Movies - The Phantom

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The Phantom is a comic strip created by Lee Falk (also creator of Mandrake the Magician), recounting the adventures of a costumed crime-fighter called the Phantom. The series began with a daily newspaper strip on February 17, 1936, which was joined by a colour Sunday strip in May of 1939; both are still running as of 2006, although Lee Falk has passed away, and the newspaper comics are now written by Tony DePaul and drawn by Paul Ryan (daily strip) and Graham Nolan (Sunday strip). Previous artists on the newspaper strip include Ray Moore, Wilson McCoy, Bill Lignante, Sy Barry, George Olesen, Keith Williams and Fred Fredericks.

The Phantom is credited as being the first "costumed superhero", i.e. the first crimefighter to wear the skintight costume attributed to comic book superheroes. Previous fictional crime fighters, such as Zorro and Doc Savage, were not designed especially for newspaper comic strips or comic books.

The character

The Phantom wears a mask, a purple skintight costume. However, creator Lee Falk had originally envisioned a grey costume and even considered naming his creation "The Gray Ghost" before settling on "The Phantom". It was not until the Phantom Sunday strip debuted in 1939 that the costume was shown to be purple, something that apparently was a printing mistake and Lee Falk himself did not approve beforehand. Lee Falk wanted the costume to be gray, but the colorist while colouring the strip decided that Phantom would look better in purple. Although this was never corrected, Falk continued to refer to the costume as gray in the text of the strip on several occasions after this, but finally accepted the purple costume. In a retcon it was shown that the first Phantom chose the costume based on the appearance of a jungle idol, and colored the cloth with purple jungle berries.

Publishers that printed color comics with the Phantom before 1939 chose costume color based on their own preference, and even later on various publishers over the world picked different costume colors; eg – blue in Scandinavia (this was because the purple colour wasn't possible to print initially), red in Italy, Turkey and (formerly) Brazil, and brown in New Zealand. In one of the European nations the Phantom was never printed in a purple costume since it was the colour used for mourning!!

The Phantom carries two .45 pistols. His base is in the Deep Woods of Bangalla, a fictional country initially set in Asia somewhere near India but later moved to Africa, where he is the secret commander of the Jungle Patrol. He is particularly the enemy of pirates.

It is notable that he has no supernatural powers.

In the African jungle, the Phantom is called "The Ghost who Walks" and "The Man who Cannot Die" because he seems to have been around for generations. This is because the Phantom is descended from twenty previous generations of crime-fighters who all share the same persona. When a new Phantom takes up the mantle, he has to swear the Oath of the Skull: "I devote my life to the destruction of all forms of piracy, greed and cruelty. My sons and their sons will follow in my footsteps." Frequently the strip highlights the adventures of previous Phantoms, set in the past, and some European publications have featured the Phantom's children as future crimefighters. Two signatures of the character are two rings he wears. One has a pattern that he leaves on visitors to his region he approves of, which marks the person as under his protection. The other has a skull shape and is worn on his favored punching hand, which leaves a skull like scar on the enemies he punches. The Phantom has two helpers, a mountain wolf, Devil, and a horse, Hero. He also has a trained falcon named Fraka. He is married to Diana Palmer-Walker, who works at the UN. They have two children (twins), Kit and Heloise. The Phantom had also raised an orphan named Rex (now Prince of Baronkhan).

The Phantom's family have always played a significant role in the series. His relationship with Diana Palmer was a significant ongoing plot strand early in the series; and several later stories revolved around the Phantom becoming involved in adventures as a result of his young charges (first Rex, then Kit and Heloise).

"There are times when the Phantom leaves his jungle home and travels as an ordinary man." When he does, he wears a fedora, sunglasses, and a trench coat and is known as "Mr. Walker". References to "Mr. Walker" are traditionally accompanied by a footnote saying "For 'The Ghost Who Walks'", although some versions of the Phantom's history suggest that Walker was actually the surname of the man who became the first Phantom.

The legend

Over the course of more than sixty years' worth of stories, the "legend" of the Phantom grew to become an integral part of the series' raison d'être. The legend of the "Ghost Who Walks" made the character stand out from the innumerable costumed heroes who have battled crime throughout the 20th Century, and has helped maintain his appeal through the present day.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Phantom ]

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Movies - The Phantom

The character

The legend

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