Marya Smirnova was a journalist for The Globe of New York City as a current affairs and archaeology correspondent who was a friend and associate of Indiana Jones from the earliest years of his career.
Biography[]
Early life[]
A reporter,[1] Marya Smirnova met and became friends with Indiana Jones while he was still an aspiring archaeologist.[3] At some point, she also befriended a visitor staying in the US named Sardar, unaware that he was of Indian royalty.[4]
Adventures with Indiana Jones[]
In 1923, Marya Smirnova was in Egypt to cover Howard Carter's excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb. At a hotel, she had a chance encounter with Indiana Jones whose curiosity had been piqued investigating the work of the missing Professor Mortimer and he invited her to join him at the Great Pyramid of Giza. There, they learned that the sarcophagus of pharaoh Kheops had been secretly carried along the Nile to the Necropolis of Thebes, the discovery of which would be an archaeological find to rival Carter. The adventurers followed the trail to the City of Beyond where Smirnova was almost sacrificed by an insane Mortimer trying to bring Kheops back from the dead. However, the site had long since been booby-trapped by the ancient Egyptians so that their ruthless one-time king could never return.[1]
Seven years later, Smirnova's stories on Mahatma Gandhi had garnered international attention. While working in India, she received word that there was more to the history of the City of Lightning than previously thought and called upon Jones, now a famous archaeologist, to help her chase the mystery further. They discovered that the ancient temple had been reestablished near Bhubaneshwar and was concealing a plot to revive the Thuggee cult. During the search, Marya found out that her old friend Sardar was actually Maharajah Narasimba Wodivar of Bhawaniptna. Although the man's suspicious behavior around his palatial Bhubaneshwar residence made the reporter suspect that the aristocrat was the leader of the local Thuggee movement; in the end, Smirnova and Jones revealed that a jaded police captain called Blake had masterminded the Thugs' resurgence. The cultists were undone when the cave marking the entrance to the City of Lightning was destroyed.[4]
By 1935,[5] Marya Smirnova had written and published Warriors of the Clouds, a book on her experiences with the Chachapoyan culture and their ruins, which became Princeton University archaeologist Forrestal's favorite, using it for his expedition to the Temple of the Chachapoyan Warriors from which he never came back.[6]
Marya and Indiana cornered.
In 1936, Marya Smirnova visited Indiana Jones at his home in the US only to find him brawling with a mysterious assailant over the Book of Abraham which had been sent to the archaeologist in the mail. The reporter's arrival helped scare off the attacker and she joined up with Jones once again. The pair's journey into the grimoire led them to Paris and back, in which they discovered a powdered substance that Nicholas Flamel had used to turn lead into gold, and foiled a Nazi plot at a secret mountain base in America to utilize the medieval alchemist's process on an industrial scale to finance the Third Reich. Jones used a flawed version of the powder's formula to blow up the site and, from a safe distance, he and his reporter friend watched the mountain become a makeshift volcano as it spewed its molten contents over a secluded part of the American Southwest.[7]
A year later, Smirnova received a letter from Third Reich Special Antiquities Collection agent Emmerich Voss, who had mounted a worldwide expedition to uncover the stones hidden among sites along the Great Circle including excavations in Giza. Recognizing the request for an interview as a desire for a puff piece, the journalist had written back by October to say that even Indiana Jones wouldn't get such treatment and laughed off her friend being called a fraud, telling Voss that his achievements were dwarfed in comparison by a considerable margin.[2]
Behind the scenes[]
Marya Smirnova was apparently named after the technical director of Bagheera, the French company that published the comic books in which she appears.
Appearances[]
- Indiana Jones et le Secret de la Pyramide (First appearance)
- Indiana Jones et la Cité de la Foudre
- Indiana Jones et le Grimoire Maudit
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Mentioned only)
Sources[]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Indiana Jones et le Secret de la Pyramide
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Indiana Jones et le Grimoire Maudit
- ↑ Indiana Jones et le Secret de la Pyramide is set in 1923. Indiana Jones was doing his studies at the Sorbonne between 1922 and 1925 per Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Indiana Jones et la Cité de la Foudre
- ↑ Warriors of the Clouds: My Journey Through the Ruins of the Chachapoyan Culture is noted to be a favorite of Forrestal, who disappeared around 1935 per the Raiders of the Lost Ark Sourcebook
- ↑ Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- ↑ Indiana Jones et le Grimoire Maudit