector Harry Callahan. Callahan was, and always will be, a complex and controversial character, a “rotten pig” who nevertheless battled corrupt cops, and declined to arrest women who turned to revenge after being raped — the films are undoubtedly conservative catnip, but they also reflect real issues with law enforcement. It’s unlikely there’ll ever be another Dirty Harry film, which is why a comic book would be a great opportunity to revisit the character from a current perspective (although taking him out of the ’70s might render him a little generic.)
Incidentally, DC owner Warner Bros. distributed the films, so… Batman vs. Dirty Harry anyone?
