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I personally didnt mind the Phantom fighting in broad daylight and him fighting Muslim terrorists. I personally am surprised that other writers have not written any stories featuring this type of stuff (just left up to the Americians) with these people. There is definatly a few good interesting thought provocking stories to be told with him fighting suicide bombers and terrorism.

I also actually liked the bit about Maria calling the Phantom a government pawn which in reality he is. Whenever Luaga needs help, he uses the Phantom. Again I think this could be explored in a bit more detail.

Sure, but we're still waiting for a good, thought provoking story about suicide bombers Instead we just get two pages that say almost nothing. Muslim suicide bombers fight the Phantom, who they see as an oppressor. Why? Where are they? What are they fighting for? What is their cause? How did the Phantom get involved?

Yes he is, but the point is... how does Maria know this? As I say, the Phantom is a mysterious jungle legend. Noone believes he is for real, except the really "superstitious" people. Even if people close to the government know that a mysterious man has helped Luaga, they sure don't know that he is the Phantom, and that the Phantom is a man of flesh and blood.

That is only true to a point though. If Luaga asked the Phantom to do something he didn't agree with there is no way the Phantom would just out and do it. Their relationship all but ended during Lubanga's time because the Phantom disagreed with Luagas ways of "dealing" with Lubanga and wouldn't support him if he used those methods.

I still see and look at the Phantom as a government pawn. Even when Luaga and the Phantom were unfriendly, he still helped when ever possible....

I wonder why we have not yet seen many good thoughtful suicide terrorist stories seeing it is one of the hotest debates/ features at the moment.

This issue could have been better. The artwork was sketchy and unpolished. The villian was one dimensional and somewhat goofy. And the dialogue during the fight scene was forced and unbelievable. As infrequent as these stories come out it would be nice to get more for the hard earned buck. The Phantom is now the only comic book I buy on a regular (?) basis, but if the quality isn't improved I'm not sure how I can justify even that much. I did like the page discussing the Phantom's ring though.

Very uneven issue. The good parts were great, the not so good parts were... well, you get the idea.

The Good: decent art. The real world stuff looked real, and the hallucination had a funky dream like quality to it.
The fight scene. Brutal and action packed.
Mike's handling of the Phantom. The banter doesn't sound too goofy or forced as well as the grim, tough guy lines. Plus, you switch back and forth between them nicely.

The less than good: The clunkiest dialogue as exposition I've ever seen between Manuel and Maria in the flashback. Yikes!

Manuel was a pretty blah bad guy, despite some pretty good bad guy ranting during the fight.
I will cut you some slack because of the last page with the hideously scarred villian swearing vengence. I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff.

You've got a great handle on the guy in purple. If you can just get the rest of the story to match that, you've got my money every month.

You'll be seeing more of Manuel is the issues leading up to #25. Hopefully, after you see more of him, you'll change your opinion of the character.

Not sure if my take on this issue will be meaningful or not, as it came out ages ago. However, it arrived in my mailbox yesterday, and here's my take on it:

I liked the issue. It is certainly not the best Phantom tale Moonstone will publish, but then again, it is very, very far from being the worst. I've seen people criticize it for being "confusing", but clearly, the story is meant to feel kinda patchy, to make the reader as confused as the Phantom must be in his strange situation.

It is fun to once in a while get an issue that is nothing but action, action, and action, and this is one of them. What a cool fight between Manuel and the Phantom. It is great to see a bad guy who can for once match, and even outmatch the Phantom physically.

The cliffhanger is great; with Manuel looking like Two-Face's even uglier brother. I can truly not wait to see him come back to haunt the Phantom (when might this happen, BTW?).

Carlos art is very cool. Shame he's leaving so fast.

Overally, nice job with your first arc, Mike, but I hope to see even better things in the future.

Finally, someone gets what I was going for...

So that is what you have been up to, confusing the readers?? Well, you certainly did a good job on me, I almost thought it was a Phantom book!!

Thanks for clearing that for me!!

CR