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JOURNAL OF MODERN MYTHOLOGY AND POP CULTURE INTRODUCTION PAGE 55

THE PHANTOM

The first Phantom newspaper Sunday comic strip, May 28, 1939; art by Ray Moore. King Features Syndicate, Inc.; The Hearst Corporation.

The Ghost Who Walks. The Man Who Cannot Die. The mysterious jungle dweller that has fought piracy for six centuries was the creation of Lee Falk (1911-1999). Falk's ideas for the character originated in his attraction to myths and legends, and modern characters such as Tarzan and Zorro. On February 17, 1936, The Phantom strip commenced. The Ghost Who Walks is the first Super-Hero to wear a skintight costume that later comic book heroes would adopt. In 1536, the myth goes, pirates kill Christopher Walker's father, and he is left for dead. With the help of the jungle people, a tribe called the Bandar, young Walker survives and vows to fight evil in the form of a masked ghost who cannot die.

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