The Phantom - The Curse Of The Two-Headed Bull!

The Curse of the Two-Headed Bull is the final novel in the now long-ago series "The Story of the Phantom" from Avon Books starring Lee Falk's legendary comic strip creation. It sports a dynamic George Wilson cover and was written in 1975 by Carson Bingham from Lee Falk's and Sy Barry's "The Curse of the Sacred Image". 

This story begins in one of the settings which I detest about the Phantom -- the Isle of Eden. This is an  isolated island on which animals, predator and prey exist in harmony. I cannot imagine why Falk thought this was a good idea. It does suggest that the Phantom has some association with Jesus, but that's a lame idea. 

But while enjoying some time in this paradise the Phantom finds a man floating just off the shore. He rescues him and knows he a local fellow named Murph. Soon after being saved, he died. Then the Phantom gets a message that a sacred idol has been stolen. This idol is one of great importance and historical significance and the Ilongo tribe which lost it attaches all their good luck to its presence. Only a member of the tribe is allowed to touch it without calling down a curse, according to legend. One member of the tribe stole it, and the Phantom follows the trail to London. Sure, enough Diana Palmer tags along and sure enough she gets kidnapped by the perps to hold as leverage against the Phantom. We also see quite a bit of evidence that the curse of the idol just might be real. The scene shifts from London to a small kingdom of Suda-Kalara and Diana is made part of a harem. The Phantom is able to locate her and the idol, and his rescue is a bravura moment in the series. The idol is returned and the luck it brings returns. 

For whatever reason, this final installment of the Avon novel series proved to be a slog. I don't blame the book, but it is a bit more of a dense read than some of the breezy adventures which have come before. Still and all, it's a fascinating ending to a venerable series. I'm incredibly happy that Hermes saw fit to reprint these blasts from my past. It proves the Ghost Who Walks works in more mediums than just comics. 

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The Phantom - The Assassins!

The Assassins is the fourteenth installment of "The Story of the Phantom" and was written by Carson Bingham for a 1975 release. Under George Wilson cover filled with arcane images, this was adapted from "The Thuggees" by Lee Falk and Wilson McCoy from way back in 1949. 

This one begins with wee a bit of humor when the Phantom finds a young woman dipping her toes in the waters around the Skull Cave and finds out that Guan has plotted to arrange for him to get a mate. This prompts the Ghost Who Walks to head to America to find his true love Diana Palmer who it turns out is flying to meet him. Her flight is hijacked by a baddie named Kali with the intention of kidnapping her and just as soon as the Phantom arrives, he's on the case of rescuing her from a murderous gang called "The Assassins", a remnant of the ancient Thuggee cult from the Middle East. She is taken to a remote island and held captive in an ancient Crusader castle. The attempts to collect a ransom for Diana are foiled by the Phantom, but just as soon as that happens a new wrinkle appears. 

Prince Tydore of Tydia and his daughter Naja are the next victims of the cult, and the Phantom tries to stop these predations in hopes of finding a clue to Diana's whereabouts. There is much hemming and hawing and a great deal of plotting by the assassins who we know by names such as Curly, Crewcut, and Pinhead. Eventually the Phanom takes Naja to the Skull Cave for her safety then he pretends to be the King and is mistakenly kidnapped by the villains and taken to the island where Diana is being held. But before he can rescue her, he must confront a deadly gorilla named Toto and survive the blades of a demonic idol.

The Phantom in this story is quite fallible, quite unlike his presentation in other stories. In fact, he makes so many mistakes in his tactics that I began to wonder if Diana was doomed myself. Nesting the one kidnap story inside the other created a pacing problem in the small novel in that we lose track of Diana's story for a very long time. And the "Assassins" for their part seem only capable of killing their own when captured. Often, they capture people when it seemed to me killing them would have been more prudent. I know that in a novel of this kind such random murder would be difficult to promote, but it does undermine the real nature of their threat. This is a swift breezy read, ideal for a single sitting But, it's low on the list of Avon novels to date.

There's one more to go when the Phantom must confront Lee Falk's own The Curse of the Two-Headed Bull in the final of Avon's "The Story of the Phantom" novels. 

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The Phantom - The Island Of Dogs!

The Island of Dogs is the thirteenth installment in the Avon Books series "The Story of the Phantom". It was originally published in 1975 and was written by Warren Shanahan. It's adapted from the Lee Falk and Sy Barry story from 1963 titled "The Mystery of the Island of the Dogs". It features an incredibly dynamic Geore Wilson cover. The Phantom look seriously dangerous. 

When a young couple are treated to the local lore about a remote island which once upon a time was filled with stray dogs and became literally a savage dog-eat-dog hell, they choose to trot along the beach and find a strange, electrified fence which warns of trespassing. They are then shot at, and this news finds its way to the Phantom who moves to take a hand. We meet an impulsive but capable young woman named Janice Helm who is liberated and just so happens to be the niece of the man who owns the island. She is attacked and the Phantom saves the day. When the Jungle Patrol takes a helicopter over the island and is shot at, the situation is elevated. Things really get hairy when Janice and Riggs, the young and alert Jungle Patrol officer take a boat out to the island. At the same time the Phantom makes a quiet incursion and discovers a deadly secret which threatens not just Bangalla but the whole world. 

This is a rare adventure novel which seems more interested in character than plot. We get extensive insights into the personalities of Janice Helm and later her uncle Matt Helm. (It's only now as I type this that I wonder if that name is an homage to the spy-fi hero played by Dean Martin.) The top nemesis is named Serge, and we find out a great deal about his past and his motivations for the plot which is uncovered on the Island of the Dogs. The Phantom for his part in this adventure is more of a mysterious figure, which adds to his power. 

I was fascinated by this one beyond its adventure which is pretty good. We seem to have an actual theme here about the way societies organize themselves. We are given a literal dog-eat-dog situation that metamorphizes into a larger threat which then becomes a problem for the civilized law enforcement. On top of that we have the Phantom's law which is that he enforces peace for the good of all. There are echoes of the Cuban Missile Crisis which brings to the fore all manner of political implications for the story. All in all, it's a fascinating little Phantom adventure. 

Next time the Phantom confronts The Assassins. 

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The Phantom - The Vampires And The Witch!

Avon's "The Story of the Phantom" twelve is titled The Vampires and the Witch and is based to some extent on the 1965 comic strip "The Hanta Witch" from 1965 and "The Things" from 1973 by Lee Falk and Sy Barry. The creator of the Phantom Falk returns to pen this novel. George Wilson produces quite an evocative cover for the novel, playing up themes of horror which was popular in the early 70's. 

We get the tales of two Phantoms in this one. To begin we learn of the eighth Phantom over three hundred and fifty years ago who travels to the European country of Koqania to battle the Hanta Witch. The chronicle is incomplete and so while it's obvious that the Phantom survived the encounter it's unclear how. For the modern Phantom, news reports of vampires in Koqania killing citizens provokes his interest and when a sensor in the Phantom's hideout in that region signals trespass, he heads to Koqania with Devil. He finds a country terrorized by the fear of fearsome and deadly vampires as well as sightings of the Hantas Witch. He also encounters several brutish fellows in law enforcement and otherwise who seek to stop his investigations. 

This story is strong in that it focuses on the Phantom the entire time. We experience the story as he does, and we encounter the mysteries as well. Falk presents us with a Phantom who runs into trouble and who even might have a hesitation or two as the story rolls along. While he's mighty, he's not inhuman, especially when the Hanta Witch, a hag who seemingly becomes a great beauty lures him into her clutches. There's no doubt this would've been this Phantom's last adventure if not for the assistance of Devil. 

The weakness of the story is that it tries to do a bit too much. Falk seems to be blending the two source stories into one and that adds complications as well as making the motivations a bit murky for the crimes. The ending drags more than a bit as the mysteries are resolved in a very chatty manner. We even get a third Phantom story tagged onto this main yarn when we learn about his encounter with the Gooley-Gooley Witch. It's great lore, but the narrative seems overburdened a bit. 

That said it was still full of grand Phantom action and I look forward to the next volume titled The Island of Dogs. 

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The Phantom - The Swamp Rats!

The Swamp Rats was written by the late Ron Goulart under the pseudonym "Frank Shawn" for Avon 's "The Story of the Phantom" series of novels in 1974 and was based on the comic strip of the same name from 1959. 

The Hermes edition also has an essay titled "With the Phantom Everything is Possible -- Except Boredom" by Francis Lacassin a lecturer at the Sorbonne. The essay was written in 1972 in connection with an exhibit which opened at the museum. It's a glowing analysis of Lee Falk's storytelling skills and compares him in many with Homer of all people. 

The set-up gets going pretty quickly when a train goes off the rails near a deadly swamp and prisoners aboard that train escape into what is called "The Great Swamp". Later reports of raids in towns alongside the swamp by a gang calling themselves "The Swamp Rats" bring the Phantom to the case. I was struck how efficiently the story begins, drawing the reader in quickly. 

The self-styled Swamp Rats have in their midst an older man whose daughter comes looking for him. It's one of the oldest gags in adventure yarns designed specifically to get a dame into the mix. She finds a great-white hunter type to lead her into the swamp, but he turns out to be less experienced than advertised. Another unfortunate hooks up with the Swamp Rats after he committed a crime out of desperation. Add to the mix to loyal members of the Jungle Patrol and you have a downright mob wandering the deadly swamp. The scenes switch quickly from group to group with the make-up of each changing constantly. The Phantom works tirelessly to try and keep everyone safe as he can and still bring the villains to justice. 

Next month we'll take a look at The Vampires and the Witch. I'm very much looking forward to this one. 

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The Phantom - The Goggle-Eyed Pirates!

The tenth entry in Avon's "The Story of the Phantom" novel series is The Goggle-Eyed Pirates by Ron Goulart as Frank S. Shawn from the original 1960's comic strip story by Lee Falk and Wilson McCoy. The story was also adapted to comic book form by Bill Lignante in the fourth issue of Gold Key's The Phantom series. George Wilson supplies a fetching cover for this one, with the Phantom clutching a machine gun. 

The story is straight forward enough affair. Diana Palmer is aboard a luxury ship which is attacked by strangely garbed pirates wearing goggles and robes with other devices to make them seem taller. These items are tossed into the sea after the robberies and the pirates resume their roles as actual passengers of the ship. This is suspected almost immediately and even before the ship actually docks the Phantom gets aboard to check on Diana and begin his investigation. 

The pirates prove to be a devious lot and the Phantom is challenged in bringing them to justice. This is a solid adventure all the way through, albeit a brief one. Goulart is always able to keep a brisk pace in his stories and this yarn switches back and forth between three protagonists -- two Insurance Agents, Diana Palmer and the Phantom. The insurance agents named Bockman and Lumbard are well crafted enough for the purposes of the story. My only quibble with the tale is a moment when Lumbard performs a stunt which seemed a tad too dangerous to survive. 

There are no heavy themes in The Goggle-Eyed Pirates, unless it is a cautionary tale for rich folks to leave their valuables at home or in the bank when they are on a cruise. We meet a few folks who are part of the scheme unknowingly or only in tangential ways and that showcases how quickly anyone can be snared into a bit of larceny. 

Something that always comes across to me vividly in Goulart's stories is how potent a puncher the Phantom is. He drops villains with a hefty one-two or sometimes even just a powerful single blow. The reader can feel those punches. I'm always fascinated about the Phantom seems to bring out the best in the talents who work on his stories. 

Next time the Phantom takes on The Swamp Rats. 

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The Phantom Novels - Killer's Town!

Killer's Town is the ninth in the "The Story of The Phantom" adventure series from Avon Books way back in the 1970's. I've been reading the Hermes Press reprints and finding them great brisk reads. This was actually written by Lee Falk and not one of the several ghost writers such as Basil Copper and Ron Goulart who wrote many of these books. This particular novel is based on two series from the comic strip titled "Bullet's Town" and "The Killer" by Falk and artist Sy Barry. 

Killer's Town is a dandy adventure which leaps into action when a rundown and largely abandoned town is taken over by killers and criminals from the United States and elsewhere. The allure of the town called "Metropolis City" before its new "owner" a man gangster named Killer Koy took possession. An oddity of politics had somehow made this small territory into its own independent state, not unlike the Vatican or Monaco for instance. The shabby rundown ghost town became a haven for criminals of all sorts who found protection from the law for their crimes. 

The novel rumbles along quite nicely with a number of the thugs and hoods getting great descriptions. Some are thieves, some are corrupt lawyers, some are muscle, and at least two of them are psychopaths, not the least being Killer Koy himself and the other a handsome young murderer named Pretty. His representative and mouthpiece Eagle had purchased the town from its "Governor-Mayor" named Matthew Crumb for a case of beer. The local authorities, and especially the Jungle Patrol attempt to end the scourge but are stopped by legalities. Things really begin to heat up when the leader of the Jungle Patrol's daughter unknowingly enters Killer's Town and is taken hostage. That's when the call goes out to the Commander of the Patrol, the man we know as the Phantom. 

I love the hooligans in this yarn. Falk gives them great names such as Greasy, Gutsy, Fats, Sport, Banana, Scarface, Slim, Spaghetti, Frenchy, Ossie, Fingers, Pilot, and Moogar. Don't get me wrong, this is a foul bunch who deserve every skull mark on the chin they get and more, but there is also a gang-that-shoot-straight quality to these mopes. The murderous impulses and actions of Koy and Pretty help to temper the story and give it a real sense of danger, but overall, they seem a pretty ineffective mob. But of course, with the Ghost Who Walks on their collective tails how could it be otherwise. The story takes a dramatic turn in the last third of the saga. The focus is on Pretty and the native Moogar who find themselves on the run with the Phantom at their heels. 

After a few novels which had the Phantom operating in America and elsewhere, it's nice to have a story set squarely in jungle which is his home. Next time it's The Goggle-Eyed Pirates. But that will be in June. I am taking a break from Deep Woods doings for a month for something special. More details to come. 

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The Phantom - The Hydra Monster!

The Hydra Monster of the title is actually a secret gang of criminals who use murderous means to keep themselves out of the public eye. The Phantom knows of them because his ancestors had battled the organization several times over the centuries, and it was believed they were wiped out. This is a story written by Ron Goulart under his "Frank Shawn" pseudonym. This novel adapts the story "The Hydra" from the comic strip by Falk and Sy Barry from 1968.  It seems to be set right after the events of the previous novel as far as I can tell since the Phantom is with Diana Palmer at his Eyrie where we left them. 

When the Phantom learns that the Hydra organization might be active again, he heads to San Francisco to investigate a strange murder. He does indeed find evidence of the Hydra outfit and barely escapes a lurid and gothic "Death House" that the worldwide gang had used to eliminate threats. Despite these actions, the police seem skeptical of the existence of Hydra. 

Then the action shifts to a fictional South American country called Santa Florenza which as suffered a deadly series of earthquakes. Word comes that a gang of looters have been traveling across the stricken country and pillaging works of art and other kinds of wealth. These strange characters, all dressed in black call themselves "Vultures" and identify themselves with a tattooed "V" on their heads. With Devil at his side, the Phantom attempts to confront these villains, who he feels are just one arm of the larger Hydra organization. The Phantom is nearly killed a few times. Things get more complex still when the Vultures plot to kidnap Diana Palmer to put pressure on the Phantom to release some prisoners. The action reaches a peak when more earthquakes strike the poor country. 

Now it goes almost without saying that this story has real echoes of the Marvel villainous mob called Hydra from many issues of SHIELD, and there is even a line about cutting off one limb and two replacing it. The Vulture group as just one aspect of the criminal outfit fits in too with a similar structure that Marvel once us with groups like the Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.). I was also reminded of the "Rat Pack", a mob of scavengers that first show up in the pages of Captain Marvel. 

The use of Hydra name made for a great book title, but really the only aspect of the larger group we encounter to any degree are the Vultures. It seemed a needless complication. It seems the whole mob was wiped out by the novel's end, but that's hardly certain. Maybe Goulart will have the Hydra gang return in future novels.  Also, Devil is not well used in this story as he appears when needed to save the Phantom's bacon, but then utterly disappears from the story as if Goulart forgot about him. 

Next time we visit Killer's Town. That sounds like a ton of fun and was written by Lee Falk himself. 

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The Phantom - The Mystery Of The Sea Horse!

The Mystery of the Sea Horse by Lee Falk, who is really Frank S. Shawn, who is really the late great Ron Goulart. This is snappy and fast-paced little Phantom novel which is adapted from the twelfth Phanton daily story by Lee Falk and Ray Moore, gets to the action tout sweet. Diana Palmer gets involved with a handsome gent going by the name of "Chris Danton" who turns out to be a drug smuggler, and the Phantom just so happens to be in California and is able to race to her rescue. But that's just the beginning. 

The Sea Horse in the title is a number of things. The main villain of the piece has a passion for seahorses, so much so that he has named his remote estate and his yacht after the tiny creature. Whether Goulart is going for a pun since this guy is a smuggler of narcotics, in particular heroin or to put it oddly a chap who moves "horse" across the "sea", I can't say.  

As the story unfolds, we learn that our villain might well be a Nazi, with name change and new line of work. He's being hunted by diligent if brutal assassins. Add to that the Phantom who is on his trail relentlessly for having made the critical error of attempting to harm Diana. The duo of "Walker" and Palmer head down to Mexico in pursuit of the villain. Eventually we get aboard "The Sea Horse" where the story reaches its climax. 

This is a humdinger of a little adventure. There's little in the way of what I'd call specific Phantom action and the Deep Woods only comes into play in that our villain knows of it and of the Phantom before the action even starts. 

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The Phantom - The Mysterious Ambassador!

The Mysterious Ambassador is actually written by the Phantom's creator Lee Falk. This is one of a few of the Avon novels I actually got hold of and read way back in the day when they were landing on newsstands. But it's been a long time and reading it this time was like reading fresh. George Wilson's covers for these books are uniformly fine, but this one is a particular standout. This Hermes Press reprint is a very handsome little tome.

This novel was first published in 1973 and it's difficult not to imagine that the brutal dictator in the story was not inspired by the outrageous and sadistic Idi Amin who ascended to power in Uganda in 1971. In Falk's story a military leader named General Bababu seizes power in the country of Bangalla after losing a fair election. The real winner was a Dr. Luaga who at the time of the election was busy helping in a remote village with a plague. He was assisted by a full United Nations team, which happened to include the lovely Diana Palmer, the girlfriend of a certain Ghost Who Walks. 

Bababu who is described in the book as "half gorilla, half rhino, and all monster" seeks nothing less than the head of Luaga to prove that his opponent is well and truly dead. His forces shoot down a U.N. helicopter sent to rescue the team, but at this point the Phantom intercedes. He sends Bandar warriors to lead the displaced team to relative safety in the Deep Woods. We are treated to a small tour of the area and see some of the odd features already introduced by Falk in his comic strip. It was neat indeed to see the passion with which the Phantom greeted Diana when the party at last arrives safe and sound. 

This book is filled with some outstanding Phantom action. Falk emphasizes the power of the Phantom's punch and many a soldier loyal to the despot is laid out with a single blow. The struggle to get the medical team to safety is a harrowing one and not without mishap. But eventually they safe and then the Phantom's mission is transformed. He becomes "the mysterious ambassador" of the title, but the Ghost Who Walks practices his diplomacy with a distinctive hands-on approach likely not practiced by those formally trained in the profession. 

I found this to be an exciting installment, with a feeling of some greater gravity. There is death and sordid mayhem in the background of the story. People die, but many are saved due to the heroism of the Phantom, and that's the whole point. This one is highly recommended. 

Next up is The Mystery of the Sea Horse. 

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