The Phantom: President Kennedy's Mission

by Ron Goulart, Eileen Sabrina Herman (Editor), Sean Joyce (Artist)

The year is 1962, and the Phantom returns once again in a new adventure! There’s a possible world war with Russia looming on the horizon, and newly minted President John F. Kennedy calls upon his old friend Kit Walker for help – let the action and intrigue begin!

In this all-new Phantastic adventure, veteran Phantom script writer Ron Goulart returns with artist Sean Joyce and Raquel Lopez to put a new spin on an old favorite: mystery, intrigue, and more. Inks by Malena Molina and colors by Jorge Cortes.

128 pages, Hardcover

First published July 9, 2019

About the author

Pseudonyms: Howard Lee; Frank S Shawn; Kenneth Robeson; Con Steffanson; Josephine Kains; Joseph Silva; William Shatner.
Ron Goulart is a cultural historian and novelist. Besides writing extensively about pulp fiction—including the seminal Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of Pulp Magazines (1972)—Goulart has written for the pulps since 1952, when the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction published his first story, a sci-fi parody of letters to the editor. Since then he has written dozens of novels and countless short stories, spanning genres and using a variety of pennames, including Kenneth Robeson, Joseph Silva, and Con Steffanson. In the 1990s, he became the ghostwriter for William Shatner’s popular TekWar novels. Goulart’s After Things Fell Apart (1970) is the only science-fiction novel to ever win an Edgar Award.

In the 1970s Goulart wrote novels starring series characters like Flash Gordon and the Phantom, and in 1980 he published Hail Hibbler, a comic sci-fi novel that began the Odd Jobs, Inc. series. Goulart has also written several comic mystery series, including six books starring Groucho Marx. Having written for comic books, Goulart produced several histories of the art form, including the Comic Book Encyclopedia (2004).

Reviews

[John Yelverton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sloppy is the best way that I can describe this graphic novel as it doesn't have a cohesive story, nor does it even bother to make sure that it's historically accurate, i.e. the United Nations didn't exist in 1943.

[Allen Berry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beautiful artwork cannot save this clumsily written, sloppy, abortion of a graphic novel. I've read every Phantom dailies and Sundays collection that's been released thus far, and I accept that there is a modicum of suspension of disbelief, and perhaps a modicum of datedness that goes along with them, but despite the intervening years, the strips were TIGHT. The Gold Key Comics collections had their issues, but they had a strong sense of story and cohesion. This book? A retelling of an old story taken directly from the newspaper strips, was a mess. That is putting it politely.

I'm not sure what has happened to the publishing industry, I know that literacy is more or less on the decline, but there is simply no excuse for typos in a book that took this long for HP to get out to the customers. Apparently, the proofreader was asleep at his desk, if budget cuts didn't eliminate his position. Then there are the storylines that go nowhere, the brief and unremarkable career of a few Russian agents who are all apparently taken down by Diana Palmer in a very confusing fight scene. The two male agents, by the way, presumably defected as a result of mistreatment by the blonde Russian femme fatale, because they are never seen again. Then there is the sudden appearance of a British Splinter Group out to ... well, to tell the truth, I'm not sure what they're out for, unless it's kidnapping reporters and letting them escape. Then there are the confusing flat characters that appear for no apparent reason, like the Senator, his stripper girlfriend Fanny who appears on the last page, and the portly strangers who for reasons known only to the authors, gets a word balloon that says (and I'm not kidding) "What does almost naked mean?" Well, the readers don't know, we're not privy to the poster he's reading.

Then there is the inexplicable frame of President Kennedy breaking the fourth wall after being told he's got to shake hands with a group of Boy Scouts who are friends with VP Johnson. The frames where the Phantom eschews Hero (mercifully absent from this book) in favor of vines which he swings from like Tarzan, and the mysterious mystery writing Aunt Lenore who apparently lives in Connecticut?

This book feels like it was written by people who might have heard of the Phantom or seen a strip or two but have no sense of what the Phantom is all about.

At the time of this writing, a day after finally receiving this long-awaited turd in the mail, the book is not available for review on Amazon, and it's not hard to guess why. ANY word leaking out about this thoroughly disorganized and confusing book would hurt what I can only hope will be it's mediocre sales.

Other than the art, the only saving grace of this graphic nosedive is that Lee Falk didn't live to see his creation treated in such a blasphemous manner by people who could not write their way out of a paper sack.

DO NOT buy this book. Borrow it, and then DON'T READ IT. You might look at the pictures, though. The artwork is pretty good... save for the frame with Devil pointing with his paw for no apparent reason.

[Sohrab Rezvan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the Phantom, but the story and art were a mess. Plus weird dialogue bubbles and grammatical errors in the text.