Corto Maltese #3
In "The Secret of Tristan Bantam," Corto Maltese, Rasputin, and Ambiguity race to uncover the lost Royal Fortune, guided by four mysterious aces that lead to a forgotten island. With a crumbling Spanish fort, a derelict galleon, and a lone, unhinged inhabitant guarding its secrets, the hunt turns deadly when the wreck is blown open—only to reveal an empty hold. The final confrontation at the fort’s cannons leaves both the treasure and its guardians lost to history. This 2014 IDW issue features the legendary artwork and storytelling of Hugo Pratt, co-written by Dean Mullaney and Simone Castaldi, with cover art by Pratt himself.
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On four aces are the clues to find the "Royal Fortune", a Spanish galleon loaded with gold stolen by pirates. Corto, Rasputin and Ambiguity, each with one of the four cards, find the island of the shipwreck, an unnamed madman, apparently the only inhabitant of the island, an old Spanish fort and the remains of a galleon. They open the wreck with dynamite and discover it's empty. The madman, angry at the ship's destruction, shoots at them with the cannons of the fort. In the battle Ambiguity and the madman himself kill each other, and the treasure, which was hidden in the guns, is lost forever.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).