Christmas Cheer!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers - may they be filled with the love of Christ and the joy of family (and of mashup art)!

That Time Atomic Robo Got A Shoeshine From Short Round

So after a fairly heavy storyline in which Robo wakes up from his detour to the late nineteenth century to discover that the world in under the control of a US Government conspiracy started to oppose him, specifically, and being attacked by kaiju, the latest issue of the Atomic Robo webcomic is delving into the past for some wacky espionage shenanigans in 1938 China.

To be more precise, Robo visits the Japanese-occupied city of Shanghai, where he makes contact with a rather familiar-looking member of the resistance forces. It is, of course, Short Round, first seen rescuing Indiana Jones from gangsters in the opening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - the New York Giants hat is a dead giveaway. It only makes sense, after all, that even if he ended up spending some time acting as Indy's sidekick elsewhere in the world (he does pop up in this capacity from time to time in the Indiana Jones Expanded Universe, most notably in the sadly non-canonical Into the Great Unknown), he would return to his native Shanghai to help repel the invading Japanese. This would also explain what Short Round was doing while Indy was hunting for the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which also takes place in 1938.

And lest the reader think that the hat is a coincidence - it's not impossible that two such hats were floating around in Shanghai even in the 1930s - there's the little matter of the place Robo gets sent for the next meeting:

No, Robo, there is not.

While it's not quite the venerable Club Obi Wan (and yes, folks, that's a Star Wars joke), it might possibly be the same building, and it's almost certainly named after Willie Scott's memorable last performance before she got dragged into Short Round and Indy's escape. Perhaps Lao Che was in a nostalgic mood when he was doing the remodeling. We may yet find out, as Robo has yet to do more than walk in the front door of the club. Might Lao Che himself be waiting inside? It wouldn't be very much out of character for the writers of the comic - the last issue, after all, was very much a homage to Pacific Rim, while the one prior to that ended with cameo appearances from Agents West and Gordon from The Wild, Wild, West. And the name of this storyline, as it turns out, is The Temple of Od . . .

A Remembrance For "Raiders"

Taking a quick break from the Book Challenge, I'd like to mention a particularly auspicious movie anniversary.

Thirty years ago today saw the theatrical release of Raiders of the Lost Ark, by most metrics one of the best films ever made. It's certainly one that had a measurable impact on me, even though I didn't actually see it until I was in my teens.

Once I did, however, it quickly became one of my favorite films*. A large part of this, I think is my appreciation for Indiana Jones as a character - he's a much more intellectual character than many similar heroes, and as many encounters with characters played by Pat Roach shows, isn't always (or even often) able to win a fight simply by overpowering his opponent.

Raiders is also a fairly tightly-plotted movie, moving along from scene to scene with just enough explanation to be understandable, without losing momentum.

And boy is there a lot of momentum.

Despite a few mis-steps (in particular, Brody's recounting of the Ark's appearances in the Bible has always seemed a bit exaggerated to me), it's easy to see why this movie is so highly regarded - and I'm sure that thirty more years won't change that at all.

*Although, to be truthful, I slightly prefer Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But only slightly.