The Phantom Chronicles 2

The Phantom Chronicles #2

by Joe Gentile (Editor / Contributor), Mike Bullock (Editor), Jeffrey J. Mariotte

High adventure and intrigue in the African jungle, on the high seas, and in the streets! There is always justice that needs to be served, whether it's in the present...or the past. Since 1936, The Phantom has been thrilling audiences who crave adventure! Nearly five centuries ago, during a daring raid at sea, pirates took the life of merchant ship captain Christopher Standish. In the heat of the pitched battle aboard the ship, Standish's son was knocked overboard to wash ashore on a remote beach. After stumbling upon the body of his father's killer, young Standish swore an oath on the murderer's skull to devote his life, and the lives of his sons and their sons, to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice. To the outside world, this man, seemingly immortal, has always worn the mask. As the legend grew, it transcended the life of any one mortal. And that legend became The Phantom!
The Phantom Chronicles Volume 2 contains 15 all-new prose stories, complete with spot illustrations. Plus, for the first time anywhere, this volume details the never-before-revealed, first-ever team-up of The Phantom and The Green Hornet, as scribed by master wordsmith Harlan Ellison! Features an introduction by The Phantom creator's daughter, Diane Falk!

Genres: Pulp, Mystery, Anthologies

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2009

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a second anthology of prose stories featuring Lee Falk's purple-clad superhero who's been fighting piracy and crime since 1536... or since 1936 in the comics. The book contains fifteen stories, most of them pretty good ones. There are a couple of historical stories in which previous Phantoms fight Nazis, for example, but for the most part the stories feature our current 21st Kit Walker. I particularly enjoyed Win Scott Eckert's story which has some nice cameos from other turn-of-the-last-century literary heroes, Mathew Baugh's English Gothic romp, Joe Gentile's Devil origin tale, and also Will Murray's story despite the fact that it suffers from some serious typographical glitches. Falk's daughter wrote a nice introduction to the book. I was a tad confused by a reference on page 100 to Dorothy and the rabbit hole (he should've gone to ask Alice?), and there's a very odd non-sequitur digression about a none-too-bright-but-rather-slutty news reporter named Nancy Palmer on page 190 that doesn't fit. Is she supposed to be related to Diana, Kit's wife? We're never told why she's there. The biggest disappointment for me was the Harlan Ellison story. Ellison's story was to have been a Phantom-meets-The Green Hornet story, which might have been a neat thing, but is instead a somewhat apologetic story about Harlan Ellison and why he decided that he wasn't going to write the story. It's a well written and literary piece but ends the volume on a note of futility and frustration that is pretty much the antithesis of Lee Falk's legacy (or George W. Trendle's for that matter). Still, annoying quirks aside, it's mostly a good bundle of fun from the Skull Cave for fans of The Ghost Who Walks.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new collection of stories about The Ghost Who Walks, Lee Falk's legendary comic strip character. Stories by Ed Gorman, Harlan Ellison, Jeff Mariotte, Robin Wayne Bailey, Will Murray, and others.

Wonderful stuff.

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

You gotta love a man in a mask...a rich, erudite and noble man in a mask. Really liked this volume.