It was just about a year ago that I complained that the comic with the best canon back story of all time had taken a turn for the horrible. Well, today I stand before you humbled and corrected. The comic, The Phantom, has beyond a doubt, the best continuing storyline of any comic appearing in the daily newspapers today.
A year ago it appeared that the Phantom’s wife, Diana Walker, had been killed in a terrorist bombing by an old enemy of the Phantom, Chatu (also known as the Python of Bengalla). But appearances were deceiving because, Chatu actually plotted one of the best revenge schemes I’ve ever seen carried out against any comic hero. Chatu did not kill Diana, as thought, but rather had her secretly imprisoned in a maximum security retention facility in another country under the name of a prisoner serving multiple life sentences. It is a perfect revenge plot because the Phantom, Kit Walker, will not search for a woman he believes to be dead so Diana will never be rescued. 
She will die of old age (or some other prison malady) while her husband will die a broken man…at least that what Chatu hoped.
But, what Chatu did not count on was that Diana is no “damsel in distress” waiting to be rescued. She was a defiant, difficult prisoner who took matters into her own hands and started plotting her own escape. Even though she was recaptured and later punished after escaping, her escape set into motion a combination of events, that as of today’s strip, put our hero, Kit, within ten feet of Diana who recognized her from behind by her “walk.” I have resisted making comments about what Kit may have really recognized as belonging to Diana, but I take back every foul thought I had about this strip a year ago. Lee Falk would be proud of what the current writing/artist team of Tony DePaul and Paul Ryan have done with his creation. The Phantom is storytelling done well.