Jul 10, 2026 · 2 hr 3 min · 13 segments
This week on the Major Issues Podcast, the hosts celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Phantom by revisiting the cult superhero adventure that brought Lee Falk's legendary comic strip hero to the big…
George SerranoHostAlex GarciaHost
All I knew was that this guy was in the purple spandex and he's riding a horse.
I knew it was Billy Zane because I knew Billy Zane from Titanic and from Zoolander.
And I also knew that this was a pulp hero from back in the golden age of comics, mostly because of the Defenders of the Earth cartoon, which had him, Flash Gordon.
uh... mandrake the magician guys like that so i have no actual background with the phantom as a IP as a character i had never read the phantom strips all i knew was that he walked around in some sort of kind of purple spandex uh...
when you think about how many modern superheroes refuse to use firearms it's the mark of a vigilante almost or a uh... an anti-hero to have firearms.
But no, with the Phantom, he's just rocking both of them and he's shooting indiscriminately.
So I had this movie here and I really was hesitant to watch it because I had just seen Supergirl and there had just been so much of this vitriol that it came out of just watching a fun comic book movie And all that stuff just kind of got dragged down by the discourse around it.
And it made even talking about any of the parts, good or bad, just like pulling teeth.
So, you know, in between binging the comics that I binge, going to the comic shops, and, you know, watching X-Men 97, I had to find some time to be in the mood for something like this.
So before we get into our big spoiler filled recap and review, as we are one to do here on this channel, I want to tell you my thoughts, spoiler free.
Maybe if I would have seen this at the same time as, let's say, Batman and Robin, I would have lumped them both in as kind of cheesy.
All I knew was that this guy was in the purple spandex and he's riding a horse.
I knew it was Billy Zane because I knew Billy Zane from Titanic and from Zoolander.
And I also knew that this was a pulp hero from back in the golden age of comics, mostly because of the Defenders of the Earth cartoon, which had him, Flash Gordon.
uh... mandrake the magician guys like that so i have no actual background with the phantom as a IP as a character i had never read the phantom strips all i knew was that he walked around in some sort of kind of purple spandex uh...
when you think about how many modern superheroes refuse to use firearms it's the mark of a vigilante almost or a uh... an anti-hero to have firearms.
But no, with the Phantom, he's just rocking both of them and he's shooting indiscriminately.
So I had this movie here and I really was hesitant to watch it because I had just seen Supergirl and there had just been so much of this vitriol that it came out of just watching a fun comic book movie And all that stuff just kind of got dragged down by the discourse around it.
And it made even talking about any of the parts, good or bad, just like pulling teeth.
So, you know, in between binging the comics that I binge, going to the comic shops, and, you know, watching X-Men 97, I had to find some time to be in the mood for something like this.
So before we get into our big spoiler filled recap and review, as we are one to do here on this channel, I want to tell you my thoughts, spoiler free.
Maybe if I would have seen this at the same time as, let's say, Batman and Robin, I would have lumped them both in as kind of cheesy.
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