TheOriginOf.com

PHANTOM

March 31, 2007 – 12:37 pm

PHANTOM

 “Mandrake the Magician” was the first creation of Lee Falk for King Features which was a huge success. Lee was asked by the King Features newspaper syndicate to make a new feature. Lee went on to create “Phantom”. The Phantom is shown as a fighter against crime the jungles of Africa. The daily newspaper strip first appeared on February 17, 1936 with the story “The Singh Brotherhood”, which was followed by a color strip in May 1939. Phantom was the first superhero to fight crimes while wearing a skintight costume and to wear a mask with no apparently visible pupils. Both these features became a standard feature in the superheroes to follow.

The first story of Phantom was written and illustrated by Falk himself and continued for two weeks. Later Ray Moore started took over the drawing part. Both Falk and Moore took part in World War II leaving assistant of Moore, Wilson McCoy, in charge of the strip. After the war Moore worked on and off the strip and helped it being published in newspapers worldwide. McCoy succeeded Moore in 1949.  Due to sudden death of McCoy in 1961, Carmine Infantino and Bill Lignante were brought in as stop gap arrangement before Barry took over the reins. Barry and Falk together gave Phantom the modern look.

Barry continued to work on Phantom strip till his retirement in 1994. Falk worked on the script on Phantom till his death in 1999. After death of Falk, King Feature Syndicate started cooperating with European publisher Egmont for Phantom. Phantom is one of the few comic strips still being published.

Phantom who is also known as “The Ghost Who Walk”, “The Man Who Cannot Die” lives in fictional African country Bangala. Earlier he was said to be living in Asia somewhere near to India but was moved to Africa in 1960’s. He is believed to be immortal as it seems that he has been around for generations and never dies. In reality the Phantom has descended from twenty previous generations of crime-fighters, all of whom don the same persona.

A new Phantom has to swear an oath, known as The Oath of the Skull that states “I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms, and my sons and their sons shall follow me.”, before he takes the responsibility from his dying father. The Phantom we all know is the twenty first in the line of Phantoms. He lives in the famous Skull Cave where all the Phantoms are buried upon their death. He is shown wearing a purple skintight bodysuit and a black mask. He carries two .45 pistols as weapons in a belt with a skull buckle. Phantom does not have any superpower and uses his brain and physical strength along with his weapons to fight crime.

He is shown as wearing two rings one of them has a skull shape and leaves an impression in the shape of skull on the enemy being punched. It is known as “The Evil Mark”. The other ring is called “The Good Mark” and he uses it to mark visitors in his region. A person marked with “The Good Mark” is considered to be under his protection. Guran, chief of the Pygmy tribe is Phantom’s childhood friend and helps phantom in his fight against crime.

Phantom has Devil the wolf and Hero the horse along with a trained falcon, Fraka, as his helpers. Phantom marries Diana Palmer whom he met during his study in an American College. Diana works for the United Nations. Phantom whose real name is Kit Walker has twins, named Kit and Heloise, a year after his marriage. It is a tradition in Phantom family for the eldest son who later becomes the Phantom to be named Kit. Currently Kit is shown as being trained to become Phantom.