Ben Ali Ayoob

CHARACTER
Ben Ali Ayoob
Gender	Male
Birth	Before 1922 Egypt
Death	1936 Switzerland
Nationality	Egyptian (birth) Swiss
Profession(s)	Collector of antiquities

"There are few men men in this world whom I respect, Professor Jones. And there are even fewer whom I admire, you are both."

―Ben Ali Ayoob to Indiana Jones

Ben Ali Ayoob was an Egyptian-born Swiss millionaire.

Biography

Early life

An Egyptian by birth, as a younger man, Ben Ali Ayoob participated in Howard Carter's 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. Such experience had a profound effect on Ayoob, fostering an intense interest in obtaining historical artifacts, devoting his considerable wealth to their collection.

At some point of his life, Ali Ayoob performed a small favor for the potentate of the Ismailis, the Middle East equivalent to the Japanese ninjas. Out of gratitude, they supplied him with a troop of Ismailis for his own.

In his pursuit for antiquities, Ali Ayoob headquartered himself in Switzerland, but went on to establish several secondary abodes to house his collection. By the mid-1930s, Ayoodb had grown obsessed with the Fourth Nail, an early Christian artifact associated with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Run-ins with Indiana Jones

In 1936, when the American archaeologist Indiana Jones was ambushed and nearly killed by indigenous Australians as he attempted to recover the Arnhem Calendar Ring from the Australian desert, Ali Ayoob sent his team of Ismailis to help him after being notified of Indy's whereabouts by his sources. After saving Jones, the Ismailis took the archaeologist to Ayoob's base where Ayoob introduced himself to the American and asked him to acquire the Fourth Nail for him, which was in the possession of a group of gypsies. Jones refused and Ayoob, laughing, let him go after asking him why not and Indy responded by saying that he had half a dozen reasons to not do so in reference to the bullets in his gun.

Not taking no for an answer, Ayoob sent his Ismailis to follow Jones, ambushing Jones' gypsy friend Torino. Jones rescued him but the Ismailis tailed Jones to his meeting with Phuri Dai, Keeper of the Fourth Nail. The Ismailis then attempted to steal the Nail from the gypsies, mysteriously being allowed to do so by Dai, but upon touching the relic, all the Ismailis succumbed to mysterious stab wounds through their hearts. After hearing nothing from his specialist team in twenty-four hours, Ayoob concluded that they had failed and were not coming back to Australia, declining to send a second team after the relic due to assuming Jones kept it and forcing him to relocate.

Later that same year, National Museum curator Marcus Brody was framed for replacing the Arhem Calendar Ring with a counterfeit, leading Jones to investigate as Osborn Sloams-Hagen was assigned as Brody's temporal replacement. Eventually, Jones found that Ayoob had hired the Cuban sugar plantation owner Juan Soto to hire a thief to steal the Ring. Given the information provided by the thief, Brody, Jones and his partner Marion Ravenwood, went to search of Soto who captured them thanks to his wolves. Not revealing that Ayoob was his employer to anyone byt Indy, Soto ended up losing his life in a shark attack after a fight against Jones, who concluded that Ayoob was none other than the one behind Soto's actions. Meanwhile, on his hideout at Guatemala, Ayoob was notified by one of his aides about Soto's death and Albert Peters' arrest, to which Ayoob condluded that Indy was on his way to him to inevitably conclude "their game".

Following Soto's death, the three friends sought out Austin Coleridge, one of Ayoob's associates and a former Princeton University classmate of Brody. Ayoob had hired Coleridge to find the Devil's Heart, the supposed heart of Satan, Prince of Darkness. Jones defeated Coleridge and his goons at the Lucifer Chamber and managed to discover Ayoob's base.

Accompanied by the Nazi assassin Hans Degen disguised as a Scotland Yard official, who had been dispatched by Adolf Hitler to kill Jones but backed off temporarily due to Jones saving his life from one of Coleridge's men, Indy and his allies went to Ayoob's base to apprehend him before getting captured by the Ismailis. With Jones' group at his headquarters, Ayoob revealed his intention to use the Devil's Heart to prey on the people's fears to coerce them into turning over valuable artifacts to him even though he didn't believe that part of Satan's soul resided there. He then asked Jones if he knew about the real difference between them other than their love for their fates, to which Indy mocked his hat, leading Ayoob to conclude that he had enough of Indy's acid jokes and that he would play a lethal one for him by the next day.

With no further use for the archaeologist, as the sun turned white, Ayoob placed Jones, Brody and Degen into an arena with his pet grizzly bear and attempted to seduce Ravenwood, inviting her for breakfast to see the bloody spectacle and sparing her as long she "amused" him. However, Ravenwood helped Indy and Marcus by throwing them a bottle of alcohol Ayoob gave to her after splashing his face with her glass, allowing Indy and Marcus to escape while Degen dealt with the bear. As all this happened, Marion freed Ayoob's other beasts, leading them to attack his Ismailis, much to his dismay. Ayoob cornered the three but noticed that Degen was trying to sneak up on him from behind and shot him. The dying Degen threw the Devil's Heart into a fireplace. Ayoob frantically tried to save the Heart, but by doing so, Ayoob was consumed by the black flames and vaporized, possibly falling prey to the wrath of an angry demon.

Personality and traits

By his own admission, Ben Ali Ayoob didn't respect nor admire most men in the world, noting that the American archaeologist Indiana Jones was a notable exception. He was an extravagant man who enjoyed collecting antiquities. His designs on them was enough incentive to dispatch the Ismailis to rescue Jones from Australian natives in an effort to hire the archaeologist as, in his view, he settled for nothing but the best. His first love, according to himself, was his own fate. He also felt, much like Jones, an attraction towards Marion Ravenwood, sparing her from his wrath as long as she "amused" him. He also detested spoiling his things, as he demanded Indy, Ravenwood and Marcus Brody to move towards his office's window so he could shoot them in a way their blood wouldn't damage his carpet too much.

Ayoob wasn't superstitious, seeing the Devil's Heart as an artifact whose name didn't really mean something but could serve him as a way to control others through hysteria. He also wasn't a man of an acid sense of humor, disliking Indy's sarcastic jokes about his fez hat being funnier than his fedora, reason for which he decided to "play a joke" back by placing Indy, Brody and Hans Degen at the mercy of his pet grizzly bear, all while sitting safely away with Ravenwood for breakfast, not caring that she would see her friends being ripped apart and gutted alive. It would be because of these repugnant actions that Ravenwood would determine that Ayoob not only wasn't a real man, but neither "human" enough, something Ayoob would soon confirm when he admitted that he got Brody discredited from his National Museum job just to lure Indy back to him and kill anyone and those who would protect him to satisfy his petty vengeance.

Behind the scenes

In the Readers of the Lost Ark letters section of issue 12 of The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones, the Marvel Comics writers in charge of the series acknowledged how Ben Ali Ayoob was the first major villain in the comic book line to not have any ties to the Nazis, describing him as a "brand new master villain" who is wealthy, powerful, obsessed and is aided by a bunch of "the most fiercely fanatical followers" anyone could ever see, hoping that the readers would like Ayoob.

Appearances

•  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Fourth Nail: Blood and Sand!"
•  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Fourth Nail: Swords and Spikes!"
•  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Cuban Connection!"
•  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Cuban Connection: Beyond the Lucifer Chamber!"
•  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Cuban Connection: End Run"

Sources

• The Fourth Nail