Writer – Denny O’Neil
Artist – Jack Sparling

Something is wrong in the jungle. The animals are spooked and running for their lives. Where they once lived it is deathly silent. Those tribes that live in the area are also experiencing strange bouts of violence and distrust at anything out of the ordinary. Bomba knows that he should probably stay away from that particular area but his curiosity has the better of him. All he can do is warn his animal friends not to follow him, for he goes headlong into danger, not knowing what that danger might be. Denny O’Neil hops on board to script this issue and the man writes a very compelling tale, beginning it all off with a look back to the past at a race of men who had strange powers. Even so, they are almost wiped out to a man except for seven who escaped and put themselves into a state of hibernation, to wake at some future point when hopefully, whatever it was that killed them would itself be long gone. Back in the present, O’Neil gives Bomba a bit of trouble but it soon passes and he finds himself with a travelling companion in the form of Jobo, the Chieftan’s son and the two soon become fast friends as they travel into the unknown. The only thing to really mark the passage of the two boys is a strange glow in the sky and it is ominous, to put it lightly. They know not what awaits them but they soon find out as they find themselves under attack and those that they face are no normal men. It takes everything Bomba has to defeat them as Jobo is incapacitated and while they get away, their freedom does not last for long as they are captured. O’Neil and artist Jack Sparling then introduce the big bad of the story, one Krag who goes on to boast about his past and of how he is going to remake the Earth as it was thousands of years ago. Eventually, the boys break free, tragedy happens and Bomba swears revenge as Krag escapes and disappears, one would hope for good. This was a fantastic issue, one filled with drama and action, excitement and sadness and the best book in the series thus far. Sparling’s artwork is on point and all of it moves at a brisk pace, O’Neil injecting a little more life into it than there was previously, not that the last five issues were all that bad. Even better is the fact that this story will continue into the next issue providing a cliffhanger that gives the reader a reason to come back for more and if that issue is as good as this one, it will definitely be worth the time.

4 out of 5