Harrison Ford has played two of cinema’s most iconic characters in his career, and funnily enough, they’re both created by George Lucas. There’s a lot of crossover between both space-faring smuggler Han Solo and adventuring archaeologist Indiana Jones, then, but the franchises have always kept resolutely separate. That is, apart from one Star Wars comic which granted fans’ wishes by having Indy encounter Han. But it’s kind of a case of be careful what you wish for, as it was surprisingly tragic.
Star Wars 19, published by Dark Horse in 2004, is a non-canon anthology comic that includes “Into the Great Unknown,” a story from W. Haden Blackman, Steve Dutrol, Sean Murphy and Dan Jackson. It sees Han and Chewie crash the Millennium Falcon into an early Earth, where Han is killed by Native Americans. Many decades later, a certain archaeologist investigates the myth of the Sasquatch and discovers it’s really Chewbacca, mad with grief over the death of his best pal. Indy then enters the abandoned Falcon and uncovers Han’s remains.
Check out a few panels for yourself below:
As you can see, the final panel of the story sees Indy facing the skeleton of his doppelgänger, recognizable for Han’s shirt and jacket combo and the arrow through his chest. Indy’s line, “But it’s all somehow familiar,” is a loaded one as it suggests that, if Indiana Jones exists in the Star Wars universe, then he’s a reincarnation of Solo. Hence the similarity in their appearances. This does sort of fit with both the supernatural themes of Indiana Jones and the spiritualism of Star Wars, but obviously this is a non-canon tale, so it’s not a proper confirmation that the two franchises are linked.
While Ford is likely done as Han after The Rise of Skywalker, he is due to reprise his other character one more time in Disney’s Indiana Jones 5, coming in July 2022.