Post by Silverback on Nov 29, 2004 13:39:01 GMT
Real Name: Christopher Walker
Identity/Class: Normal human
Occupation: Crimefighter
Affiliations: His ancestors and descendents; Diana Palmer, Hero (his horse), Devil (his wolf), Dart (his falcon), Joomba (his elephant), Mandrake, The Jungle Patrol
Enemies: Chessman, The Sky Band, The Golden Circle, Mermaids of Melo Straits, Ladu Luck Pirates
Known Relatives: Diana Walker (wife); Kit (son, the 22nd Phantom); Heloise (daughter), Rex King (adopted son), Maude (mother, deceased), Dave Palmer (wife's uncle), Lily Palmer (mother-in-law), Christopher Standish (ancestor, first Phantom, deceased)
Aliases: The Ghost Who Walks, Kit, Kip, the Man Who Cannot Die, Guardian of the Eastern Dark, The Gray Ghost
Base of Operations: Skull Cave, The Deep Woods, Bangalla, Africa
First Appearance: Phantom newspaper strip (debuted 17th February 1936)
Powers/Abilities: Expert horseman. Marksman. Good fighter, trained in many forms of combat. Extremely agile and athletic. The Phantom usually carries a dagger, twin revolvers, and two distinctive rings which can leave permanent marks on those they touch - the "Good Mark" on the left hand, a four overlapping swords / letter P's forming a rotating cross, which marks the bearer as being under the Phantom's protection; the "Skull Mark" on the right hand, normally delivered with a solid punch to the face, which shows the victim as someone who has crossed the Phantom and been punished for same.
History: For more than four centuries criminals and villains the world over have spoken in whispers of a legendary figure, the Ghost Who Walks, a seeker of justice who cannot be killed or stopped in his pursuit of those who prey on the weak. This Phantom operated out of Bangalla (whose exact location is a bit inconsistent in the stories, but seems to be near or part of coastal Africa), but would pursue evildoers across the globe. Those who faced him were usually marked for life, left with a skull-shaped scar on their faces, indelibly marked by the ring on his right hand when he strikes his enemies.
The Phantom is both more, and less, than his legend. Instead of a single, undying apparition, the Phantom is a dynasty of crimefighters who have sworn down the years to protect the innocent and punish the guilty, and if necessary, to lay down their lives in the service of justice. Directly descended from Christopher Standish, Columbus' cabin boy, the current Phantom, Kit Walker, is the 21st of the line. Since the 1930s, when he took over after the death of his father, Kit has fought the good fight. In 1977, after decades of courtship, he married his love Diana Palmer, and they now have two children, Christopher (Kit) and Heloise.
Comments: Created by Lee Falk, who wrote the strip from when it started until he died in 1999. Falk had also created Mandrake the Magician a couple of years earlier, and the two have occasionally shown up in the other's strip, most notably when they attended one another's weddings. They were also depicted as allies in the Defenders of the Earth cartoon (see below for more details). After the death of Lee Falk, his wife Elizabeth completed his last two stories (daily strip #195 and Sunday strip #150) from his notes.
To begin with the Phantom appeared in his daily strip in black and white, and it wasn't until the Sunday supplement began on 28th May 1939 that he was coloured purple. No one seems to know why the colourist chose this colour, but it stuck with the character thereafter (although various foreign editions have used a wide range of colours). Falk was apparently a little surprised by this choice too - he had envisioned the Phantom as wearing grey. Before settling on calling the character the Phantom, he had considered "The Gray Ghost" for a moniker. Additionally, the text of the black and white strip referred to the Phantom as being grey twice before the colour strip launched, and at least four times after this Falk reiterated this. It wasn't until 1956 that Falk finally gave in and stated within a story that the Phantom's costume was purple.
With the success of the newspaper strip, it wasn't long before collected reprints started. The first of them were in Big Little Books (a.k.a. Better Little Books), who released 6 volumes:
The Phantom - 1936
The Phantom and the Sign of the Skull - 1939
The Phantom and Desert Justice - 1941
The Return of the Phantom - 1942
The Phantom and the Sky Pirates - 1945
The Phantom and the Girl of Mystery - 1947
The Phantom soon made the natural progression to appearing in comics, although to begin with they featured only reprints. David McKay publications began the reprints in Ace Comics, between #11 (February 1938) to #151 (November 1949). While that title concentrated on the daily strip, the same company began reprinting the Sunday strip, first in Future Comics #1 to #4 (June 1940 to September 1940), then as part of King Comics, starting from #61 of that title (May 1941). He continued there until #158 (with a break in #148 to #155 where he didn't appear). McKay also reprinted some Phantom daily strips in Feature Comics, the first time the hero had a comic all to himself, in issues #20 (1938), #22, #39, #53, #56. and #57 (1949).
Harvey Comics took over the reprints next, featuring the Phantom in #51 (October 1951) amd #56 of Harvey Comics Hits, then in Harvey Hits #1, #6, #12, #15, #26, #36, #44 and #48. It wasn't until Gold Key launched a Phantom comic in 1962 that he got his own title. It ran for 17 issues before King Comics took over the licence in 1966, continuing the numbering to publish #18 to #28. Then in 1969 it was Charlton's turn - they went from #29 to #74. In 1973 King Features released a single issue of a Phantom comic, then Pacific Comics had their turn for 2 issues in 1977. D.C. Comics released a four issue mini-series in 1988, followed by an ongoing series a year later, which lasted 13 issues. Meanwhile Pioneer Comics were releasing a variety of comic format reprints of the newspaper strips around the same time. In 1993 Wolf Comics released 9 issues of a Phantom Comic. Then it was the turn of Marvel Comics, with both Phantom The Ghost Who Walks (five issues, apparently starring the 22nd Phantom) and Phantom 2040 (four issues) - they had previously published the Phantom as part of their Defenders of the Earth comic, based on the cartoon of the same name. Most recently (2002 on) Moonstone Publishing have been releasing their version of the iconic character.
Between September 1972 and July 1975 Avon Books released a series of 15 novels based (mostly) on Lee Falk's strips. In 1996 a novelisation of the movie was released.
The Phantom has been a world-wide phenomenon - he is published in Europe under a variety of names:
Le Fantôme in France and French Canada
Fantoom in the Netherlands
El Hombre Enmascarado (The Masked Man) in Spain
L'Uomo Mascherato (The Masked Man) in Italy
Fantomet in Norway
Fantomen in Sweden
Mustanaamio (Black Mask) in Finland
Fantom in Yugoslavia
Kizilmaske (Black Mask) in Turkey
Phantomas in Israel
Bethala (Ghost in the Kannada) or Betal (Phantom or Ghost) or Aranyadeb (The God of the Jungle in Bengali) in India
Fantasma in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, Venezuela
Bera-Na-Liva in Fiji
In some of these countries, the demand is sufficiently high that local creative teams have produced new strips, not available elsewhere - some of these have depicted the future adventures of this Phantom's children.
Vesa Lehtinen notes that "before Marvel comics came to Scandinavia at the 1980's, Phantom was the most popular US superhero alongside with the Superman (and more popular with the older population since he was not as "impossible" as Superman - my grandmother used to read the strip). Scandinavian comics publishing house Semic Press (that later become Egmont Publishing) has had its own Phantom comic books in the Finnish and Scandinavian languages from 1970's onwards. It has published both the original strips and its own stories, written and drawn by Swedish and Finnish comic artists. For example, Finnish artist Kari T. Leppänen made a number of stories that depicted historical Phantoms in historical situations, including one where one of the modern Phantom's ancestors defends the Island of Malta against Turkish conquerors. Some of the writers also used the background of Bangalla to write adventures based on real-life third-world problems or elaborated on Phantom's background, like how he met and befriended the wolf Devil."
In 1943 the Phantom was the star of a fifteen part Columbia Pictures serial, starring Tom Tyler in the lead role. It's recently been released on DVD.
Josh Geren notes that "1996 saw the release of the big budget, still set in the thirties, Phantom with Billy Zane as the title character and Treat Williams as the villain. While a flop at the box office, it is a cult favorite." In the movie, Zane plays Kit Walker, the (presumably) 21st Phantom, with Patrick McGoohan playing his father, the 20th Phantom.
Source: Hero International website
