Review of Zauberstern Phantom #21

Christian Moller reviews Zauberstern #21 that was out in late October 2025. The issue features the following stories that is a mix of stories first published in the USA by by Charlton Comics in the1970's, DC Comics in the late 1980's and a modern day Daily newspaper story.

• "Affen" ("Apes") by Mark Verheiden and Luke McDonnell

• "Todeszug" ("Trains") by Mark Verheiden and Luke McDonnell

• "Das Klippenkönigreich" ("The Cliff Kingdom") by Don Jon Arneson and Jim Aparo

• "Gurans Herausforderung" ("The Challenge") by Tony DePaul and Paul Ryan

You can purchase this comic and other back issues of Zauberstern Phantom comics from their website.

This comic is of great value with 100 pages of comics in full colour on great-quality paper for 10€. This magazine sees Zauberstern reusing a past cover instead of creating their own new covers, which they have done previously and seems to be done more and more often. Do you prefer the publisher creating their own unique covers?

This cover was created by Luke McDonnell and was originally used as the cover #8 for the DC Comics series, originally published in 1989. Again, like previous issues, Zauberstern re-use another cover for a double page poster from artist Timo Wuerz for his Zauberstern Phantom Spezial #1.

While the printing and colours are of top quality, it was hard to read the coloured text boxes of the two DC Comics stories. The "Das Klippenkönigreich" ("The Cliff Kingdom") by Don Jon Arneson and Jim Aparo was previously published in a Bastei comic in red, black and white.

Ensure you read our interview with the publishers and editors behind Zauberstern here - Interview with Simeon Hrissomallis and Charles Bone. You will learn about the extra albums and magazines planned to be published in 2025 by Zauberstern. We have reviewed the first special magazine on our platforms.

All Zauberstern and other German comic 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.

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