The Phantom's History
The Phantom is a comic strip created by Lee Falk (also creator of Mandrake the Magician), recounting the adventures of a costumed crime-fighter called the Phantom. The series began with a daily newspaper strip on February 17, 1936, which was joined by a color Sunday strip in May of 1939; both are still running as of 2022 and are read by millions of people every day. Lee Falk died in 1999, and the newspaper comics are now written by Tony DePaul and drawn by Paul Ryan (daily strip) and Graham Nolan (Sunday strip). Previous artists on the newspaper strip include Ray Moore, Wilson McCoy, Bill Lignante, Sy Barry, George Olesen, Keith Williams and Fred Fredericks. The Phantom is also successfully published in comic books throughout the world, by several different publishers.
Character biography
The story of the Phantom started with a young sailor named Christopher Walker Jr.. Christopher was born in 1516 in Portsmouth. His father, also named Christopher Walker, had been a seaman since he was a young boy, and was the cabin boy on Christopher Columbus's ship the Santa Maria, when he discovered America.
Christopher Jr. became a shipboy on his father's ship in 1526, of which Christopher senior was Captain.
In 1536, when Christopher was 20 years old, he was a part of what was supposed to be the last voyage of his father. On February 17, the ship was attacked by pirates of the Singh Brotherhood in a bay in the fictional African country of Bengalla. The last thing Christopher saw before he fell unconscious and fell to the sea, was his father being murdered by the leader of the pirates. Both ships exploded, making Christopher the sole survivor of the attack.
Christopher was washed ashore on a Bengalla beach, seemingly half dead. He was found by pygmies of the Bandar tribe, who nursed him back to health and took care of him.
A time later, Christopher had a walk on the same beach that he had been washed ashore on, and found a dead body there, who he recognized as the pirate who killed his father. He allowed the vultures flying around the body finish their work (in newer versions, the pirate was half-dead, and Christopher allowed crabs to eat him alive). Taking up the skull of the killer, he raised it above his head and swore a sacred oath:
"I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms! My sons and their sons, shall follow me."
This oath would later be known as The Oath of the Skull, which would be sworn by every successive Walker progeny that took up the mantle as the next Phantom.
After learning the language of the Bandar tribe, Christopher found out that they were slaves of the Wasaka tribe, a tribe consisting of what the Bandars called "giants". The Bandars who had found him was only a small group of people who had managed to escape from the village of the Wasaka. Immediately, Christopher walked into the village of the Wasaka, and asked them to set the Bandars free. Instead of achieving this goal, he was taken prisoner, and laid before the Demon God of the Wasaka: Uzuki, who was supposed to decide his destiny. Christopher was tied up and laid on an altar made of stone, where vultures surrounded him, the Wasaka allowing them to eat him. Christopher was quickly saved by a group of Bandars before the vultures or the Wasaka could do him any real harm. They managed to escape from the village of the Wasaka unharmed.
Christopher learned about an ancient Bandar legend about a man coming from the ocean to save them from their slavery. He made a costume inspired by the look of the Demon God of the Wasaka, and went to the Wasaka village again, this time with a small army of Bandars (armed with their newly discovered, extremely poisoned arrows, capable of killing a man in a few seconds). The Wasaka, shocked at seeing what many of them thought was their Demon God come alive, was fought down, and the Bandars were finally set free, after centuries in slavery. This resulted in a dedicated friendship between Christopher and the Bandars, which would be brought on to the generations to come after them.
The Bandars showed Christopher to a cave, which resembled the look of a human skull. Christopher later carved it out to make it look even more like a skull. This notable landmark would later become known as the Skull Cave and would become his permanent home.
Wearing the costume based on the Demon God, Christopher became the first of the legendary figure whom local legends would refer to as 'The Phantom'. When he died, his son took over for him and assumed the mantle as the new Phantom, and when the 2nd Phantom died, his son took over. And so it would go on through the centuries, causing people to believe that the Phantom was immortal, giving him nicknames as "The Ghost Who Walks" and "The Man Who Cannot Die".
The Legend
Over the course of more than seventy years' worth of stories, the "legend" of the Phantom grew to become an integral part of the series' raison d'être. The legend of the "Ghost Who Walks" made the character stand out from the innumerable costumed heroes who have battled crime throughout the 20th century, and has helped maintain his appeal through the present day.
The Phantom is feared by criminals over the entire world, and he knows how to use his frightening image and reputation against them. As things turn out, the idea of him being an immortal ghost haunting evil men is much more effective than any supernatural power could have been.
Lineage
The Phantom is known as "The Ghost Who Walks", and is believed to have lived for more than 400 years. But in reality, this is just a myth. The Phantom is an ordinary human being. Almost every Phantom has married a woman of royal blood. They have had sons, most of whom have shared the name, Kit Walker. When a father Phantom retires from his work as Phantom, his son takes his place, swears The Oath of the Skull and becomes the new Phantom. Then the father is buried inside a secret burial chamber inside the Skull Cave.
But it is not only the son who becomes the Phantom. Evidences of female Phantoms have also been found, such as in the case of Julie Walker, twin-sister of the 17th Phantom and Heloise Walker, older sister of Kit Walker Jr.. Sometimes a daughter would take on the task of the Phantom in a similar Phantom outfit. This way the Phantom lives on, and has become a jungle legend.
Kit Walker
The 21st Phantom's birth name is Kit Walker. Kit spent his first years in the jungle in Bangalla, but went to the United States for studying when he was 10 years old, living with his aunt and uncle, Lucy and Jasper (in earlier editions, they were known as Bessie and Ephraim), in the little town of Clarksville. Here, he also met his wife-to-be, Diana Palmer. Kit was an extremely talented sportsman, and was predicted to become the world champion of many different genres (he even knocked out the boxing champion of the world in a match when the champion visited Clarksville). Despite being able to choose practically any career he wanted, Kit faithfully returned to Bengalla to take over the role of the Phantom when he received word that his father was dying.
