The Phantom

Lore & Background

The Phantom is 21st in a line of crime-fighters which began in 1536, when the father of British sailor Christopher Walker was killed during a pirate attack. Swearing an oath on the skull of his father's murderer to fight evil, Christopher began a legacy of the Phantom which would pass from father to son. Nicknames for the Phantom include 'The Ghost Who Walks', 'Guardian of the Eastern Dark' and 'The Man Who Cannot Die'. Unlike many other superheroes, the Phantom has no superpowers; he relies on his strength, intelligence, skill at arms, and the myth of his immortality. The 21st Phantom is married to Diana Palmer; they have two children, Kit and Heloise. He has a trained wolf named Devil and a horse named Hero, and lives in the ancient Skull Cave.

In Their Own Story

The torch sputtered. Kael had seen the flicker at the edge of the corridor before, in the lower galleries, and he had told himself it was heat-shimmer from the Abyss-seam. It was not.

The shape stood where the corridor opened into the vaulted hall—tall, wrong-angled, its outline blurred as though painted in wet ash. It did not walk. The distance between them simply became smaller.

Kael raised his blade. The Phantom's form shivered, and a cold wave rolled across the floor in a wide arc, cracking the stone tiles. He rolled. The second wave followed a half-beat later, tighter, aimed at where he'd been. He was learning the rhythm: sweep, pause, sweep. In the pause, the Phantom's edges grew translucent, and that was when the blade could find purchase.

He struck. The form rippled like a stone dropped in still water, and for a moment the cold in the hall lifted, and the silence was just silence.

Then the flicker returned at the corridor's mouth, and Kael understood the pause was not an ending. It was a breath.

Reader's Guide

The Phantom was the first fictional hero to wear the skintight costume which has become a hallmark of comic-book superheroes, and was the first shown in a mask with no visible pupils. Comics historian Peter Coogan has described the Phantom as a 'transitional' figure, since the Phantom has some of the characteristics of pulp magazine heroes such as The Shadow and the Spider and earlier jungle heroes such as Tarzan, as well as anticipating the features of comic book heroes such as Superman, Batman, and Captain America.

Did You Know?

• The series began with a daily newspaper strip on February 17, 1936, followed by a color Sunday strip on May 28, 1939.
• In 1966, King Features stated that The Phantom was being published in 583 newspapers worldwide.
• At its peak, the strip was read by over 100 million people daily.
• Falk worked on The Phantom until his death in 1999; since his death, the comic strip has been written by Tony DePaul.