Writer – Peter David
Artist – Sal Velluto
Colours – Eugenio Mattozzi
Letters – Kenneth Bruzenak

The final issue of The Phantom begins with the entire team, that being The Phantom, Diana Palmer, The Baroness and Jimmy Wells, all locked up and awaiting whatever it is the Fates and Oshara have in store for them. Whatever it is, cannot be any good and they know that there will most likely be a point where they are fighting for their lives. Escape at the moment is impossible so all they can do is just wait and see where tings go. Soon enough they are summoned and they are it is in the arena where Jimmy and The Phantom will have to battle two opponents. One is Oshara’s husband who has been looking forward to killing the interlopers and the other is the pirate from the Singh Brotherhood. This battle is not going to be easy and the action that takes place is what readers had hoped to see from the beginning of the series. Artist Sal Velluto does a great job at making everything exciting and Peter David who has written this tale does just as good by making everything as tense as can be. There could be only one outcome though and with a little help from Devil, the two men beat the best that Ophir had to offer. During this fiasco, Oshara’s son realizes that Jimmy is his father and he lends a hand during the fight. This leads to him becoming an enemy of Ophir as well and just when it seems like the entire city is going to tear the men apart at Oshara’s command, a herd of elephants comes to save the day at Jimmy’s call. Unlike many of the past issues, the pacing in this book is quite brisk and it is over before one knows it. That is not a bad thing but it does seem like it was a bit rushed. Overall, the series needed to find that middle ground between being too slow and too fast and it never really accomplished that. It was the perfect example of writing for the trade and when reading it all in one go, it holds up much better than it does as monthly singles and is a lot more enjoyable. The artwork was solid from Velluto and David continues to prove that he can write a fun adventure yarn, but it would have been nice to see just a little more on the resolution front when it came to the Singh Brotherhood. At the very least, The Phantom and his companions were able to rescue who they came to rescue. Still, their time in the fabled city of Ophir was a short one and so hopefully one day, the makers of this book will be able to go back and tell another tale with the same setting and perhaps see how Jimmy and The Baroness are getting on. This may not have been the best tale of The Phantom ever told but it had enough here to please any fan of the character.

3.5 out of 5