Last time I recapped Tony DePaul and Mike Manley’s The Phantom (Weekdays) I figured we were near the end. Three months later we’re … near the end? We got the tag that we’re in an epilogue to it, at least. DePaul wanted to do more with the intelligence officer Dai Lu Han who’d been poking around to figure what the weird rumors coming from over the border were about. Over on his blog Tony DePaul mentions filing copy for a new Phantom story with both Mike Manley and Jeff Weigel, so, things will happen. Just don’t know what, just yet. If you can imagine.

If you’re reading this after around July 2026 and want to know how things turned out, try looking for a more up-to-date plot recap at this link, which is also good for finding the separate Sunday storyline — currently a detailed telling of the origins of the First Phantom — and when I feel up to it, Phantom 2040 and some future Ghost. Now back to the Zumaridi River story.

The Phantom (Weekdays).

12 January – 4 April 2026.

Last time I checked in, the Weekday Phantom discovered Jungle Patrol intelligence officer Dai Lu Han had also reached General Chuma’s slave-labor Zumaridi River mine in Ivory Lana. The Phantom had been picking off Chuma’s henchmen, and Jungle Patrol’s ready as per the Unknown Commander’s orders to bring in The Phantom’s prisoners.

The Phantom sits down Chuma and his bookkeeper for a little chat about The Phantom is this ominous looming figure in the dark with eyes that are probably only glowing in that metaphorical artistic way. The bookkeeper’s creeped out fast and runs out the door into Dai Lu Han’s captivity. Also the cook staff that The Phantom had first signed on to his take-a-couple-guys-every-night plan for busting up the guards. The General meanwhile … I had taken him to jump through the window at first, but I’m not sure The Phantom didn’t push him. It was a ground floor window, don’t worry. He runs off, with Dai following and demanding he halt.

Patrolwoman Dai Lu Han, interrogating the bookkeeper: 'Wake up, you! Where's General Chuma!?' Chuma is indoors, with The Phantom behind him. The Phantom: 'We have the answer to that question right here, don't we, General?' Panel of Chuma's face hard against the glass as it starts to crack. — Tony DePaul and Mike Manley’s **The Phantom** for the 4th of February, 2026. Yeah, that’s got to be it, The Phantom’s got to be shoving him through the window. This seems challenging but he is a guy who can punch you so hard his ring leaves you imprinted for decades. That move probably has some wrist action to it, though.

As Jungle Patrol helicopters land General Chuma tries to fight his way out of Dai’s custody. She actually sets her gun down to fight him bare-handed, which seems more cinematic than wise. I guess I’d rather a cop punch a guy out than shoot him dead, but I’m also pretty sure a gun you set down the other guy can pick up. The Phantom watches, approving of Dai’s style, and I suppose ready to step in just in case, but it’s not like she knows that.

As the Jungle Patrol secures the scene Colonel Woruba orders the prisoners taken in, the cooks brought in to explain what all just happened here, and Patrolwoman Dai to surrender her weapon as she’s under arrest. The Jungle Patrol is so upset by this you’d think something happened to John X. She brought in a big, high-value target while busting up slavers who were plotting a coup. Surely success forgives her not actually asking permission to enter Ivory Lana and find all of this?

Dai Lu Han punches General Chuma, while The Phantom watches in darkness. Phantom, thinking: 'When your opponent sets her sidearm down and doesn't mind mixing it up, General? ... Come on, slow learner ... how big a clue do you need?' — Tony DePaul and Mike Manley’s **The Phantom** for the 28th of February, 2026. This does strike me as another moment for Tony DePaul’s efforts to diffuse the White Savior ideas baked into The Phantom. Showing that a regular old patrol officer is as able to punch an evildoer into submission as The Phantom would be makes it less special that he **can** do these superheroic deeds. What makes him stand out isn’t his ability but his choice to act on that all the time and not just when circumstances bring him to. (That he has inexhaustible wealth and somehow all the time to do everything he needs helps his choice, though.)

In the epilogue, starting the 16th of March, Dai rejects her friend’s attempts to comfort and denies that she’s being treated unfairly; she went too far and that was that. And Colonel Jonathan Worubu (I don’t know if I knew his first name before) reflects on the great work Colonel Weeks put in to control his impulse to act fast, without communication, without backup. Just then the Unknown Commander appears in the shadows, or at least Colonel Worubu thinks it’s the Unknown Commander, asking to speak with both in his office in an hour.

The bunk for Jungle Patrol officers, after lights-out. Dai: 'The Unknown Commander? B - But you're the only officer who meets with the Unknown Commander.' Worubu: 'He wants you there ... ' Dai: 'Sir, I'm confined to quarters!' Worubu; 'Thirty minutes, patrolwoman.' Dai, thinking: 'Yikes!' — Tony DePaul and Mike Manley’s **The Phantom** for the 31st of March, 2026. If the Unknown Commander learns what Dai is thinking this moment he is going to be **very** upset that she knows the rules of narrative engagement so poorly. This will take special training in how moral luck affects the courses of epilogues!

And that’s this week, where we see the truth of the Old Jungle Saying, “there are times when the Phantom leaves the jungle and walks the streets of the town like an ordinary L-13 Regional Supervisor of Customer-Facing Operations”.