Story of the Phantom

from Zorro-unmasked.

"When I was a kid, my hero was Phantom, a comic-book hero. In fact he was everybody's hero.

Before Batman, before The Shadow, before The Green Hornet, before The Lone Ranger, even before Captain Marvel and Superman, the comics' first masked mystery-man hero had long since been striking fear into the dark hearts of the wicked.

Indeed, by the time the world-famous adventures of The Phantom were first recorded in print more than six decades ago, the grim champion of justice had already been around for nearly 400 years.

Such is the riveting, myth-freighted legend of The Phantom -- "The Ghost Who Walks," "The Man Who Cannot Die," "The Guardian of the Eastern Dark." In the beginning he had been a half-drowned sailor, flung ashore on the terrible, blood-drenched Bengalla coast after pirates burned his ship and slaughtered his mates. The gentle Bandar pygmies, taking him to be a sea god of ancient prophecy, nursed him back to fitness and became his everlasting friends -- as the castaway faced his destiny, donned costume and mask and was reborn as the first of the Phantoms, scourge of predators everywhere.

"I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty and injustice!" he cried as he formally took "The Oath of the Skull" by firelight. "And my sons and their sons shall follow me!"

The modern Phantom is the 21st of the line. Since Feb. 17, 1936, he has been the law in his dangerous part of the world, a one-man police force, a silent avenger who appears and vanishes like lightning. His home is the fearsome "Skull Cave," deep in the heart of his jungle. His only intimates have been the faithful Bandar, his great white horse Hero, his savage gray wolf Devil, and his lovely American sweetheart Diana Palmer."

My introduction to The Phantom was during lower secondary school days when this fat Indian man used to place his comics just outside MBS, Sentul, KL. He must have got them from somewhere because every comic had two inches of its front cover torn off and it was being sold at 20 or 40 sen each. The idea of someone with almost mystical power and strength fed my imagination. His mortality as suggested by having descendants taking over made it more believable.