Free Comic Book Day 2025: The Phantom #0

by Ray Fawkes, Russell Olson (Artist), Taylor Esposito (Letterer)

The Phantom, Lee Falk's highly influential superhero, is back in an all-new adventure series! The first story in an exciting publishing plan that is sure to satisfy both new and returning "Phans" of comics' beloved Ghost Who Walks. In true Phantom fashion, look forward to pulpy storytelling focused on justice, honor, mystery, and mythology-all told with heaps of action!

Genres: Comics

Unknown Binding

Published May 3, 2025

About the author

Ray Fawkes is the critically-acclaimed author of the comics and graphic novels Underwinter, Intersect, One Soul, The People Inside, The Spectral Engine, Possessions, and Junction True, as well as Batman: Eternal, Constantine, Justice League Dark, and Gotham by Midnight (DC), Wolverines (Marvel), Black Hammer '45 (Dark Horse), Jackpot! (AfterShock) and more. He is an Eisner, Harvey, and Shuster award nominee and a YALSA award winner.

Ray has been making comics for over 20 years, starting with and continuing the tradition of DIY fiction as well as working for many major comics publishers in the U.S. and Canada.

Reviews

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I read Wolverines by Ray Fawkes and that was pretty bad. So I had low expectations when I saw he wrote this. To my surprise, this wasn’t half bad. The Phantom mixes it up with some poachers who killed a tiger and are now being stalked by a larger tiger out for blood. A simple but entertaining story. I could read more of this.

[cloverina · Rating 3 out of 5]

INCREDIBLE art, decently fun story! I don't think I've ever read a Phantom comic before, but I'm interested in seeing more.

[Cameron Rhoads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb. I love The Phantom. Well written and well illustrated.

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Free Comic Book Day 2025: The Phantom #0

Comics publisher Mad Cave Studios has kind of broken ground on resurrecting old comic strip characters into more contemporary comics narrative styled stories, having already started with Chester Gould's Dick Tracy and Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon. Now the publisher takes on Lee Falk's Phantom character, which will get its own ongoing comic series from the creative team of Ray Fawkes and Russell Olsen. The artwork by Olsen is quite nice, suitably striking a balance between noir and action adventure as needed, though the story does little to entice me towards wanting to pick this up right away. Though I have been finding their rendition of Dick Tracy to be quite fun, I'll wait to see what the reception of this iteration on The Phantom is before picking this series up.

[Rob Vitagliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, that was certainly enough to get me hooked on this series. That might have been the best "Free Comic Book Day" book I've read so far.

I only know what I've read in the new Defenders of the Earth series, and have had no other exposure to the character, but he's really growing on me. He's a Batman-like tough guy in this one, without actually being violent.

He deals with some animal poachers hunting tigers, an animal the The Phantoms seem to have a serious connection to. It doesn't bode well for the hunters that they've drawn the ire of not just another tiger, but this purple clad badass.

Definitely looking forward to issue #1 of this one.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was fine. Nothing original though. Just the Phantom in the jungle. This story has him going after some poachers. The Phantom has never really done much for me. That trend continues.

[FernandoG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta historieta es un clásico, un hito, en el cual nuestro súper héroe tiene un anillo con la marca de la calavera, está siempre acompañado en sus aventuras de un lobo, gran perro, de nombre: Diablo. 3.8/5.0