Indiana Jones has gone on countless adventures, both on and off cinema screens. The Indiana Jones franchise first began with 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark and marked Harrison Ford’s debut as the world’s most famous and beloved archeologist Dr. Henry Jones Jr., better known as Indiana Jones. Since then, four further Indiana Jones movies have been produced, but Indy’s adventures hardly stop there.
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The popularity of the Indiana Jones franchise has led to Indy adventures being told in books, comics, and TV shows, along with many Indiana Jones video games. Some of Indy’s expanded universe stories have been nearly as popular as the main Indiana Jones movie series, but some have also receded a bit from the spotlight. Nonetheless, it can truly be said that the entirety of Indiana Jones’ catalog of adventures is worth diving into for Indy fans.
Here are 10 great Indiana Jones adventures outside of the movies.
Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead
Steve Perry’s 2009 novel Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead acts as a prequel to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and provides some backstory for Indy’s relationship with his friend George “Mac” McHale (Ray Winstone) in the movie. Taking place in 1943, Indy and Mac team up on an adventure to Haiti to find a mysterious voodoo artifact known as the Heart of Darkness. However, Indy and Mac must battle both Nazi and Japanese soldiers also pursuing the artifact.
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull provided an unexplored backstory of Indy’s military background when the United States officially entered World War II, revealing that he and Mac worked as double agents for the U.S. government during the war. Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead not only takes Indy on a gripping literary adventure but also fleshes out his relationship with Mac before the latter joins forces with Soviet military leader Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which makes the novel a great read for Indiana Jones fans.
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Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
What could be a more natural lost city for Indiana Jones to search for than the sunken city of Atlantis? The LucasArts point-and-click game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis does exactly that, sending Indy on a quest for Atlantis in 1939. Fate of Atlantis first debuted in 1992 and has since seen numerous updates and re-releases on modern PC and gaming consoles, including a Wii release in 2009.
While Indiana Jones has become a staple of adventure video games, Fate of Atlantis has somewhat fallen through the cracks in the modern discourse of Indiana Jones canon. Nonetheless, gamers and Indy aficionados alike should definitely embark with Indy on his adventure to the lost city of Atlantis for one of his most unique adventures outside of cinema screens.
Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny
Indiana Jones has also been seen in the pages of comic books, mostly produced by Marvel and Dark Horse, and 1995’s Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny is one of Indy’s comic book highlights. Picking up right where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ends, Spear of Destiny jumps ahead to 1945, with Indy and his father Henry Jones Sr. once again in a race against the Nazis to find a historical relic — in this case, the legendary spear said to have pierced the side of Jesus at the crucifixion, known as the Spear of Destiny.
The father-son chemistry of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery stands as one of the major highlight of The Last Crusade and of the entire Indiana Jones franchise. While Connery declined to come out of acting retirement for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny gives Indy fans one more adventure with the Jones duo. That alone makes it a worthy comic book addition to the Indiana Jones franchise.
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Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix
Long before the Philosopher’s Stone was brought to worldwide prominence by Harry Potter, it was the latest artifact Indiana Jones was searching for in the four-issue Dark Horse Comics series Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix. The comic follows Indy as he tries to find the mythical artifact the Philosopher’s Stone, with the Nazis also in pursuit of it in the hopes of using its supernatural powers to resurrect deceased Nazi soldiers.
Like The Spear of Destiny before it, The Iron Phoenix was originally conceived as a LucasArts game and was intended as a follow-up to Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis following the latter’s popularity. Despite these gaming plans ultimately not being realized, in the end, the comic book medium thankfully preserved The Iron Phoenix (and The Spear of Destiny) as another thrilling Indiana Jones adventure.
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – “Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock’s Eye”
The TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles showed just how much adventure has been in Indy’s blood since childhood, and one of its highlight episodes is “Treasure of the Peacock’s Eye.” The episode sees Indy (Sean Patrick Flannery) embark on an adventure with his friend Remy Baudouin (Ronny Coutteure) to find the mysterious artifact known as the Peacock’s Eye.
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles consistently excelled at showing Indy’s youthful adventures with both gripping stakes and genuine educational value for younger viewers. Moreover, Sean Patrick Flannery also cements himself as an engaging and likable adventurer like the archeologist Harrison Ford embodied before him. Fans of Indiana Jones who haven’t seen The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles could do worse than to give “Treasure of the Peacock’s Eye” a look.
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – “Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal”
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles goes all the way back to the beginning of Indy’s adventures in “Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal.” The feature length-episode combines the individual stories “My First Adventure” and “Mexico, March 1916” (Lucasfilm having re-issued the series as 22 movies consisting of two merged episodes each for home media release), with Corey Carrier and Sean Patrick Flannery respectively playing Indy as a child and teenager. Carrier’s tale focuses on Indy’s excursion to Egypt as a young boy, with Flannery’s portion devoted to Indy’s venture into the Mexican Revolution and adventure with Pancho Villa in 1916.
The Curse of the Jackal provides an exciting dual tale of a young Indy at two phases of his adventurous life, and a great introduction for viewers new to The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Moreover, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull directly references the episode, with Harrison Ford’s grown Indy sharing that he rode with Pancho Villa with his son Mutt Williams (Shia Labeouf).
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The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – “Mystery of the Blues”
Harrison Ford’s performances as Indiana Jones aren’t only found on the big-screen, with Ford returning as a bearded Indy for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episode “Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues” (a feature-length combo of “Chicago, April 1920” and “Chicago, May 1920”). “Mystery of the Blues” follows Indy, now an archeology student at the University of Chicago, in a new adventure in Prohibition-era Chicago in the roaring ’20s.
While George Hall typically portrayed the elderly Indy in the show’s bookend segments, Harrison Ford returns as Indy in the show’s framing story of Dr. Jones’ in the ’50s. Flannery and Ford’s dual appearances in the episode add a feel of direct lineage to Indy’s growth to adulthood, and history buffs will also enjoy Indy meeting such figures as Elliot Ness and Ernest Hemingway.
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – “The Trenches of Hell”
Indiana Jones’ big-screen adventures have frequently had such historical conflicts as World War II and the Cold War as their backdrops, but The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles went as far as to drop Indy right into one of the bloodiest wars in human history in “Trenches of Hell” (the title given to the combined version of the episodes “Somme,” “Early August 1916,” and “Germany, Mid-August 1916”). In “Trenches of Hell”, Sean Patrick Flannery’s Indy fights alongside Belgian soldiers in the trench warfare of World War I.
While Indy’s military background is referenced in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, “Trenches of Hell” shows how early Indy entered military life alongside his archeological pursuits, and it remains one of the show’s most enthralling stories of Young Indy’s adventures. Indy even crosses paths with Charles De Gaulle in “Trenches of Hell,” another of the show’s countless instances of Indy bumping shoulders with historical figures.
Indiana Jones and The Genesis Deluge
Indiana Jones has sought out his share of Judeo-Christian artifacts, and the 1992 novel Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge sets him after a literally and figuratively huge one, namely Noah’s Ark. The novel sees Indy devoting his attention to his life as a professor of archeology. However, when Indy gets the call to embark on an expedition to locate Noah’s Ark, the thrill of adventure leads him to pick up his fedora and bullwhip again.
Indy’s excursion to Turkey to find the second ark of his archeological career pits him against many new challenges, obstacles, and adversaries, with plenty of adventure along the way. Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge is another great read for Indy fans looking to join Dr. Jones on a literary adventure.
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Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth
Indy is in a race against the Nazis again in Max McCoy’s 1997 novel Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth, which acts as a prequel to the entire Indiana Jones film series with its 1934 setting. This time, Indy and his ally Ulla Tornaes are on a quest to find an underground city hidden somewhere under the Arctic.
With the Nazis in pursuit of the city, the stakes are once again high with Adolf Hitler eyeing another historical relic that will enable Nazi Germany to conquer the world. With the Third Reich once again giving Indy a challenge on another adventure, his immortal words of “Nazis, I hate these guys!” from The Last Crusade once more ring true. Ultimately, Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth is another fun adventure in Indy’s literary career and one that Indy fans should read.
Indiana Jones movies are streaming on Disney+.
