Christopher Nolan is one of those creative geniuses whose visual eye and talent for telling great stories,made him one of the best directors on the planet. His modus operandi for diving deep into characters while telling a larger story is what makes him such a unique auteur. One of the first movies I saw from him was the finely executed Memento. The film starred Guy Pierce, as a man who has no memory of what happened to his wife or what he did in the preceding days. The film could have been easily an average thriller but is now considered an expert’s class in suspense and noir thrillers.

Of course, movie audiences know his name more with how he reinvented Batman in the “Dark Knight Trilogy.” He reintroduced the character in a fresh and modern take that still can be felt in every superhero movie and even in some action movies. The thing that I admired about his take, is that it was the first complex interpretation of Bruce Wayne, a man full of conflicts and with enemies from all sides. In the debut issue of Lady Phantom we find a protagonist much like Bruce Wayne, as her life after she uncovers her family secrets, will never be the same.

We meet Tara, a young lady who just got accepted into MIT, a college that her father only disapproves of because it is so far away from her home. Everything changes one night, as she heads home to find out that her parents were killed in a car accident, an event that has cataclysmic effects on her life. Her grief becomes almost insurmountable as she finds herself the majority shareholder of her father’s company as people all around attempt to use her anguish to get their own way. By issue’s end, she finds a rather ubiquitous outlet for her frustrations and to understand exactly what her father was working on before he and her mother were killed.

Overall, an entertaining debut issue that gives comic book fans a hero that they can get behind. The story by Julie K. Taylor is action packed and intelligent. The art by R. Thomas Allwin is breathtaking. Altogether, one of the best origin stories I have read in a long time.

Story: Julie K Taylor Art: R Thomas Allwin
Story: 10 Art: 9.4 Overall: 9.6 Recommendation: Buy