The Phantom - The Complete King Years!

Of all of the King Comics hero books, The Phantom was arguably the most consistent. That consistency didn't necessarily rise to greatness, but there was a modicum of quality issue in and issue out. The reason was artist Bill Lignante, a seasoned talent who had broached the Phantom on the strip itself after the passing of Wilson McCoy. When it was decided Sy Barry would take the helm of the venerable strip Lignante was shifted over to the comics. The comic books were then being published by Gold Key and underneath outstanding dramatic covers by George Wilson Linante's efforts were quite good. But then in the middle of the decade King decided they wanted to try and do comic books and took all of their characters then in comics and created their own brand. 

The eighteenth issue, the first of the King Comics issues, the work was decent but hardly stunning. To replace George Wilson, Sy Barry art was used for the covers. The Phantom had been involved in a range of stories at Gold Key, but it seems with his arrival at King the stories took on a smaller scope with nearly everything happening in or around the Deep Woods. "The Treasure of Skull Cave" is the debut King Comics tale and features some thieves who hear about a rumored trove in the Phantom's lair and plot to get access to it. There is much scheming but in-the-end, treasure can be defined a number of ways they discovered. 

There are of course some exceptions, but the Phantom of the King Comics era spent his time battling river pirates and smugglers and such and sadly few of these villains were all that memorable. "The Astronaut and the Pirates" has the Ghost Who Walks attempting to save a space man kidnapped by some scallywags. A second story titled "The Masked Emissary" acts as an official agent of the United Nations to bring down a wannabe dictator. 

One truly memorable aspect of the King Comics run was the debut in comic book form of the "The Girl Phantom". This was a rather silly story at its heart, but certainly one that made attempts to broaden the demographics of the strip. The Phantom of an earlier time, one hundred years or so, had a sister named Julie and when he was wounded for a protracted time, she took it upon herself to put on the mantle and act in his place despite the basic fact that no one ever thought she was actually the Phantom. "The Invisible Demon" pits the Phantom against Dr. Krazz, the agent of the underworld "Mytors" who give him strange powers so they can eventually come up and take over the surface world. 

One thing about the King year of 1966 was the new cover regime. Art was repurposed for the covers, sometimes quite effectively as seen above and in the several covers just below by Sy Barry. "The Treasure of Bengali Bay" has the Phantom battle another seeming haunt named "The Cutlass" who is keeping natives from getting a ship's sunken treasure so that wealth can be used to build a needed hospital. "The Terror Tiger" is about an Indian prince who trains a tiger specifically to hate and attack the Phantom. The Phantom must use a special knife with a strange secret to survive. 

"The Secret of Magic Mountain" gives us the story of a scheming witch doctor who uses a strange legend to gain power and pit himself and his tribe against the Phantom. They don't come out on top, as you'd likely already imagine. But this one is a two-part tale and it's all the Phantom can do to defeat this enemy fueled by superstition. 

In the story "Delilah" a woman of that name and her gang plot to pretend to be agents of the Peace Corps so they can gain access to the Phantom's treasure and plunder all of Bengali. Despite the use of a strange submarine designed to resemble an enormous crocodile their scheming still falls short in this two-part tale. 

We are treated to another tale of the Girl Phantom from Phantom lore as she takes on a strange and truly deadly witch of the dark caves trying to gain control of the local tribes. The Girl Phantom's name is Julie and she is assisted this time by native companion Maru who wears a cunning leopard pelt and her pet leopard named Fury. Another two-parter, these longer Phantom yarns are quite entertaining. 

As with all of the runs from King, the wheels slowly felt like they were coming off a bit as sales ended up putting the series into the famous plastic bags three a time. Another indicator is a different artist on the twenty-fifth issue. Senio Pratesi gives us another version of the Phantom in this story titled "The Cold Fire Worshippers" in which two gangs work together to enslave a tribe to get their diamonds. This is a reprint of an Italian story and there are some plot elements already underway when we begin this one. 

But still and all good stuff was being produced such as my favorite Phantom cover from the run seen above. "The Lost City of Yiango" sees the return of Bill Lignanate and once again the Phantom is working overtime to keep the trust of the local tribes when an idol in his keeping turns out to be a fake. The switch happened a generation earlier with is dad, but still our Phantom must find a solution. "The Pearl Raiders" sees the Phantom take on a disguise to find the thieves who have made off with the Black Pearl of Bengali. 

The Phantom was never bad in any real sense while King Features guided its destiny, but alas neither did it rise up and distinguish itself in any particular way. But they forged ahead with the origin of the Phantom's trusty steed in "The Story of Hero". Actually, Hero is hardly in this yarn after he saves Diana Palmer, and we learn what mission concerning the kidnapping of a royal heir the Phantom undertook which upon its success saw him gifted the valiant horse. 

The King Comics Phantom run ends with issue twenty-eight and the story "Diana's Deadly Tour" in which the lovely Miss Palmer finds herself the unknowing aid to spies trying to smuggle out secret rocket plans. "The Big Fight" wraps up the issue when the vain boxing champ gets humbled by the Ghost Who Walks. This is a good place to remind you that the covers of the King books didn't have much to do with the interiors. But some of them are quite dramatic. 

We also get four four-page Phantom stories used as back-ups in the pages of the first four issues of Mandrake the Magician. The stories are "SOS Phantom" about jungle drums used to save the day, "The River Pirates" where those same drums bring to justice some easily spooked villains, "The Magic Ivory Cage" bout just that which is used to try and capture the Phantom, and "The Girl Phanton" in which Julie uses her wits to stop a local slaver. All of these tales are drawn by Bill Lignante. 

These are good Phantom stories, perfectly fine, but not great ones for the most part. That would come later of all places at Charlton Comics. More on that next time. 

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