“I have that spider right where I want him.”
The Phantom #1
Mad Cave (2025)
“The Tempest”
WRITER: Ray Fawkes
ARTIST: Russell Owen
SELECTED COVER ART: Freddie Williams II, though the Neon Ichiban digital version has the alternate covers as well.
LETTERER: Taylor Esposito
EDITORS: Sarah Brunstad with Chas! Pagburn
BOOK DESIGNER: Miguel A. Zapata
A drug smuggling plane crashes near the Bandar village. The Phantom takes down the crazed pilots. However, the chief is dying and the smugglers’ boss soon arrives…and he’s a member of the Singh Brotherhood! He wants his drugs, and the village under his power. With the chief dying, the Phantom’s friend Guran is acting chief, and Asif Singh is ready to send the son to the afterlife with his father.
What they got right: The story is overall a good setup to the arc. The colors are bright, a rarity for modern comics, and I can get used to the art. It’s good…
What they got wrong:…but not what I’m use to from a Phantom story. It has that “all-ages” feel (and I’m certainly not against that), which matches the rest of the comic, but in previous comics, even the newspaper comics, it looked different. I’m not sure how to explain it in words and I don’t hate it. It just fits this category better. Also, the characters are a bit off. The Phantom, Guran, and Diana are bit too…upbeat? Maybe? It’s just a lighter tone than I’m using to seeing out of them. The only actual complaint I have is between the narrator, the Phantom’s internal narration, and even a moment of Asif’s (and that name looks too much like “as if”, probably unintentionally) I sometimes wonder whose saying what as the Phantom tells Diana about the plane crash.
What I think overall: It’s a good story and despite the “got wrong” looking longer most of my complaints are minor and personal rather than anything critical. It’s a good start to the arc, which I’m long since over in the 2020 (I miss single issue stories), and it could be a good, albeit slightly different, take on the Ghost Who Walks.
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