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

With this issue, Mark Verheiden and Luke McDonnell tell one of the most powerful stories yet to grace the series, a tale of a father and his son. The son is sick and getting sicker, and the medicine the father provides not doing anything for him, not to mention his wife who is also starting to feel ill. Unbeknownst to the father, he has been hauling barrels of pesticides and poisons from the ships that arrive in port, being told they were harmless when they were anything but. This is where his son comes in, for he soon learns about the dangerous chemicals he has been hauling and when returning home, he finds his wife dead and his son on death’s door. With nothing left to do, he carries his son all the while feeling ill himself, to the top of the mountain, taking the same journey he and his father did when he was small. All of it, in a word, is heartbreaking. Verheiden is a master when it comes to pulling on the heartstrings of the reader, the man able to make his audience empathize and feel for the characters he puts forth in twenty-two or so short pages. Here it is a simple story with fairly generic players and yet, his words craft a tale that one can identify with on the deepest of levels and it stays with the reader long after it is finished. Adding to it are McDonnell’s pencils which really drive it all home with some compelling visuals, pictures that cannot help but bring a tear to the eye and it is his best issue so far in this series. However, one cannot forget The Phantom, for he too factors into this story. While he is having a little fun in the sun with Diana Palmer, he gets word of what is happening down at the docks and within Bangalia because of it. He is angry to be sure and as readers soon learn, somebody is going to pay the price as only The Phantom can deliver. While the drama is high throughout, there is still time for a fair bit of action and it is just as thrilling as always, especially when The Phantom goes up against impossible numbers. The only thing that would have been nice was to see the man and his son survive and yet, it would not have packed the punch that it did and would have ended up being just another Phantom story. Great stuff from a fantastic creative team.

5 out of 5