I liked this one a whole lot more than the original Phantom offering from Moonstone, which is surprising since it's done largely by the same creative team. The Singh Web is a great pulp adventure, though, combining the elements of the mysterious jungle and the big city in equal measure and playing up a nice dual legacy story between the Phantom and his essentially immortal opponents. Though I seem to be in the minority, I enjoyed the Phantom movie, and this graphic novel reminded me in many ways of the movie in style and tone. As with the first offering from Moonstone, it seemed like more room to tell the story would have been helpful, but this is a stronger effort all around.
Though the Phantom is an interesting character, it seems that the best stories involving him involve a strong supporting cast, and Raab introduces some fun characters in this story. The tough-as-nails and beautiful female adventurer is a cliche in pulp fiction, but it still works, and Veronica Roberts is a great character in that mold. She makes a great partner of sorts for the Phantom. I also enjoyed the former police commissioner that was the Phantom's ally in the city, and I thought the villain of the piece was, given the space he got to develop, pretty solid as well.
The "space he got to develop" is the biggest problem with the book, and though Raab works pretty well around it, I continue to wish that Moonstone would shift format to either longer graphic novels or continuing stories. Raab has to set up several characters and the plot, as well as providing a gripping ending, while still keeping true to the pulp high action style, which eats up the page count. There's some fascinating stuff about the similarities between the Singh Brotherhood and the Phantom's continuing lineage that had room for a lot more exploration, and the same is true of the ninja who confronts the Phantom or the monks who are chasing the Singh Web. Not that Raab really shorts any of these characters, slipping in some good moments for each of them, but the amount of potential left there is a shame.
Fernando Blanco has grown since his first effort on the Phantom as well, and while I could wish for a more consistent execution of the characters and their anatomy, in general I found his storytelling and style to be very attractive. Blanco does great work on the backgrounds of the piece, giving the story a very 1930s feel, and there's some great action storytelling going on as well. In addition, though his characters sometimes seem a bit too squat or stretched, when he's on, Blanco delivers a sexy Veronica Roberts, a powerful Phantom and a wicked looking Singh Brotherhood leader.
Pulp adventure isn't a genre that gets a lot of exploration in comics, and while there's a nostalgia trend going right now, it doesn't extend all the way back to the Phantom. Still, this character has been around for quite a while, and it's clear that there are plenty of stories to be told with him. Though Moonstone's first two graphic novels have barely scratched the surface of what could be done with the character, this offering captures the adventure and fun that made the character a legend.
