The Phantom Phoenix #2 is a comic written by Philip Kosloski with art by Michael LaVoy. The public opinion on our hero begins to turn after an unfortunate incident he is blamed for. While the first issue was more of an intro, this one was sort of setting the groundwork for what comes next. But that doesn’t mean this one is calm, it has a good amount of conflict. Our main cast is: Martin Claver, the aforementioned hero, Father Karol, the priest at the church Martin works at, and lastly we have Josephine Wilson, a good cop who is cool with Martin. This time around we get a few snapshots of Martin’s past during WWI. Most of the conflict I mentioned earlier manifests itself as fights and they play out like they would on a 60’s TV show. The dialogue is pretty straightforward for the time so it might sound out of the place to modern ears. My only qualm is that the priest turns conversations into a mini-sermon. Wordiness is not a problem in this comic. This is a decent calm-before-the-storm issue that has enough things happening to keep you engaged.

            This comic looks very smooth. And I don’t mean smooth in the stylish way, everything in this comic looks nice and rounded, no sharp edges on the characters, it’s all soft to look at. A great job has been done with the colors as well. The expressiveness of the characters is slightly above-average, the faces are drawn with such detail that the looks they give stand out more and make them seem more alive. And the thing about high-detail faces is that it significantly lowers the odds of two of them looking too much alike. The Phantom Phoenix is dressed in armor with a trench coat, and a pair of goggles and a helmet. Top gear for this time period. There is one gadget our hero loves to use but personally I wish he’d diversify his arsenal. There is a bit more action than the last issue and scene flow is not a problem.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like black superheroes from the 1920’s who are war veterans and are rejected by the public you might wanna give this a look.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

PG-13.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“What? Didn’t I just save you?”

 

Purchase Link: https://shop.voyagecomics.com/collections/comic-books/products/the-phantom-phoenix-2

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pakosloski/the-phantom-phoenix-comic-book-series-issue-2/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 22

Violent Pages: 8, for 36% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 2

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 2

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 2

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 1

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”