The Phantom

G'day, this is X-Band, the Phantom Podcast.

We're a website, a podcast, and a way of life.

You can find us at ChronicleChamber.com.

I am Jermaine, and in this podcast, we're going to be talking to Alex Secure, who is one of the creators with the recently completed Phantom 2040 series, a new shadow web series.

And joining us, we have Scott.

How are you going, Scott?

So, um, yeah, I was always a kind of a Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman.

I love the street level heroes like Batman and Daredevil.

I mean, Proto was doing some work watching movies this week.

The Phantom? Was that a new log? You logged The

Phantom? Billy

Zane?

I think I watched that actually.

know.

Five days ago.

Yes, The Phantom with Billy Zane.

I would like to thank you all for your continued support over the last 12 years.

Although it hasn't always been easy, nor smooth sailing in the Fru Crew, the passion that you, the readership, have displayed for the Phantom character is unwavering and nothing short of heartwarmingly magnificent.

Your enthusiasm has brought me so much joy and job satisfaction.

It has been my absolute pleasure and a genuine honour to serve in the publisher's chair during my tenure with Frew.

Take pride in what we achieved.

This is my last publisher's message and I will have no further opportunities to respond to your letters and tell you how much I truly value your input.

Without further fuss, I'll set sail for my exile in the West and say, fare thee well, Phantom friend, I'll miss you.

Dudley Hogarth, retiring publisher.

But I just watched it now for the first time.

The other one I want to watch and never saw was The Phantom with Billy Zane.

I never saw that.

I didn't want to watch it this week because I wanted to watch The Shadow for Tim Curry.

There's a lot of elements that work in the, you know, kind of alone, but they just couldn't pull it all together.

And it is a bummer because I think this would have been a cool, uh, universe, but at the same time, you can tell that this came from an era that was kind of setting up what we now consider kind of mainstays of comics and superheroes and, um, The foundation layers, this and Dick Tracy and we're going to do the Phantom later and stuff like that where it was like these – they were kind of coming up with the – even early Batman and Superman stuff, right? They were kind of figuring out Conan, like the old Conan stuff.

And Doc Savage is one that you're missing.

Yes, okay.

This wasn't a low effort film.

No.

Uh, in fact, uh, several reviewers, because a lot of people group the rocketeer, the shadow and the phantom together.

Uh, not just caravan of garbage who did their entire thing where they also added, um, uh, what was it? Dick Tracy and the green Hornet.

It basically ran from September 8th to December 5th in 1986.

The series teams up classic King Features heroes, Flash Gordon, the Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, and Lothar, along with their children, Rick Gordon, Jetta Walker, Kashin, and LJ, as they face Ming the Merciless and other threats to Earth.

And then I'm going to bring back an oldie but goodie.

oh boy a kashin episode because that's why they cut out episode three for sure because um episode three is pretty god-awful it's it's all about how like kashin accidentally like befriends a demon because he looks up like you know demonic spells in merlin's room when he's not supposed to to like beat up bullies that were like teasing him or some and uh it just It gets worse from there.

Her essence is preserved in the new supercomputer Dynac-X.

The heroes unite as the Defenders of the Earth establish their volcanic-based monitor and battle Ming's forces.

They overcome internal threats including a rogue battle simulator and the Phantom facing his evil brother, transformed into the weather demon Endama, and shrink down to defeat Ming's electronic maggot virus inside Dynak X.

This establishes the team and their war to protect Earth.

And, you know, this was a long running.

Wait, took what over? The Phantom comic strip.

That's what I thought.

Yeah.

So it has to be after Legion of Superheroes number 106 based on an editor's note.

Moving backwards.

65 years ago august 31st 1961 adventure comics number 289 in his first appearance jack sewer escapes from the phantom zone and impersonates pa kent the legion founders have a cameo as statues in clark's room i didn't know that was jack's first appearance

yeah take a drink for legion statues that's right

And that was interesting to hear Alex talk about the strips is because they only existed, particularly with the rights of Marvel and everything, because Stan grew up You know, the newspaper strip was such an important aspect of, because there was like no color TV, colored entertainment was in the newspaper print itself.

And I have a close affinity to the newspaper strip characters as well, because I published the Phantom.

And often I go around, you know, correcting people who would point out, oh, you know, Superman's the fourth superhero.

I'm like, oh, hold on.

1936, the Phantom came out, but it's the comic book comic strip.

But what triggered it in my mind was when you mentioned Spider, I think the spider has the phantom beat because he had the lighter, which would leave the mark of the spider.

And I think the spider predates the phantom as well.

Mm-hmm.

And then he did this movie, which I feel completely embarrassed that it's the movie that really won me over on it, but it's The Phantom, which is a-

Oh.

The Phantom is this comic movie where he's in a purple suit.

[laughs]

Oh my God.

Like, I'm the Diana.

Dude, that's awesome.