The Phantom #10 Moonstone Writer: Chuck Dixon Pencils: EricJ Inks: Peter Guzman Cover: Doug Klauba
In this issue, the Phantom protects a train filled with African slaves that is fleeing one country to another. But the slave traders won’t give up and continue to pursue the train, using superstition to stall it. The task is monumental, and the added baggage that the Phantom save along the way may prove enough to slow the train once and for all. Can the Phantom free all the slaves before the slave traders catch up?
This is an adventure story without any depth. There are a few tricks used here and there that keep the story in a modern setting, but the cast of castaways is too large to be of interest. As this is part two of a storyline, a lot of information was not available, making this series difficult to pick up for new readers. The Phantom is easy to understand though. In the end this story is nothing more than a modernized good guy versus bad guys’ brawl where we know the hero will not fail.
The artwork is decent with many facial expressions. Where EricJ fail is in his storytelling. This is an adventure tale with lots of visual action. The action is often unclear and requires a second reading to be understood. It stops the reading flow. Instead of worrying about whether the Phantom will make it at the end of the issue, one wonders what happened on the page that was just read. The crazy panel layout should be abandoned for something standard so the artist can focus on telling a story instead of displaying cool action shots.
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