How Much Can the Phantom Take?
How Much Can the Phantom Take?
Should we judge the Phantom by everything that happens to him in ten years of comics, or by how he gets out of a tight spot in one good story?
That question came to mind during a discussion about Lee Falk’s newspaper strips and the stories Team Fantomen wrote for the Swedish comic. Take 1985. Falk started four new adventures that year: two in the dailies and two in the Sundays. In the Swedish comic I count 21 new adventures by Team Fantomen, counting a two-parter as one story. Falk could keep us in suspense for months with a single adventure. The comic had to keep us coming back for the next one.
As I remember Falk in the eighties, he was fond of sending the Phantom, Diana and the children off on a Sunday outing, sometimes on a longer trip. Those Sundays in particular could be rather cosy. The family lived together in both versions, of course, but fewer of the Swedish adventures began with a family outing.
Team Fantomen didn’t have to keep separate storylines going for the daily and Sunday papers. What they did need was variety from one issue to the next, and for my money, their excursions into European history did wonders for the comic. With one of the Phantom’s ancestors in the lead, they could take us back to a conflict the 21st Phantom could never have found himself in. They could tell an adventure Falk might never have thought of, and I could still recognise his Phantom.
Which brings me back to how much one man can take. Add up every blow to the head and every gunshot wound over ten years, and the Phantom ought to have retired long ago. But I never read the comic that way. A bullet wound could be serious enough for as long as the story lasted. When I opened the next issue, I didn’t sit there wondering whether he’d had his stitches out. Diana and the children were still there. The bruises didn’t have to be.
Some other licensed publishers have occasionally given me a Phantom who’s all muscle, both guns blazing. That’s seldom the version I feel like reading again. I’d sooner see what he comes up with when he’s in a tight spot. And on that score, I think Team Fantomen came closer to Falk than they often get credit for.
