Is Tony DePaul going to rewrite Lee Falk-created lore again?

In January and February 2025, we saw Mike Manley and Tony DePaul release a two-week fleshing out of the Phantom lore in newspapers and Comics Kingdom. In Phantom terms, we call it "For Those Who Came In Late". This short two weeks explored the origin story of the first Phantom and his father leaving England to be boarded and shipwrecked by the Singh Pirates.

At the time of this appearing, the team on the X-Band: The Phantom Podcasts, wondered why Tony and Mike did not explore in as much detail once the First Phantom was shipwrecked. Now we know why. It is time for Jeff Weigel to have a go and explore what happens between being shipwrecked and swearing the oath.

According to a recent blog post by creator Tony DePaul, from February 2026, it will be Jeff Weigel's turn to add to the origin story of the Phantom. While Mike Manley did not contradict anything told prior by Lee Falk and/or previous stories created by others published in Frew and Team Fantomen, Tony has already told us the new story will (in his own words) "overturn, ignore, [or] neglect" what Lee Falk wrote in a 1975 Sunday Phantom story.

"The First Phantom" is the 96th Phantom Sunday story, first published in newspapers in 1975. The story was written by Lee Falk and drawn by Sy Barry and features Lee Falk fleshing out the origin of the relationship between the Bandar tribe and the Phantom family. This story includes the Bandar tribe originally being enslaved and waiting for a man to be washed upon the shore to rescue them. In reading what Tony DePaul wrote in his blog, this is what it seems he may be looking to rewrite or even remove a possible 'whitewashing' element in a 50-year-old story from established Phantom origin lore.

While this story may have a clumsy element in it, it does feature a few important 'firsts' and origin tellings.

Including how the home of the Phantom - the Deep Woods—was introduced to the Phantom family by the Bandar. It also tells us the origin of the costume being based on the Wasaka tribe's demon-like god and how it became purple. The story also explores the mystery behind the poison that transformed the Bandar from a meek tribe to the most fearsome tribe in East Africa.

For those who have not read this story, we have a slideshow of the story below in this article for you to read. Click on the first image, and it will enlarge, and you can flip and read at your pace.

We suspect Tony DePaul will be rewriting the need of the Phantom being a white saviour to the Bandar.

Our question is, is there a need to rewrite Phantom lore even if it is unfavarouble in today's society? Why is there a need to rewrite "The Chain" story and now "The First Phantom" story? Is this a desire from Tony DePaul or a desire from King Features, who may want to recreate Phantom lore and history as they attempt to make the Phantom more palatable for their Netflix TV series, which we expect to be announced in 2026?

How will the hardcore phans take this? Will they be as upset as when the phan phav classic "The Chain" story was pulled apart by Tony DePaul? As always, we will discuss this and more on the X-Band: The Phantom Podcasts and we encourage you to let us know your thoughts so we can include them in our discussions.

When I read the article by Tony DePaul, I had questions and took advantage of my relationship with Tony to ask him directly, and he has given us permission to share with other phans his responses.

Readers can think what they like. I’ve probably said here before that I wouldn’t be interested in doing this job if King Features was all about the tail wagging the dog. To the contrary, they give me room to do what makes sense for the intellectual property. Ninety years out from 1936—that’s a fair amount of responsibility, worth taking seriously.

So yeah, it’s easy to whine about how time goes on and why everything can’t just stay the same. Stop the world; I want to get off. But the fact is, if Lee Falk were writing the Phantom today, he wouldn’t write the way he did 50 years ago, 70 years ago, or 90 years ago. He’d have a better sensibility about what it is that makes his lead character a hero. It’s too ridiculous for the Phantom to be teaching the locals about their own environment. He feeds them, identifies poison berries, and teaches them how to fight hostile tribes; he leads that fight. The Bandar have only survived on their own since the Stone Age! What could they possibly know? In this timeworn lore from yesteryear, they’re children who need a shipwrecked man to take care of them.

In 1536, the story Jeff’s working on, the Bandar are the masters of their environment; they take care of the shipwrecked man. And, most importantly, the Phantom legend belongs to them. They have an idea of how this lost foreigner may fit into it.

Now, that’s just the setting; it’s not the story. The story is about how Kit Walker gets his head around what’s happened to him. That’s a space Lee Falk never got into.

I’ve seen the first 18 weeks of Jeff Weigel’s art. The guy works to such a high standard. We’re lucky to have him.

Now I can safely say it won't relieve all phans' fears or concerns, but it may. Again, we will collect all questions to discuss on our X-Band: The Phantom Podcasts as the story develops from February 2026 onwards. What do you think?