COMICS PORTAL: The Ghost Who Walks Returns to Comics

As reported here at MajorSpoilers.com, The Phantom is coming back to your local comics shop, this time in a solo adventure from Mad Cave Studios!

He’s back, this time without his buddies Flash Gordon and Mandrake the Magician!

There remain a LOT of heroes (formerly called Mystery Men) who still generate a LOT of interest among comics fans! Here’s the information from the previously presented link:

THE GHOST WHO WALKS, WALKS AGAIN! The Phantom returns! Created by Lee Falk in 1936, The Phantom is one of the first costumed superheroes in history, with untold influence on pop culture. Now, critically acclaimed creators Ray Fawkes and Russell Olson reimagine the character for fans old and new. When a violent gang of smugglers stumbles on an idyllic Bandar village, the peace that The Phantom has brought to the African nation of Bangalla will suddenly shatter. It will take all of The Phantom’s many skills — and allies — to restore it. The most exciting series of the year starts here!

Personally, I’m thrilled that Ray Fawkes, who has written some of the best superhero/heroic comics in recent years, is scripting the new reimagining of the Ghost Who Walks, The Phantom!

It’s not like the Phantom has never appeared in Mad Cave Studios before! He’s been a part of the Defenders of the Earth (along with Mandrake and Flash, among others), so he’s no stranger to “defending the Earth” or taking on the bad guys! This new series was previewed in this year’s Free Comic Book Day offerings, and the big guy in the purple tights has fans who are anxious for more solo stories with the Ghost Who Walks!

Hey, the fans liked Flash’s recent book, so why not make it happen again?

Here’s how the character is described on Wikipedia:

“The Phantom is a fictional superhero character who operates from the fictional country of Bangalla (originally Bengali). The character was created by Lee Falk for the adventure comic strip The Phantom, which debuted in newspapers on February 17, 1936.

The Phantom was later depicted in many forms of media, including television shows, films, comic books, and video games.”

Much like the success of Superman spawning Batman (although he was from a different creator), the success of Mandrake the Magician in the comic strips in the daily and Sunday newspapers had the publishers wanting more! Some of the influential creators who helped bring the Phantom to life included Lee Falk (of course), Ray Moore, Phil Davis, and then better-known creators including Carmine Infantino, Graham Nolan, Eduardo Barreto, Terry Beatty, Don Newton, Jim Aparo, Peter David, Joe Orlando, and Luke McDonnell, just to name a few.

The Phantom has also made the rounds with several comics companies, including Harvey Comics, Gold Key Comics, King comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Moonstone Books, Dark Horse comics, and Image Comics. He gets around, I tell you!

Now, though, that ritual is going to change. Instead of reading a print version of the Previews, I will have to sit at my computer and look at what’s coming soon.

So specifically, who is the Ghost Who Walks? His “real name” is Kit Walker (at least, the current incarnation), and he’s a skilled fighter and marksman who has a genius-level intellect and is in peak athletic condition. He is known to use technologically advanced weaponry and has done a good job of making other believe he is immortal by passing on the mantle of the Phantom through his family, specifically the male descendants of them (although there was a girl Phantom once…).

In the jungles of the fictional African country of Bangalla, there has been a myth featuring The Ghost Who Walks, a powerful and indestructible guardian of the innocent and fighter who takes on all types of injustice. Because he seems to have existed for generations, many believe him to be immortal. In reality, the Phantom is a legacy hero, descended from 20 previous generations of crimefighters who always adopt the same persona. When a new Phantom takes the task from his dying father, he swears the Oath of the Skull: “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.” The first Phantom married Christina, the daughter of a Norwegian sea captain, Eric the Rover. The second Phantom married Marabella, the granddaughter of Christopher Columbus.

In 1536, when Christopher was 20 years old, he was a part of what was supposed to be his father’s last voyage. The ship was attacked somewhere in the Bay of Bengal by pirates, and Christopher’s father was murdered. He was the sole survivor and was washed ashore on a Bengalla beach, where he was found by pygmies of the Bandar tribe, who nursed him back to health and took care of him. He vowed revenge on “the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms!”

The Bandars showed Christopher to a cave that resembled a human skull in appearance. Christopher later carved the features out to enhance this. The Skull Cave became his home.

Wearing a costume based on the demon god, Christopher became the first incarnation of what would later be known as the Phantom. When he died, his son took over for him, and when the second Phantom died, his son took over, and so on. So, it would go on through the centuries, causing people to believe that the Phantom was immortal. These people gave him nicknames including “The Ghost Who Walks” and “The Man Who Cannot Die.”

The Phantom is the commander of Bangalla’s Jungle Patrol. Because of a betrayal leading to the death of the 14th Phantom, the identity of the commander has been kept hidden from members of the patrol ever since. The Phantom uses several ways to stay in contact. These include radio and a safe with a false bottom.

The Phantom’s adventures have taken him all around the world, including Kit Walker meeting Diana Palmer, who eventually married him and kept the line going. She even works in the United Nations, so that helps Kit find enemies who need to be vanquished.

One last important part of the Phantom legend: He has several animal helpers, including the mountain wolf Devil, the horse Hero, and the falcon Fraka. He also has two dolphins named Solomon and Nefertiti, and numerous other animals kept on the island of Eden.

One of the things that has both helped and hurt the Phantom has been that he does most of his “adventuring” in the jungles of Africa. This “exotic” setting has been fun a lot of the time, but sometimes it’s too far from the cities that other heroes inhabit. If some people have a problem with the jungle Kit fights the bad guys in (or the location falls out of favor during an era), the Phantom can lose some of his fans and popularity. However, this seems to be cyclical in nature, and fans miss the unique location for such a hero, so the Ghost Who Walks returns to popularity.

This has proven to be a problem when Kit teams up with Mandrake and Flash, for instance. They often fight in more sci-fi regions like space or in bigger cities. How much help the Phantom can be in these circumstances varies. Some have compared him to Aquaman in the Justice League…if he’s away from where he functions best, well, he may be excluded from the battle at times.

This all came to a head during the Phantom’s recent animated series called Phantom 2040.

It’s kind of weird that the year 2040 isn’t that far away anymore. The series is very different from the printed stories in the jungle in that it’s set in the future with a descendent of Kit Walker. Naturally, the world has progressed technologically, so the Phantom now rides a flying cycle and deals with humans who have been enhanced with special technodevelopments.

The art in this series always befuddled me in that all the humans look like they have been stretched from top to bottom. It took some getting used to.

Granted, two of the main influences in this show were Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, pretty well-known sci-fi (including Star Trek) creators who seemed to follow the adage of “writing what you know,” which included sci-fi.

The show lasted two seasons, and I enjoyed it, but it was tough to find on local TV stations who carried the program. I often couldn’t tell what had happened since I saw it last, which made the stories more difficult to understand at times.

Right now, we don’t know very much about what the comic will be about except that it has been foreshadowed by that FCBD issue. It looks great, but we’ll see as things get fleshed out in the months ahead.

Presently, it seems that the Phantom will be back in the jungles of Africa, a place he’s pretty familiar with. I hope it does well because I like the “mystery men” in comics instead of superheroes who inherit or receive “strange and wonderful powers” that are hard to obtain in real life, if at all.

So, stay tuned! I hope we see a lot more of the Ghost Who Walks and even his fellow heroes in the months ahead!

What do you think? Does the Phantom still have interesting stories to tell? Are “mystery men” the kind of heroes that comics stories can tell appropriately? Do you still have interest in the Defenders of the Earth? Whatever your opinion, be sure to share it in the space below!

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