The Phantom turns 78

FOR well over 75 years criminals and villains across the boundaries of adventure comic strips have spoken in whispers of a legendary figure, 'The Ghost Who Walks', called : Phantom. The legendary comic crime fighter Phantom turned 78 recently. In the line of crime fighters, appearing in comic strips, Phantom is poles apart from fictional costumed heroes like Super, Spider or Batman. Instead it's more of an apparition, a dynasty of crime fighters, who since 1936 have sworn down the years to protect the innocent while punishing the guilty.  He relies on his strength, intelligence and fearsome reputation of being an immortal ghost. Moreover, he was the first fictional hero to wear the skin-tight costume that has now become a hallmark of comic book superheroes.
But before celebrating the legendary adventure comic strip figure, one needs to be known about the impact of comics among youngsters. Long before the arrival of video and computer games, play stations and 3Ds, it was comics with their magical motivated powers that shaped and influenced our thoughts. In the case of this writer of low intelligence level, it was comics and not textbooks of spelling that became the foundation of his vocabulary build-up. At times it worked like a tool that led many youngsters at my school to the discipline of reading and especially the ones who did not enjoy reading. Probably an unforgettable incident remembered is through watching a friend passing an exam quite well with the help of a comic of the classics illustrated series. His analytical paper on Rudyard Kipling's “Kim” was based on his sheer reading of the comic just a couple of hours before his exam started. The fictional crime fighters in the comic strips later ignited the enthusiasm of countless readers to become diehard fans of crime, espionage and spy thrillers in later years.
As Phantom does not have any superpowers and an expert horseman, marksman, good fighter and trained in many forms of combat so as a comic strip figure he is in between reality and fiction. Like all his descendants, he lives in the ancient Skull Cave, and has a trained wolf, Devil, and a horse named Hero.
As we celebrate the creation it's time we also pay tribute to the Phantom's creator, Lee Falk. The Phantom was inspired by Falk's fascination for myths and legends. He initially considered the idea of calling his character "The Gray Ghost", but finally decided that he preferred "The Phantom". Falk revealed in an interview that Robin Hood, who was often depicted as wearing tights, inspired the skin-tight costume of "The Phantom", which is known to have influenced the entire costume worn superhero-industry. In the A&E Network's Phantom biography program, Falk explained that Ancient Greek stone busts inspired the notion of pupils of the eyes of "The Phantom", not showing whenever he wore his mask. The old Greek busts had no eye pupils, which Falk felt gave them an inhuman, ghost-like look. Though it was thought his comic strips would last a few weeks at best, in reality he wrote them for more than six decades, until the last days of his life. The Phantom stories began with a daily newspaper strip on February 17, 1936, followed by a colour Sunday strip on May 28, 1939. Fascinatingly both are still running. At the peak of its popularity, the strip was read by over 100 million people each day.
Nevertheless, Phantom's Bengali version first appeared through the Kolkata based publishing house Ananda Publishers under the name Aranyadeb (the lord of the forests) in their magazine "Desh", their newspapaper, "Anandabazar Patrika", and later in their children's magazine “Anandamela”. Though the comic was discontinued in "Desh", until very recently it appeared in the newspaper as well as the children's magazine. We in Bangladesh got both the English and Bengali versions published by the Indian Indrajal Comics. Not religious texts but nothing better than a comic can vividly display the notions of good and evil. Unlike the reality, we were confident that in every comic it will be the crime fighter to end up as the victor.
 Of 78 years of comic strips, the back story "legend" of the Phantom still thrives to become an integral part of the series. 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 while stepping into the present day. Much of the underlying, continuing plots and themes of the comic series focuses on the continuing legend of the Phantom. The series regularly quotes the "old jungle sayings" surrounding the myth of the Phantom. Perhaps the most well-known myth is the tradition that anyone who sees the Phantom's true face without his mask will certainly “die a terrible death". The Phantom stories also included earlier generations. While the costumes looked the same, the weaponry varied with the age, such as revolvers and pirate-age flintlocks.
Superheroes appearing as crime fighters in comic strips are not a new phenomenon but the crimes in reality need to be dealt with too. And with the continuing legacy of the Phantom we wait for the Phantoms of reality to emerge. So who wants to be the 'The Ghost Who Walks' in reality?

Shahriar Feroze is Current Affairs Analyst, The Daily Star