Hero complex (& the encore)
Things Are Hotting Up!
Australian comedian Sammy J toured his sell-out, 5-star award-winning show Hero Complex across the country throughout 2016/2017. The hilarious coming-of-age story is about a schoolboy and his gardener and their friendship based on a shared love of the comic book hero, The Phantom.
Jam-packed with real-life photos, videos, and new songs, Sammy took his audiences on an unbelievably true journey across the last twenty years of his life to an incredible, must-be-seen-to-be-believed finale.
In 1996, Sammy J borrowed some Phantom comics from his school gardener. That moment set off a chain of events that led to the birth of his daughter, saw him committing a crime in Canberra, and ended with a federal policeman searching his attic.
After the success in 2016/17, Sammy J brought the show back for an encore tour around the country in 2026 to celebrate the character's 90th birthday. The encore show is very similar but with some important updates on what has happened since the original show.
Hero Complex has won multiple awards across the comedy scene in Australia. While the tour has now completed, Sammy has hinted at others to come. Stay abreast by checking out Sammy's official website at Sammy-J.com.
We've covered the show fairly extensively here on ChronicleChamber and even had the pleasure of Sammy as a guest multiple times on our X-Band: The Phantom Podcast.
Now that Sammy is now a good friend of ChronicleChamber.com we thought it'd be cool to have something of a repository for all the cool stuff that has been released around the show from images to videos and more. Check it all out below!
Awards
Best Comedy Winner, 2016 Melbourne Fringe
Best Comedy Nominee, 2017 Adelaide Fringe
Best Comedy Nominee, 2017 Melbourne Comedy Festival
Best Comedy Performer Nominee, 2017 Helpmann Awards
Promos
To help promote Hero Complex, Sammy and The Phantom teamed up to release several short sketches which Sammy then shared accross various social media platforms. You can watch them all in the playlist below.
As well as creating these clips, Sammy also did his time on media street:
ABC radio -
The Conversation Hour
And of course, there were the Facebook Live videos!
Gallery from the 2016/2017 show
Not only was a good deal of promotional images released for Hero Complex, but Sammy was constantly accosted by phans at his shows. The below gallery includes all the promo images and photos of those lucky enough to have met the man himself (Sammy that is, not The Phantom.)
Remember, if YOU have any pics from the Hero Complex tour, including you posing with Sammy J or anything else, please send them through to us via ChronicleChamber@gmail.com and we will add them to the Gallery!
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Gallery from the 2026 encore show
Like 2016/2017 Sammy was constantly accosted by phans at his shows. The below gallery includes all the photos of those lucky enough to have met the man himself (Sammy that is, not The Phantom.) during the 2026 tour.
Remember, if YOU have any pics from the Hero Complex tour, including you posing with Sammy J or anything else, please send them through to us via ChronicleChamber@gmail.com and we will add them to the Gallery!
Reviews
Many publications reviewed Hero Complex as Sammy toured the show around Australia:
Cross Media
Sammy J has been generous enough to allow the Irish publisher Lightning Strike Comic Books to use the song he wrote for Hero Complex to put behind their re-interpretation of Ray Moore's original Origin strip.
And here is Tim Wilson MP's maiden speech to the Australian parliament, with his very sneaky Phantom reference (skip to 5 min 15 seconds - this will make the most sense if you've seen Hero Complex):
And finally...
Possibly the most exciting moment of the Hero Complex tour for the ChronicleChamber team, as Sammy J and Duncan visited the Skull Cave of one of our own - Jermayn Parker - in a house in suburban Perth...