By Joe Douglas
A bit of a mixed bag, this issue. The Skull Mark was a rather boring and predictable story. I wasn’t really interested in what happened, nor did I much care. The idea of examining the life of a man after his encounter with The Phantom is a very interesting one and could lead to any number of plot lines. Unfortunately here this takes a back seat to the much less interesting story of the hotel and its crooked owner. Truly a missed opportunity.
The Wolf Monster was a more enjoyable story. Although it seemed to end much too quickly and felt rushed in part. The darker tone of the story, brilliantly accentuated by Spadari’s art, gave an atmosphere of dread to the tale that many Phantom stories do not have.
The Master of Eden is defiantly one of Lee Falk’s weaker stories. A hum-drum tale where nothing of much interest happens. Eden is a nice idea and this story had potential. If Lee only focused more on the ramifications of the cats hunger – perhaps even have one of them kill off a zebra or something, things would have been much more interesting. As it is the story feels too safe – we know the Phantom is going to sort things – and simply spirals into a by-numbers Phantom tale.
The Ion Dragon was by far the highlight of the issue. One of my favourite Falk tales, this is actually quite a dark story. Two men, one driven by greed, another by revenge, destroy and kill simply for the joy of it. Although the killing is all “off screen” it is implied many times by various characters. The natives constantly say the tank “spits fire and death.”
A very engaging and slightly unsettling story, it really hits you in the face with the brutality of the two criminals, Budd and Bura. Also, the Phantom doesn’t appear until a little after half- way through the story, adding to the characters mystery which completely disappears in later Falk tales, such as The Master of Eden.
So this 4 Story issue wasn’t anywhere as good as the last, but still a decent enough issue.
1/5