By Joe Douglas
This is something of an interesting issue. It is sure to displease some of the more tradition phans out there and as a self-contained story the issue doesn’t really deliver, however I found myself wanting to find out what happens next.
As Jim Shepherd says in introduction the idea of the Phantom giving up his life as the Ghost Who Walks is not a new one. Lee Falk expertly explored this idea in The Normal Life, a truly classic Phantom tale. In The Great Deception, however, writer Claes Reimerthi shows us that, had things been different, there would never have been a second Phantom let alone a 21st.
The story revolves mainly around the first Phantom’s wife, Marabella (who, actually, may not have been the first Phantom’s wife at all, historically speaking,) and her call to return to rule her country. She pleads with her husband to give up his life as an avenger and come with her and their sons to start a new life in Maravilloso. The Phantom agrees and begins to tie up loose ends in his old life. However, as with any Phantom story, there are many schemes and plots also involved and they have a hand in the Phantom’s final decision.
The main problem with the story is that we know for a fact that the 1st Phantom didn’t give up his role as the Ghost Who Walks. There have been 20 Phantoms since his time so already we know, in a way, how the story will end. As such the “great deception” that is refereed to in the title would have to be something very big to give it any weight, and this is the second problem. If the ‘great deception’ is in fact that the first Phantom almost gave up his role then because we already know he eventually decided not to there is no emotional investment in the story. (As this is only part one of the story we can’t be sure this actually is the deception.)This is a shame because Reimerthi could really have gone to town with this but it seems he took a road often traveled. I hope that the second issue proves me wrong on this count.
Shockingly, during the climax of the issue, the Phantom purposefully kills several soldiers. I’m sure these scenes will not sit well with some phans as I myself was taken aback by them and I’m not one to get very uppity about such things. I know some phans do not like violence in their Phantom comics so it will be interesting to see how they react to this story.
While this is one of the better historical stories from Egmont of late it still suffers from common problems of the sub-genre; 2D characters, chunky dialogue and so many strange names the reader can sometimes feel lost. I’ve never been a huge fan of Joan Boix’s art either. It seems clumsy and uninspired. Perhaps it looks nicer in the coloured Egmont editions but in Frew’s black and white books it just looks messy and cluttered.
While this is far from a perfect issue I still have a feeling of anticipation to see where the story goes. After the big set up at the beginning of the book (“It seems that parts [of the Skull Oath] have, er, been edited a bit to make for an inspirational story!” ) coupled with the quite average ending of this issue I can’t help but feel that issue two must be holding something really big in the wings.
I hope this is the case as Egmont’s historical stories have been stale for a long time and they really need something big to shake them up.
Score: 5/10
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