The bathroom inside the Skull Cave

In today's strip (Tuesday 22 April 2025) in the Daily newspaper story "The Spark" by Tony DePaul and Mike Manley, they have shown a scene with Diana and The Phantom talking while bathing. It may be a bit of surprise to some but did you know that the Skull Cave has had a bathroom since the 1970's and was first introduced by Sy Barry and Lee Falk?

In the 1942 Daily newspaper story "The Inexorables" or "The Phantom Goes to War" by Lee Falk, Ray Moore and Wilson McCoy, Diana was shown showering in the Deep Woods. The waterfall was not shown inside the Skull Cave. Interestingly, Diana was not happy with the lack of hot water which has now been corrected.

In 1970 in the Sunday story "Alexander's Diamond Cup" and again in 1981 in the Sunday story "Kit and the Little People" by both Sy Barry and Lee Falk, the shower was shown again but this time inside the Skull Cave for the first time. Again, Diana has complained that the water was cold.

The bathroom was reshown again In 2016 in the Daily newspaper story, "The Baronkhan Sedition" by Tony DePaul and Paul Ryan but this time a heated bath was shown. After decades of complaining, it is good to see The Phantom finally listening and solving the problem with the geothermal installation.

Interestingly, this is not the first time the bath has been shown. From what we understand the first time was it being included in the Team Fantomen story "Mystery of the Golden Rune, Part 5: Solomon's Mines" written by Norman Worker, with art by Hans Lindahl. This story was last published by Frew in issue #1734 (2015), Fantomen 19/1988 and by Brazillian publisher Globo in Fantasma Especial #36 (1989).