The Phantom In The Dock!

When I chanced upon the article from The Monster Times below at From Zombo's Closet, it prompted me to dig out my 1970s copy of "The Prisoner of the Himalayas" by Lee Falk and Ray Moore from Nostalgia Press, and to give it a read through to see if I concurred with the writer. I'll have more to say after you read this.

There's little to disagree with here in terms of seeing the world in the light of expansive colonialist expansion which has served to subjugate myriad peoples across the globe. The Phantom, like so many expressions of heroism of his time, buys into the innate and unstated racism which informed the society as a commonplace.

As the author states, we have to strip out the "romanticism" for the truth to be revealed. Well, if we don't do that, then the story becomes what it is at its core, a skewed first-world myth of what heroes do, dashing about, wooing and wowing and fighting. It's utter hogwash, but it's intoxicating entertaining hogwash.

The Phantom in this story is the less thoughtful version who preceded, the more sedate and even-tempered variation we have today. While part of the famous four-hundred-year-old heritage, he is not yet that far removed from creator Lee Falk's original impression that the Phantom was a glib masquerading playboy. He certainly walks and talks like it.

The writer of the article is correct as far as "she" goes, but then the writer "Mrs. M.J. "Blowemup" Weatherperson" almost completely misses the point of the adventure. But that might be intentional.

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