Mikael Lyck from Chronicle Chamber reviews Fantomen 14-15/2023 featuring the following stories:
"Belle époque, del 4: Med ballong mot månen" ("Balloon for the Moon") by Pidde Andersson and Percy Ochoa
"Ku Klux Klan" by Ulf Granberg and Heiner Bade
"Den försvunna piloten" ("The Missing Aviatrix") by Fred Fredericks
"Thorgal" by Yann and Fred Vignaux
The cover artist is Luca Erbetta and I really am enjoying the diversity of the Fantomen covers lately. This cover has nice clear colors.
In the Editorial page, Andreas Eriksson writes about Diana's hair color. In many stories from Sweden she has red brown hair, but in the newspaper stories she has black. The editorial decision is that the Fantomen comic will continue having different colors depending on the source.
The main story is "Belle époque, del 4: Med ballong mot månen" ("Balloon for the Moon") by Pidde Andersson and Percy Ochoa. The story is quite imaginative and reeks of Jules Verne inspiration. As with the earlier episodes I did enjoy this very much and it looks great in colour.
The next story is "Ku Klux Klan" by Ulf Granberg and Heiner Bade. This is a Team Fantomen classic, the story is partly inspired by "Mississippi Burning" but the reveal of the bad guys is not a real surprise to any reader.
We are also presented a Mandrake the Magician story "Den försvunna piloten" ("The Missing Aviatrix") by Fred Fredericks. This story features a cameo of Phantom and is a nice touch. It has never been published by Frew and is the first known time the story has been printed in a comic.
The editorial staff have asked for feedback if readers want more Mandrake in their Fantomen comic, I myself am sitting a bit on the fence, I do not really enjoy the Mandrake stories, but it feels like a natural part of the Fantomen comic because it also was Lee Falks creation. Would love to hear your thoughts.
The final story is the first part of a new "Thorgal" story by Yann and Fred Vignaux. There is so many Thorgal stories now, this one has some cool references to the first stories.
Lastly we get a preview of the next issue featuring a new Team Fantomen story by Frognes, which is his first Phantom for 9 years with art by Karri Leppenän. We also get the conclusion of the "Thorgal" story and the result of the best Fantomen cover of 2022!
Until next time, Happy Phantoming!
All Fantomen reviews will be included in our monthly X-Band: The Phantom Podcasts. You can find out more at our website and or subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos. Thanks also goes to Jörgen Karlsson for his help creating the Fantomen review intro which will now be featured for all reviews by Mikael Lyck.
