To my regret, I became a big fan of his work, although I'm not sorry I discovered other, more substantial reviewers and video essayists I continue to follow. Anyway, that fandom led me to try my hand at writing my own reviews for the site as a guest blogger, and I've been going at it ever since. And to think it was The Phantom that started it all...well, we can't always help what we're influenced by, or how that influence will manifest itself, and I can't blame the character or the film for that.
Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! And this year, I'll be looking at a 400-year old scourge of piracy...the Ghost Who Walks himself, the Phantom! (It was supposed to be last year, but I didn't have enough time to do this justice.) I was actually undecided as to whether to only cover the Phantom comic strip, which is likely less known, or to focus more on the 1996 feature film adaptation, which has a cult following and might be more of a crowd-pleaser. (I may not be able to monetize this blog, but traffic is traffic.) I ended up putting it up to a vote on Twitter last year, and the comic won, but not by much. So while this review will mostly be about the original comic strip, which is still running today, I'm going to talk a lot more about the movie than I otherwise would have. Let's go into the obvious question first: why the Phantom? What's the big deal about this guy, and why would I pick him for a Talk Like a Pirate Day subject? Well, while I'd never heard of the guy until the movie came out, I ended up getting into the comic strip about twelve years ago, becoming a big fan. It's an interesting blend of some of my favorite genres - adventure fiction, swashbucklers, and superheroes - that still manages to work. In fact, a number of superhero tropes we know and love today originated with the Phantom, who predated the likes of Superman and Batman. So as a comic book fan, there's a huge debt owed to the Phantom for getting that ball rolling. Lastly, the Phantom was born of piracy, and combatting it in all its forms is the very reason for his existence, which is enough to justify making him the subject of a Talk Like a Pirate Day special. And yes, I did throw in a reference to the Phantom in my pirate-themed literary debut, The Brotherhood of the Black Flag. (On sale on Amazon for $0.99 for the rest of 2022, in celebration of its five year publication anniversary!) The Phantom was created by Leon Harrison Gross (1911 - 1999), better known by his pen name of Lee Falk, after his stepfather Albert Falk Epstein. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Falk was a voracious reader of heroic mythology and folklore, and also had strong interests in stage magic and theater. He (falsely) claimed to have been an extensive world traveler in order to secure gigs writing adventure comic strips, the first of which was Mandrake the Magician, another long-running strip that was published continuously until 2013. After the success of Mandrake, The Phantom comic strip first appeared on February 17, 1936, and Falk expected to only work on the strip for a few weeks. However, he ended up continuously writing it for the next six decades, until his death in 1999. (The comic strip has continued since then to this day, written by other authors.) In addition to his comic strip work, Falk wrote about a dozen plays, including musicals as well as a stage adaptation of the Mandrake comic, and even wrote some novels about the Phantom. Falk not only wrote the comic, but he was the artist for the first two weeks of the strip, before Ray Moore took over. Wilson McCoy took over for Moore during World War II, although Moore returned every once in a while. In 1961, Carmine Infantino, who redesigned DC's Flash for the Silver Age, filled in for a bit until Sy Barry was made permanent artist in 1962, and this is the era when the Phantom's signature look came about. Barry would draw The Phantom until his retirement in 1994. Among the artists who have drawn the Phantom since then are Graham Nolan and Paul Ryan, both of whom have extensive experience working for DC and Marvel. "The Smugglers" (May 7, 1972) It must be said that the Phantom was by no means the first adventure hero to wear a disguise and mask to fight crime. In the pages of the pulps, Zorro, the Shadow, and the Spider had the Phantom beat by several years on that front - hell, the first Zorro story was published in 1919. On the radio, the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet had already been wearing masks to conceal their identities when combating crime, and the Ranger in particular was never depicted without his mask or a disguise except under very unusual circumstances. However, the Phantom's distinctive costume and pupil-less mask are widely considered to have originated the superhero costume as we know it today. The skin-tight outfit was inspired by stage depictions of Robin Hood, and the pupil-less mask was meant to evoke Greco-Roman sculpture. The outfit was originally conceived of as gray, and even described as such early on. (The character was originally meant to be called "The Gray Ghost," but Falk discarded it in favor of "The Phantom.") For some reason, the costume was rendered purple in the first color comic strip in 1938. Falk was displeased by this at first, but eventually ran with it. The story of The Phantom begins in 1536, when young Christopher Walker (or Standish, depending on the story) accompanied his father, who had sailed with Columbus, on one last sea voyage. However, the ship was attacked by the Singh Brotherhood, a vicious band of pirates, and young Walker was the sole survivor of the attack. He escaped the massacre and ended up washed ashore on the beaches of Bangalla, a fictional African nation, whose inhabitants took him in. Some time later, the corpse of the pirate who killed Walker's father also ended up washed ashore, and Walker swore an oath on the murderer's skull to dedicate his life to combatting piracy in all its forms, a mission his sons and their sons would carry on. Ever since then, Walker and his descendants have battled evil as the Phantom, their purple garb inspired by a demonic figure from Bangallan lore. A legend eventually came about that the different generations of Phantoms were all the same man, leading people to believe he's an immortal or a ghost who can't die. (This is where the "Ghost Who Walks" nickname for the Phantom comes from.) The Phantoms ran with it and have used to their advantage to intimidate their enemies, to the point where the Phantom has become a dreaded figure among the criminal elements around the world. However, they are indeed mortal, with no supernatural abilities. When a Phantom is killed, their son assumes the name and takes over for them. The current Phantom, the protagonist of the comic ever since it began in 1936, is the 21st to bear the mantle. "The Curse of Old Man Mozz" (August 8, 2017) Not all of this was revealed right away - they mythology took time to build, naturally. In fact, originally, Falk set up idle young playboy Jimmy Wells as the Phantom, reminiscent of Richard Curtis van Loan, the Phantom Detective. However, Wells was later revealed to be a red herring, the true Phantom being an enigmatic figure of murky motives. (Whether that was the intention all along or Falk did an abrupt about-face is unclear.) Likewise, the Phantom was an aloof, ominous character, with wealthy adventurer Diana Palmer initially presented as the point-of-view character (similar to the proxy heroes of the Shadow pulps). The first storyline, "The Singh Brotherhood," has Diana returning home with a fortune in ambergris, planning to use the profits toward building a hospital, only to be targeted by the Singhs. However, a mysterious masked protector repeatedly comes to her aid, leading to a reckoning with the Singh Brotherhood. "The Singh Brotherhood" (May 13, 1936) More elements of the Phantom's mythology were added over the years, such as the Skull Cave in Bangalla's Deep Woods, which houses a throne room, the chronicles and crypts of the previous Phantoms, and a vast treasure horde, gifted to the Phantom by various people he's helped. It's also where the Phantoms born, fated to be trained from childhood in a variety of physical and mental disciplines, including studying abroad (thanks to the wealth the Phantoms have accumulated). In combat, the Phantom mostly uses his fists and his wits - while he does carry twin .45 automatics, he only shoots to wound or disarm. "The Hanta Witch" (June 26, 1965) The Phantom's equipment also includes two rings, one on each hand. One leaves the Good Mark, which means you're under the Phantom's protection for life. The other leaves the brand of a skull, imprinted on those he strikes with his fist, marking you as an enemy of the Phantom. (Mythbusters did an episode on this to see if this feat was possible. They determined that the force required to leave that kind of imprint would actually crush someone's skull. Recently, there have been various explanations for how the ring works that get around this.) Not only is this reminiscent of the Z mark Zorro would leave behind, but in a few early Green Lantern stories from the Golden Age, Green Lantern's ring would make a similar mark on bad guys that Alan Scott punched out. "The Epidemic" (May 10, 1962) "Bullets Town" (March 1, 1966) Over time, the Phantom's supporting cast naturally expanded. Guran, a member of Bangalla's Bandar tribe, is a lifelong friend and confidant of the Phantom, even accompanying him to the United States when he attended college. Originally, he spoke in a very Hollywood-native stereotypical manner (as did the rest of the Bangallans), but this has gone away in more recent years. There's also the Jungle Patrol, charged with official law enforcement in Bangalla, which had actually been founded by the sixth Phantom - and the Phantoms have been the secret commanders of the Jungle Patrol ever since. (Originally, this was a well-known fact until the Singh Brotherhood used this information to kill the 14th Phantom. These days, the Phantom's identity as the Jungle Patrol's Unknown Commander is a secret.) Bangalla has transition from a jungle populated by stereotypical Hollywood natives (who the Phantom ruled over like a king - that's fortunately been gone for a while) into a modernized republic included the institutionalization of presidential elections, and the current president, Dr. Lamanda Luaga, is also a longtime friend and ally of the Ghost Who Walks. The Phantom also had several animal sidekicks - his horse Hero, a wolf named Devil, and a trained falcon called Fakra. "The Devil Road" (December 17, 1947) "The Curse of Old Man Mozz" (September 23, 2017) However, the most important person in the Phantom's history is Diana Palmer, with whom he had several encounters going all the way back to childhood before meeting again in college. The two fell deeply in love, but before Walker could propose, he'd received word that his father had been betrayed and murdered by Rama Singh, a member of the Singh Brotherhood, and it was time for him to become the Phantom. The "will they/won't they" subplot dragged out for decades, causing both of them much mental anguish, until at long last, the Phantom and Diana were married, with Mandrake the Magician and his supporting cast attending the ceremony. Their children, Kit and Heloise, are nearly fully grown by now, and I'm frankly surprised one of them hasn't become the 22nd Phantom yet. (My money's on Heloise.) Maybe that's how they'll end the strip, or mark a particular milestone? "High Seas Hijacker," aka "The Governor and Suzie" (February 26, 1944) "The Wedding of the Phantom" (December 10, 1978) With all his years fighting evil, The Phantom's racked up a decent rogues gallery over the years, particularly outside of the comic strip. His most prominent enemy is always the Singh Brotherhood, which the Phantoms have waged a constant war against. Quite a few Phantoms have died at the hands of the Brotherhood, including the original and current Phantoms' fathers. (More recently, the name has been rendered as Sengh, including in the 1996 movie, to sound less ethnically distinct.) However, there have been other recurring foes, such as the Eastern Dark, the residents of the pirate haven Dakk who engage in a variety of criminal undertakings, from drug and human trafficking to human sacrifice. General Bababu has made repeated attempts to oust President Luaga and take control of Bangalla for himself - or at least whoever is pulling his strings. The Phantom's also gone up against various terrorists and criminals for hire, such as the Python and the Nomad. "The Mysterious Ambassador" (October 25, 1962) By and large, storylines in The Phantom were two-fisted action-adventure yarns, with no supernatural elements (although one or two storylines had aliens in them). The daily and Sunday strips told different ongoing stories, each usually beginning with a recap of the Phantom's origins "for those who came in late." (I did mention Falk had an extensive theatrical background, right?) Sometimes there were flashback stories to how the current Phantom was trained, and his college days with Diana Palmer. There were even some that focused on the exploits of Phantoms past. For example, when the current Phantom became frustrated over not being able to prevent a war between two tribes, Guran told him a tale of the previous Phantom, to teach a lesson in perseverance. (This story was among those to be adapted in one of the comic books.) The third Phantom-to-be, resenting his father for planning out his entire life, intended to break away from the tradition of fighting evil, becoming a Shakesperean actor, but dutifully gave it up when his father was fatally wounded. Another story told of the 16th Phantom, who, when ill and unable to undertake a mission, was replaced temporarily by his sister Julia. "The Fourth Son" (January 3, 1992) Despite his importance to the superhero genre, The Phantom never became all that big of an American institution, with some attributing this to the character not being "American" enough. He is, however, immensely popular overseas. When the Golden Age Blue Beetle comics were reprinted in Europe, the character was renamed "The Steel Phantom" to cash in on the Phantom's popularity. (Victor Fox, whose Fox Comics initially created and published the original Blue Beetle, was known for ripping off other characters, and the Blue Beetle's visual similarities to the Phantom is likely not an accident.) He's also immensely popular in Sweden, where his comic strip adventures were published in comic book form under the name Fantomen beginning in 1950, making it one of the oldest Swedish comic books. Beginning in 1963, Fantomen featured original stories about the Phantom, which continue to this day. (I could go into a lot more detail, but this is getting pretty long as it is.) The Phantom naturally made his way to a variety of other media. I already mentioned that Falk himself wrote a series of novels about the Phantom, which were pretty good. The Phantom has also made a natural transition to comic books, and not just Ace Comics's reprints of the newspaper strips in the 1940s. Harvey Comics held the comic books rights to the Phantom in the 1950s, and a new series started in 1962, published by Gold Key. King Comics took over the series in 1966, followed by Charlton Comics in 1969. The Gold Key/King/Charlton run kept the numbering instead of starting it over each time the rights changed hands, and the series lasted an impressive 73 issues. Among the artists who worked on this series were Jim Aparo and Don Newton, both of whom had lengthy runs drawing Batman and Aquaman for DC. And speaking of DC, they published a Phanton mini-series in the 1980s (which I liked), written by Peter David and drawn and inked by Joe Orlando and Dennis Janke. This was followed by a monthly series that lasted 13 issues. The comic book rights have bounced back and forth between different companies since then. In 1943, Columbia released The Phantom, a low-budget serial starring Tom Tyler (who previously played Captain Marvel). It's reportedly pretty faithful to the source material, some chapters even adapted from a comic strip storyline. The biggest difference is the Phantom's alter-ego being Geoffrey Prescott (which is excusable, since the Kit Walker identity hadn't been established yet) and the circumstances of the previous Phantom's death. Although it's considered to be one of Columbia's better serials, that's not really saying much, although Tyler's been praised for his resemblance to the Phantom as depicted in the comic strip. (I've only seen a couple of chapters of it, so I can't comment.) Falk himself, however, was dismissive of it, saying that it looked like it had been filmed in a phone booth. There were other attempts at a Phantom adaptation, including a TV pilot which featured an impressive cast - Lon Chaney Jr., Paulette Goddard, and Richard Kiel. Acclaimed Italian director Federico Fellini had been a fan of the comic since childhood, and supposedly wanted to do a movie adaptation of his own. In 1994, the Hearst Corporation and France 3 collaborated on the acclaimed animated series Phantom 2040 (1994-1996), with character design by Peter Chung, the creator of Æon Flux. Set in the future, it chronicled the adventures of the 24th Phantom, who battled the corrupt corporation Maximum Inc. in a dystopian Earth. Although it only lasted for 35 episodes, it drew rave reviews for the quality of its writing and voice acting. There was also a video game adaptation of Phantom 2040 for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, which I've played and enjoyed, even though I've never gotten very far in it. The Ghost Who Walks would have to wait until the 1990s to make it to the big-screen in a feature film. In the wake of the massive success of Warner Bros.'s Batman franchise, other studios naturally looked to create other superhero franchises of their own. For some reason, they focused on older heroes from the 1930s, such as The Shadow, Dick Tracy, and the Phantom, as well as the Rocketeer, based on the Dave Stevens comic book from the 1980s but inspired by the Republic Rocketman serials of the 1940s. I suspect budget limitations and the state of special effects technology was a huge driver of this, as well as the popularity of the Indiana Jones series. Dick Tracy (1990) The Shadow (1994) The Indiana Jones connection is particularly strong with the 1996 Phantom movie. Screenwriter Jeffrey Boam had previously written the script for Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade (1989), as well as the first three films in the Lethal Weapon series (his re-write work on the first film's script going uncredited). The director, Simon Wincer, had an extensive history directing primarily for television, including six episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-1993), along with the occasional film such as Free Willy (1993) and Operation Dumbo Drop (1995). One of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episodes Wincer directed featured Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Wincer was eager to work with her again. To top it off, Rob MacGregor, who wrote the novelization of The Phantom, was also the author of a number of Indiana Jones novels, including the novelization of Last Crusade. WARNING: Here be spoilers! Read further at your own risk! After some brief exposition about the Phantom's origins, we open in the Bengallan jungle in 1938, relocated to near Thailand instead of Africa. A group of treasure hunters, led by Quill (James Remar), is raiding a cave on the hunt for a skull made of silver, one of the lost Skulls of Touganda. The presence of these interlopers alerts the Phantom (Billy Zane), although despite his best efforts, Quill makes off with his prize. It turns out Quill is working for wealthy businessman Xander Drax (Treat Williams), and he's after the skulls for the supernatural powers they possess. Meanwhile, newspaper publisher Dave Palmer (Bill Smitrovich) is seeking to uncover Drax's underhanded dealings, and his niece Diana (Kristy Swanson) offers her assistance. This puts her in Drax's crosshairs, leading to her abduction by Sala (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and her all-female pirate gang. The wheels are set in motion for the Phantom to intervene, setting up a showdown with Drax over the fate of the skulls, not to mention Diana's life and a very personal score to settle with Quill, who turns out to be the man who murdered the previous Phantom. I can see why this movie has its loyal fans, as well as why it didn't do too well at the box office. The premise is, admittedly, a hard one to buy into, especially in a feature film. However, if you're a fan of the character, The Phantom faithfully captures the premise and the tone for the most part. The production team clearly did their homework, much of the plot being adapted from the first two Phantom storylines, as well as "The Belt," in which the Phantom faced his father's killer. Hell, they even included Jimmy Wells, a footnote in Phantom history, into the script. He even contributes to the plot a bit, so it's not a gratuitous reference. There are some deviations, particularly the presence of supernatural artifacts, which the comic strip never had, but that's a minor nitpick, and hardly blasphemous. Also, the Phantom never spoke to the spirit of his father in the comic strip, but I can see why they added it in, and it doesn't hurt anything. The cast, by and large, clearly has the passion for the material, although unfortunately, that passion doesn't always carry over into their performances. Billy Zane, who became a huge fan of the Phantom comic strip while filming Dead Calm (1989), is clearly enjoying himself playing the Phantom. This goes a long way towards making his performance work, and some of his more awkward moments seem intentional on the filmmakers' part, either for comic relief or to humanize the character some. That being said, he can be a bit stiff at times, and I wonder if a less-restrained performance - or actor - might have been a better fit. (Bruce Campbell was a serious contender to play The Phantom, and that would have been interesting to see.) Our leading lady, Kristy Swanson, is unfortunately the weakest link in the movie. She looks like she came right out of a 1930s adventure movie or serial, but she delivers her lines flatly, without much interest or conviction, and several bits of her eye-rollingly trite dialogue don't give her much to work with. The script originally had more scenes of the Phantom and Diana, building up their relationship, but Wincer cut them for pacing reasons. She doesn't seem to have much in the way of chemistry with Zane, and I'm not sure whether more screen time between the two of them would have helped with this, or if their romantic subplot was trimmed precisely because of that lack of spark. The villains fare far better than our leads, although even they feel a bit...off. It's like they're trying to ham it up or camp it up too much but are still holding back. This is especially the case with Treat Williams as the evil Xander Drax. On paper, the dialogue and the character works, and he's clearly enjoying his bites of scenery, although something seems to be holding him back, so his performance doesn't work quite as well as it could have. James Remar is a convincing heavy for the film, and he plays more of a role in the film than this kind of character typically does, but like Williams, something just doesn't work about how he says his lines. Catherine Zeta-Jones is the true standout performance here, relishing getting to play a bad girl with a heart of gold. We also get an all-too-brief bit of awesome-ness from Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Kabai Sengh, who I wish had gotten more screentime. The Phantom has all the right ingredients for an exciting action-adventure story, particularly on the technical side. David Burr's vibrant cinematography gives the film a slightly stylized feel, making it easier to buy into as a comic strip come to life. That stylization comes over in the costumes and set designs, which again paint the picture of a storybook adventure rather than overt realism. And I love, love, love David Newman's score for this film (some of which was used in trailers for 1998's The Mask of Zorro). There are some fun action scenes and impressive stunts, and the filmmakers even got Bob Anderson to stage the sword fights in the climactic showdown, although they're too brief to give Anderson's beautiful choreography the chance to shine. So this film certainly had the potential to work. I think the off-key performances from most of the cast hurt this movie, Zeta-Jones and Tagawa being the most noteworthy exceptions, and from what I've read, Universal dropped the ball on the marketing big time. As I'm writing this, it suddenly occurs to me that The Phantom is also directly responsible for the INCspotlight - or at least for my writing a guest review blog on the Channel Awesome website. When I was getting into the Phantom comic strip, I decided I wanted to give the movie another try. While impatiently waiting for the DVD to arrive from Netflix, I went on YouTube looking for trailers, and I came across the Nostalgia Critic's review of the film. It was the first NC review I'd ever seen, and it was almost my last - I stopped watching after about five minutes when he was criticizing the movie over things that came directly from the source material, indicating he hadn't bothered to do any research on the Phantom. That might have been the end of it, until YouTube's algorithm showed me some of his other reviews, including some of movies I really didn't like. As Nick Nolte put it in Ang Lee's Hulk (2003), "I should have put a stop to it right then, but I was curious, and that was my downfall." To my regret, I became a big fan of his work, although I'm not sorry I discovered other, more substantial reviewers and video essayists I continue to follow. Anyway, that fandom led me to try my hand at writing my own reviews for the site as a guest blogger, and I've been going at it ever since. And to think it was The Phantom that started it all...well, we can't always help what we're influenced by, or how that influence will manifest itself, and I can't blame the character or the film for that. And thus concludes this retrospective on the Phantom! I hope you enjoyed, and that you'll check out the exploits of the Ghost Who Walks for yourself, in whatever medium you see fit. To all the Phantom fans out there, I hope I did him justice. And to all ye lubbers who be celebratin', a most Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!
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