By Joe Douglas
This latest issue from Frew is one of the worst stories I have read in
a long time. 2006 has so far been quite a good year for Frew as they
have published many brilliant stories such as Death in Cyberspace
and Mistaken Identity. Of course there have been a few rotters, such
as all the tales in the Diana Disappears arc, but even those seem
good compared to this.
I recently said on the ChronicleChamber.com Forums that I’d rather
watch Big Brother than read this story again. I stand by that. The
egotistical contestants on BB have more character and are infinitely
more interesting than any of the characters in this story.
David Bishop, who penned this story, has written some of the best
Phantom stories such as Death of a Phantom (Frew # 1399) and
Cutbush Pt 2: Maniac At Large (Frew #1444). Why, then, is this so
terrible? It’s as if he wrote it just to get it out of the way. David is a
busy man as he writes more than just The Phantom. His Doctor Who
audio dramas for Big Finish are quite good, so perhaps he was busy
on one of those.
Whatever the reason, this story is bland and boring. I didn’t care
about any of the characters or what was happening to them. It has
been a long time since we last saw Uncle Dave and Lilly in a story and
their return should have been exiting. Rather, I couldn’t have cared
less. There is no pace to the book, no feeling at all. The story plods
along and never raises any emotion from the reader. The only decent
scene is where Diana and the Phantom are having the disappearance
of Lilly’s friend explained to them in an interesting “split screen”
technique. However, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.
As for the art…. Felmang seems to have a reputation as a respected
Phantom artist, probably because he has been doing it for so long.
However, here his art is uninspired and dull. There is no energy to it
and everyone looks like there is something wrong with them,
especially the women. I’m not sure if it was the power that be at
Egmont who decided on Diana’s new look, or just Felmang and his
fellow artists, but I wish they would get rid of her a-sexual hair do and
return her to the beauty that Sy Barry created.
This is only part one, so lets hope that part two is a huge
improvement. And by the way, why is the Phantom’s costume blue on
this issues cover?
1/5
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