Issue 1571 - Fortnightly, 2010

• "The Wolfman's Treasure" - story by Tony DePaul and art by Cesar Spadari.

The Wolfman’s Treasure is a new adventure written by Tony DePaul who (to my surprise at least) displays a very special flair for presenting light comedy  techniques within an otherwise dramatic script. Tony’s Phantom writing has always struck me as powerful and terse, allowing The Phantom little time to fire off no more than one or two of his snappy one-liners for which creator Lee Falk made him so famous.

The artist is Cesar Spadari who usually specialises in dark and brooding Phantom adventures, but this time shows off another skill—injecting a very cartoony feel to his depictions of the would-be fortune seekers who are introduced early in the piece. Spadari deliberately sticks with this very unusual style throughout the story to reinforce the fact that the jungle invaders are very much out of their depth in the Deep Woods.

They are, to put it mildly, mere babes in the woods compared with The Phantom and his lifetime of experience in adapting to forbidding surrounds.You will enjoy all of Spadari’s art which jumps from near-cartoon to traditional Phantom adventure style, equally as much as you will  DePaul’s humorous touches!

If there is one really strange angle in the entire adventure, it is the jungle intruders discovering a secret entrance to an intricate tunnel complex which apparently lies behind the main accommodation and storeroom system of The Phantom’s Skull Cave. It’s been hinted at a few times in long-forgotten Phantom adventures created in Scandinavia, but never presented as you about to see it in The Wolfman’s Treasure!

Certainly Lee Falk never pursued the possibility during his long years of writing about The Ghost Who Walks! One other element of the story you will enjoy is the manner in which The Phantom communicates with the roughnecks via Devil. The legendary wolf has the ‘speaking’ role and The Phantom stays largely out of sight!