X-Band: Phantom Podcast #348 - The origin of the Phantom (Dissecting the latest Sunday story)
In this episode, Jermayn Parker will be dissecting the latest Sunday Phantom story that has just finished in newspapers around the world and on Comics Kingdom. This story is titled “1536” by Tony DePaul and Jeff Weigel and is a continuation of the origin stories by Lee Falk.
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We have four main origin retellings so far, which is actually not that much out of 2000+ odd Phantom stories created from around the world. We may have probably missed a couple, but these would be the main ones:
In 1936, Lee Falk and Ray Moore gave us a week of the origin story.
In 1971, almost 40 years later, we get a Sunday story that tells us the origin of the relationship between the Bandar, the origin of the poison arrows, the costume, and the rescuing of the Bandar from slavery, and something we will discuss more in this podcast.
In the late 1980s, Team Fantomen, led by Ulf Granberg created several stories, which added on to these stories and snippets. "The Avenger", we see the Phantom getting revenge on the man behind the attack on his ship, the Singh Pirates, and we see the origin of the name "The Phantom".
In 2025 at the start of “The Spark”, Mike Manley and Tony spent two weeks expanding the origin from leaving England to be found on shore by the Bandar.
In many stories, we get four panels or one page in comics of the origin retelling, which has famously been called “For Those Who Came In Late”. This is important, as it catches up potential new readers to who the Phantom is. I would like to see comics do this more.
The Phantom is one of the very few heroes with a legacy passing of the mantle. You have Black Panther, Green Lantern, and Blue Beetle, and the others are all manufactured post-creation, as they see the problem that the Phantom never has that sees the mantle passed from one generation to the next. The Phantom is unique.
In “1536”, we see the soon-to-be first Phantom found by the Bandar, and in short, this story features the decision of the first Phantom choosing to be the Phantom. By the end of the story, we see the Phantom swearing the oath. In between these two points we get a lot more. This next part will contain spoilers, but you can read this story for free on the Comics Kingdom website, and it will be republished in the next few months by Shakti Comics (India), Fantomen (Sweden), and Frew (Australia).
I think the first thing Phans need to know and remember is that Tony DePaul has not retconned or used one phans words “fiddled” with the lore. He has on purpose extended the stories, especially what has happened in between panels in past stories. This is not like "The Chain" retelling, where he has moved that into a ‘dream’ and ‘removed’ it from his universe (for lack of a better term).
There are two main changes. Tony DePaul has made in this new story are:
The change of the prophecy from saving the Bandar to being the Phantom
The change of the origin of the cloth for the costume
The other thing Tony DePaul didn't include was the Wasaka Tribe enslaving the Bandar. Lee Falk never wrote about them again. I only remember two other stories featuring this tribe again, and those were one by Moonstone and one by Fantomen. Tony on his blog has talked about not liking this potential ‘white saviour trope’, maybe other creators do not like it either, and that is why they have left it alone.
One could argue that for the phans who like this story, this happened during this story or afterwards. Tony in my opinion cleverly and wisely did not retconned that story or on purpose striked it out like he did with the Chain storyline. He has left it alone for those who like it to fit it in their universe.
Do you like this story?
Did Tony DePaul give enough respect to the character with this “expanding” of the origin?
Did you notice any other changes that I have missed?
Are you happy with the Wasaka not being featured in this story?
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