Earlier this month The Phantom comic strip series turned 89 (!) years old. Debuting in newspapers on February 17, 1936, The Phantom holds the distinct honor of being the world’s first crimefighter. Yes, even predating Superman (by two years in fact). The Phantom comic continues its run even to this day in the year 2025. No doubt he has etched his place in comic history. In honor of this historic milestone (turning almost NINE decades old), I’d like to shine the spotlight on this fascinating comic strip that has somehow stood the test of time, nearly 100 years later.
Lee Falk created The Phantom, and Ray Moore was the original artist. Falk was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 28, 1911. The talented Falk launched his first comic strip, Mandrake the Magician, when he was just 19 years old. Mandrake was a stage magician who used hypnosis and magic to battle evildoers. Some consider Mandrake to be the first hero ever. But it was The Phantom, created two years later in 1936, that presented the world’s first masked vigilante sporting a skintight outfit. A design that no doubt inspired countless other heroes in the ages to come.
Hermes Press has been publishing The Phantom daily newspaper comic strips in beautiful hardcovers since 2010. Most recently published, volume 33 covers his exploits from 1988 and 1989. Volume 34 is set to launch around April or May of 2025, which will kick off The Phantom saga in the early 1990s. With seemingly no end in sight, The Phantom truly lives up to the character’s own nickname… “The Man Who Cannot Die!”
My first exposure to the character was when Phantom 2040 appeared on the Super Nintendo in the mid ’90s. It wasn’t until last year that I became aware of his origins as a daily comic strip. It was then that I quickly fell down the proverbial rabbit hole. The comic strip bug bit me hard; I picked up classics such as Little Orphan Annie, Pogo, Popeye, Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon, Buz Sawyer, Dick Tracy, Spirit Archives, Barnaby, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. But the one series I looked forward to collecting and reading most was The Phantom. Most volumes are readily available but a few are difficult to come by. I ended up acquiring all but the first 3 volumes. I eventually tracked down volumes 2 and 3 while vacationing last summer in Ohio (my wife took me to SummerSlam as a birthday treat). Only volume 1, long out of print, eluded me. Imagine my thrill when I ran across a pristine copy at a used book store last month in January! A reprint is expected soon, but I was ecstatic to buy that used copy and embark upon my Phantom reading journey.
Phantom 2040 came out on the SNES 30 years ago in the summer of 1995. It blows my mind how back then 2040 felt like it was an eternity away (a distant 45 years away to be precise)… whereas now in 2025 the year 2040 is only 15 scant years away. Crazy! And yes, there’s a beautiful serendipity that my comic journey with Phantom has ties to a random Super Nintendo video game adaptation released 30 years ago. I must endeavor to finally play it this year and write a review then!
THE GHOST WHO WALKS
![Yikes! Some stuff is terribly outdated [Or is it... -Ed.]](http://rvgfanatic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/PhanDay1-28.jpg)
CLOSING THOUGHTS
The Phantom has a long and rich history. The so-called granddaddy of super heroes (or crime fighters — he has no actual super powers), this comic strip is a piece of American history. It was also one of the biggest blind buys of my life. Those can be scary not to mention detrimental. The smart thing would be to buy just one to sample the waters and then add on… not buy all 33 up to date hardcover volumes without having ever read one single strip. Luckily for me, after having read the first 3 volumes, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time with The Phantom and look forward to reading 30 more of these and beyond. It’s a fun simple comic strip that takes one back to the golden age of comics. I will add that it’s definitely not for everyone, so your mileage may vary. Long live the Phantom!
