What do you get when you mix Indiana Jones and Star Wars? You can find out right now in The Adventures of Ulysses Monarch, a new comic written by Marc Guggenheim with art by Harvey Tolibao, which is on Comixology now.
“What started out as a sci-fi adventure really evolved into a series that begs the question, ‘What would it look like if the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises had a baby?'” Guggenheim told Comic Book Club over email. “Because that’s very much what The Adventures of Ulysses Monarch turned out to be. But at the beginning, I was asking a different question, namely, “What if the ‘ancient civilization’ Indiana Jones was exploring was our own?”
To find out more about the book, as well as those totally coincidental “arrow” references, read on.
Comic Book Club: Just to get this out of the way, at one point in issue one, one of the characters says “arrows.” Do you ever hesitate a bit when you have to write that word out in a script?
Marc Guggenheim: Hah! I’m not sure I hesitate, but there’s certainly a feeling of, “Man, do I have any other ideas?” It’s funny, because I’m working on an IP-based animated show right now where one of the protagonists is an archer. I guess every time I think I’ve pulled myself out, they drag me back in…
BTW, Harvey worked a great Arrow Easter Egg into Issue 4.
More seriously, this starts very Indiana Jones, and then segues into Star Wars (or maybe Dune)… What were your inspirations here?
It’s funny, because what started out as a sci-fi adventure really evolved into a series that begs the question, “What would it look like if the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises had a baby?” Because that’s very much what The Adventures of Ulysses Monarch turned out to be. But at the beginning, I was asking a different question, namely, “What if the ‘ancient civilization’ Indiana Jones was exploring was our own?”
You’ve got Harvey Tolibao on this — why was he the right pick for the book? Or rather, what does he bring to the material?
Harvey and I had done an X-Men arc together back in the day. And we’d been talking about doing a creator-owned book together. When our schedules aligned to work on it, I went through my notebook of ideas and Monarch struck me as the perfect fit. The X-Men story Harvey and I did was a sci-fi epic and I was really struck by the depth and imagination of Harvey’s design sense. He’s amazing at world-building. And his style is very dynamic while also being highly detailed. It’s really no surprise that he went on to do Star Wars for Dark Horse and Monarch certainly is informed by a Star Wars-esque aesthetic.
Ulysses has the classic gruff adventurer teamed with a plucky young girl thing going on… What is it that’s so appealing about this pairing?
It’s funny, but I have two daughters and when I look back on the various creator-owned books I’ve written in this period, they all have some father/daughter pairing running through them. Clearly, my subconscious has been hard at work.
This series is very action-focused (said complimentarily)… Was that about leaning into Tolibao’s skills, grabbing the reader right off, or, I guess something else?
Well, I certainly knew that Harvey is terrific at action, so there was a comfort level to leaning into that. At the same time, the core conceit of the books was always adventure which is inherently action-driven.
Things seem to be just getting started in the first issue; what can you tease about what’s to come in the series?
There are a lot of unexpected twists and turns, including killing Casey and Ulysses, albeit at different points in the story. No, really. No adventure would be complete without cliffhangers and we went very extreme with ours.
The Adventures Of Ulysses Monarch #1 is now live on Comixology.
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