Henry Jones, Jr.? Who is that? Oh, did you say, Indiana Jones? Mention the first name in my house growing up and you'd be met with blank stares, but throw out the second, and each member of my family, including my little sister, would begin to hum the John Williams theme song. So, it's no surprise that I get nostalgic every time I see the Fedora-shaped silhouette of Harrison Ford rising up in the opening credits of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the feeling doesn't go away even after the final riding into the sunset with his motley crew in The Last Crusade.

For all of my childhood and pre-adolescent years, Indiana Jones was my hero. You could see glimmers of him in Han Solo (obviously,) in MacGuyver, in various incarnations of 1980s and 1990s superheroes, Robin Hoods and others. And I saw him in the mirror, or at least a younger version, when I donned my Fedora (yes, I bought one) and cracked my whip. And for every group of kids that dashed around like the crew of the Millennium Falcon, fighting over who would play the roles of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca, there were moments, in private, where we tried to imitate swinging from one platform to another with our trusty whip.

Now, years later, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have announced the unleashing of a new Indiana Jones adventure, another episode in what seems like a Saturday morning serial.

Unlike the Star Wars trilogy that started it all, I find myself impressed by the majority of the Indiana Jones adventures when I revisit them. While the production is spotty at times with A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back (or if you just hate Ewoks), Indiana Jones lives timelessly in the 1930s, battling Nazis and wreaking havoc on the forces of evil and injustice. The humor is still funny, the acting still appropriate for the subject material, and the stunts done in a way that CGI can't make look terribly outdated just on principle.

Flashing forward twenty-five years from the first installment, we can see that Indiana Jones has undergone some transition. His path began pursuing fortune and glory in Raiders, but by the end of Crusade, he shows that while superheroes take days off, the epitome of everyman is constantly growing, adapting and developing. What made Indiana Jones likeable was his approachability, his resoluteness and his bravery, for a preadolescent (and a young adult!), but his longstanding position in my hierarchy of heroes is due to his ability to grow. There is a maverick attitude that every hero seems to possess, but the growth toward world-class hero happens before our eyes, on screen. There are no mandatory books or seasons 1-4 to understand before sitting down with the trilogy of adventures: it is just Harrison Ford onscreen, doing his thing.

Chronicling the three previously released adventures, I've attempted to break down the development of the man himself.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

We must begin our journey with the ultimate opening scene, defying sudden death with the giant poster (insert shout-out to MGM here so you can see it for yourself), and recognize that our archaeologist finds himself in danger because of his own greed and foolishness.

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