The Phantom - The Charlton Years Volume Four!

The fourth volume of The Phantom - The Complete Series: The Charlton Years from Hermes Press presents us with a transitory period for the character. We will encounter the final issues by longtime Phantom artist Pat Boyette, we will face a quartet of issues which reprint Phantom material from Italy, we will enjoy two new Jim Aparo covers, and we get to savor some Phantom work by Frank Bolle. The indefatigable Joe Gill will keep writing away as he as done for almost all of the Phantom's Charlton career. 

In the first story of issue fifty-seven we get the Phantom once again battling thieves who have come after the Bandar treasure. This time in a tw-parter titled "The Phantom Fails" and "Prisoner of Beauty", it's two thugs known as Snake and Gorilla who work for a woman called La Contessa. The Phantom pursues them to the estates of this woman and discovers it was a ruse to lure him to her so that she could marry him, thus neutralizing him as a threat to her criminal ambitions. In a third story titled "Taking His Medicine" we see the Phantom screw up as he is convinced a witch doctor named Yushari is a fraud. He learns better when he gets a snake bite. 

In issue fifty-eight's "The Swamp of Death" the Phantom pursues a villain named Varsarfski into a deadly miasma in a swamp and falls victim to its deadly fumes until he's saved by Rex and Tomm the young boys he looks after. In the second part titled "The Man Who Peddled Death" the Ghost Who Walks takes off after that same baddie and confronts him before he can use poison gas in the civilized world. "Diana's Ransom" has the Phantom use the Bandar treasure to try and save the woman he loves, with the help of Rex and Tomm. 

Issue fifty-nine is the last one by Pat Boyette and it kicks off with a story that seems all too familiar as once again the Phantom must use the Bandar treasure to rescue Diana from kidnappers. One nifty thing about "Prisoner on Shark Island" is that we see the Phantom using a distinctive biplane with his skull insignia on it. In "The Despoilers" the Ghost Who Walks is up against a slick customer who has come to get the mineral rights to the Bandar territory for his greedy bosses. "Caught in the Devil's Cauldron" is the last story and has the Phantom respond to a psychic message from Diana telling him she's in terrible trouble. He uses a distinctive jet this time to reach the site of a shipwreck and gets her and others out before their air pocket vanishes. The two spend some quality time together after this, if you know what I mean. And that's it for Boyette. The King Features People wanted a change, and they get it with the next issue. 

The Phantom series turns to reprinting Italian work by writer Giovanni Fiorentini and artist Mario Pedrazzi. Neither is credited, but the letterer Frank Bravo is. George Wildman also gets a mention.  Apparently, Jim Aparo left some work behind and that is used for a stellar cover which advertises itself as "The New Phantom", signaling a break from the long tenure of Pat Boyette. The story titled "Assault on the Phantom's Treasure" (Again!?!) concerns a villain named Stangol who has a grudge against the Phantom for foiling his granddad's attempt to steal the treasure. He gets men and a high-tech tank and rumbles into the Deep Woods raising havoc as he goes. 

Under another Jim Aparo cover, we get another story by Fiorentini but a new artist named Sante D'Amico draws it. "A Deadman's Promise" has the Phantom encounter an escaped prisoner who claims the Phantom (our Phantom's dad) promised him he'd clear his name of murder twenty years before. The Phantom takes on the case and heads to Europe where the real villain lives a life of luxury. There are more secrets still to be uncovered in this one. Again Frank Bravo and George Wildman gets credits. 

Frank Bolle takes on the cover chores for this revised Phantom. We get another story titled "The Trap" by the Fiorentini and Pedrazzi team and it concerns Strangol (the guy with eye patch) who escapes jail thanks to his girlfriend Linda and plots even more revenge on the Ghost Who Walks. The convoluted scheme involves Diana and the showdown gifts the reader with a car that turns into a helicopter. It all comes to naught as Strangol is captured again. Frank Bravo stays on the lettering. 

Frank Bolle gives us another decent cover for issue sixty-three.  Inexplicably Strangol and Linda are back for a third try at the Phantom. No mention is made of how they got out of jail this time. Titled "The River Pirates" this is the final offering from the Fiorentini and Pedrazzi team. (I should point out that my source for the credits in these last four issues came from the wonderful Grand Comics Database.) This time Strangol has a high-tech submarine to do his dirty work. A greedy Rajah is making his people suffer when the Phantom takes a hand to change things just as Strangol and his boys show up. Bravo and Wildman return. 

All four of the adventures presented in the previous four issues of The "New" Phantom are reprints from late 60's issues of the Italian Avventure Americane-LUomo Mascherato. 

The sixty-fourth issue of The Phantom (no longer "New" but "All New") features another Frank Bolle cover and this time Bolle also draws the interior story "The Duel of Death" written by Joe Gill as Charlton returns with domestic U.S. production of the world-famous hero. This one has a lot going for it as we get a jet dogfight, a plane hijacking, and a mano a mano showdown. The baddie is a skull-faced character dubbed Colonel Death and he's helped by the vivacious red-haired Desert Flame. I'm not huge fan of Bolle's especially back in the day, but he does a great job on this story. 

Under the leadership of George Wildman Charlton is getting itself together for a great push featuring some great young talent which will in some cases redefine the comic book reading experience. More on that next time as Don Newton gets his shot at the Ghost Who Walks in the fifth and final volume of Phantom stories from Charlton.  

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