The Phantom is a fictional costumed crime-fighter 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, and video games.
Publication history
Comic strip
Lee Falk's syndicated newspaper comic strip The Phantom premiered on February 17, 1936, with the story "The Singh Brotherhood", written by Falk and illustrated first by himself, for two weeks, followed by Ray Moore, who was an assistant to artist Phil Davis on Falk's Mandrake the Magician strip. A Sunday Phantom strip was added to newspapers on May 28, 1939. During Moore's World War II military service, he left the strip to his assistant, Wilson McCoy. Upon Moore's return, he worked on the strip on and off until 1949, when McCoy succeeded him. Following McCoy's death in 1961, Carmine Infantino and Bill Lignante (who would later draw several Phantom stories directly for comic books) filled in before Sy Barry was chosen as a successor. Barry would continue working on the strip for over 30 years before retiring in 1994.
Barry's longtime assistant, George Olesen, remained on the strip as penciller, with Keith Williams joining as the inker for the daily strip. The Sunday strip was inked by Eric Doescher until Fred Fredericks became the regular inker in 1995.
Falk continued to script Phantom until his death on March 13, 1999. His last daily and Sunday strip stories, "Terror at the Opera" and "The Kidnappers", respectively, were finished by his wife, Elizabeth Falk, after the hospitalized Falk had torn off his oxygen mask to dictate the adventures. After Falk's passing, King Features Syndicate collaborated with the European comics publisher Egmont on the strip. They went from initially publishing Phantom stories in licensed comic books to providing the stories for the newspaper strip by adapting their own comic-book stories. Tony DePaul and Claes Reimerthi alternated as writers of the daily and Sunday newspaper strips, respectively. DePaul would later become the sole writer of the strip.
In 2000, Olesen and Fredericks retired from the Sunday strip, which was then taken over by artist Graham Nolan. Olesen and Williams left the daily strip after Olesen retired, and artist Paul Ryan took over the daily in early 2005. Ryan succeeded Nolan as artist on the Sunday strip in 2007. On July 31, 2011, Eduardo Barreto became the Sunday artist. Barreto died after only a few months of working on the strip, and Ryan did the January 15, 2012, Sunday page and the following week's comics before Terry Beatty became Barreto's permanent replacement.
Comic books
Through the 1940s, The Phantom strips were reprinted in David McKay Publications' Ace Comics. The following decade, Harvey Comics published The Phantom comic book. In 1962, Gold Key Comics took over, followed by King Comics in 1966 and Charlton Comics in 1969. This lasted until 1977, with a total of 73 issues being published. Some of the main Phantom artists during these years were Bill Lignante, Don Newton, Jim Aparo, and Pat Boyette.
DC Comics published a Phantom comic book from 1988 to 1990. The initial miniseries (dated May–August 1988) were written by Peter David and drawn by Joe Orlando and Dennis Janke. The subsequent series, written by Mark Verheiden and drawn by Luke McDonnell, ran for 13 issues (March 1989 – March 1990).
In 1987, Marvel Comics published a four-issue miniseries based on the Defenders of the Earth TV series, written by Stan Lee. A subsequent three-issue Marvel miniseries, The Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks (Feb.-April 1995), was written and drawn by David de Vries and Glenn Lumsden. Marvel released another four-issue miniseries (May–August 1995) pencilled by Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, based on the Phantom 2040 TV series. One issue featured a pin-up by the original two Spider-Man signature artists, Ditko and John Romita Sr.