Writer – Mark Verheiden
Artist – Luke McDonnell
Colours – Anthony Tollin
Letters – Bob Pinaha

With this issue, author Mark Verheiden decides to delve into the current Shadow’s past, that of Kit Walker and of when he was but a child and discovered pirates for the first time. They would not be real pirates, but those on the big screen in all their colourful and exaggerated glory and he would be enchanted immediately, never knowing the full truth of them until later in life. Verheiden cuts between the past and the present throughout the book and it is in the now where he must deal with the real-life threat of piracy, of a group of men preying upon the innocent in the most vile of ways. To bring these pirates to justice or at the very least, to deliver some measure of justice upon them, The Phantom will have to go undercover and he does so with two police officers on a luxury boat, the perfect carrot to lure in their prey. Just as they had thought, it is not long before the pirates show up and kidnap them and take the boat for themselves and bring everything to their hideout which would have been the second mistake they had just made that day. As readers might guess after this point, The Phantom makes short work of the villains, taking down the entire enterprise and rescuing everyone who had been kidnapped over the last several months. Like the previous two entries in the series, this was an incredibly well-crafted issue by Verheiden who seems to know exactly how to get the best out of the character while making it all completely captivating. The transitions between past and present were done expertly and the story itself, while simple, was executed perfectly. Breathing a bit of life into the story would be Luke McDonnell once again and while his pencils would be slightly rougher this go round, they give it all an edge which complemented the story and its high seas crimes. Even better is the fact that this issue could be read all by itself without having read anything else of the series or of the character and without it continuing into the next issue. It was a complete tale with a beginning, a middle and an end and it could not have been any better while proving that sometimes all it takes is an idea with a bit of talent behind it to give readers everything they could ask for. Excellent stuff!

4.5 out of 5