Movie review: The Phantom

Originally published August 16, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1187

It was about six or seven years ago, when I was first probing the possibility that I might become a full-time writer.

It was not a decision that I was making lightly. After all, I had a secure “day job” at Marvel as the direct-sales manager. There was no particular reason to go anywhere—no reason except that writing the comics seemed to be developing into a more fulfilling job than selling them. And, if I became a freelance writer, it meant no more commuting, no more staying late at the office. I could spend more time with the kids. Yes, there seemed to be any number of practical reasons to try my hand at being a full-time writer.

Nevertheless, I had a great deal of trepidation.

I was writing Incredible Hulk at the time and was picking up other work here and there. It seemed a solid gig, but, then, so had my tenure on Spec Spidey, and I’d been fired off of that with no notice whatsoever. So anything was possible, and I was concerned that I was going out on a limb, putting all my eggs in one basket, and whatever other appropriate clichés you can come up with.

So I made some tentative inquiries at DC Comics.

I couldn’t possibly have accepted any work for it. As a Marvel staff employee, working for the opposition was strictly forbidden. It would have represented a potential conflict of interest. Still, there was no harm in asking—inquiring what, if I became a full-time freelancer, the chances would be of my picking up some writing work at DC. (Wisely, I didn’t suggest whacking off anyone’s hand and putting a harpoon on it. They might have considered that just a touch radical.)

To my astonishment, I was offered a mini-series immediately. I wasn’t in a position to sign a contract, start working for it, or in any way begin any sort of work for DC. But there was a tacit understanding that the offer wasn’t going to go to anyone else for a few weeks.

And during that time, I informed my boss, Carol Kalish, that I was going to embark on a career as, God help me, a freelancer. So that within a few weeks, I could officially being my first work for DC Comics as a free-and-clear freelancer.

The point of the foregoing?

The project was a four-issue limited series about The Phantom.

The Phantom, the seminal character who helped define what superheroes would be all about. The Ghost Who Walks, hanging out in the jungle like a purple-clad Tarzan, striding through century after century due to a familial vow that one man had made: to dedicate his life to fighting villainy in general, piracy in particular, and on behalf of the innocent everywhere. And he dedicated not only his own life to this ambition, but those of his sons. Over the centuries, the gods and genetics were kind to this oath, despite the likelihood of one of the following scenarios occurring at some point during the succeeding 20-or-so generations:

• A Phantom who produces only female offspring  (although a daughter did briefly take up the mantle of The Phantom, as I recall, when her brother was incapacitated).
• A Phantom who has low motility.
• A Phantom who can never find a woman interested in giving up civilization for the questionable destiny of shacking up in a skull-shaped cave with a guy in purple tights and a bunch of pygmies.
• A Phantom who marries a woman who turns out to be barren.
• A Phantom who is killed before he can reproduce. (It is a dangerous profession, you know.)
• A Phantom who produces a son who rebels. Just imagine 20 generations of sons who obediently fall into line. Not a single one of them says, “You want me to put on a purple costume with diagonally striped jockey shorts, which I wear on the outside, and fight evil? Forget it. I want to be a doctor/actor/TV repairman/bum. I want to be my own man, not bound by some promise made hundreds of years ago. There are no pirates anymore, so let’s get with the program, OK? For pity’s sake, Dad, I want to live my own life, not yours.”

None of that ever gets said, so the Phantom line continues unabated, year after year, century after century. And, of course, to the outside world, The Phantom is this legendary, unkillable guy. The Ghost Who Walks.

It’s a heroic ideal so overwhelming that 20 generations have been swept up in it. It’s the greatest philanthropic endeavor in civilized fictional history. The family business consists of truth, justice, and The Phantom’s way.

Curiously, the Phantom comic book I wrote (drawn in best piratical style by Joe Orlando) is one of the comics works of mine that I see the most rarely from the fans. Hardly anyone brings it for me to autograph. (The only things I see less frequently than The Phantom are probably the issues of What Th–?! with the Batman gag I did with Todd McFarlane and the Lone Wolf and Cub spoof I produced with James Fry. Although the Classics Comics Illustrated Cyrano de Bergerac I produced with Kyle Baker is also something of a rarity, as are the Blasters Special with James Fry, the early issues of The Marvel Universe Handbook on which I worked as a researcher, and the first issues of Marvel Age. Jeez, haven’t thought about those in ages.

The point of all the foregoing is that I have some attachment to the character and, consequently, I was looking forward to the movie. Although, frankly, I didn’t have much in the way of hopes for it. I didn’t think that a guy in a purple leotard (albeit without the distinctive striped shorts) would play on screen. I didn’t know Billy Zane from a hole in the wall. And I know it’s ridiculous to judge a film by its promotion, but I have to say the slogan “Slam Evil” which appeared on the posters had to be the least imaginative promo line I’d ever seen. “Slam Evil?” That was the one they went with? (Although, considering some of my experiences with people in the decision-making hierarchy of show business, it might well have been that the rejects were actually far superior. One never knows.)

Good news and bad news.

The good news is that I was dead, albeit happily, wrong. The makers of The Phantom have performed a rare, almost miraculous feat: The have crafted a film that is faithful to the spirit of the source material, while at the same time producing something that has a style, an energy, and—most importantly—a sense of fun all its own.

The very first thing to appear on the screen is the phrase “For Those Who Came in Late.” Every so often, Phantom creator Lee Falk would run a origin strip to tell new readers (an inevitable development, considering the strip’s half-century-plus tenure) The Phantom’s backstory. That’s what they did here, using the exact words that Falk always opened the recap strip with.

Some people have subsequently groused that the film shouldn’t have been so up-front. That the mystery should have been played up, particularly since one of the thugs in the film has killed the previous Phantom and so is disconcerted when he suddenly finds himself face-to-mask with (apparently) the same guy.

I can see the point, but I also respect and appreciate the decision to do it just the way the comic strip does. It really helps set the tone for those in the know.

Billy Zane pulls off the near-miraculous feat of making The Phantom believable, rather than ludicrous. Physically, he cuts an impressive and striking figure in the purple tights, never losing for a moment either his confidence or his dignity. His piercing eyes, square jaw, and determined expression really sell the notion that this guy has dedicated his life to fighting evil. He seems equally at home in the jungle and during the city sequences in which, as Kit Walker, he goes to New York City (clad in the traditional raincoat, hat, and funky sunglasses to substitute for a mask) in order to track down the bad guys. These are bad guys who are interested in acquiring three mystical skulls which will enable them to command world-conquering forces.

Kristy Swanson is introduced as the Phantom’s main squeeze, Diana Palmer. Adventure films haven’t seen a heroine this rough and tumble and no-nonsense since Princess Leia (at least Leia of the first film; once she started developing an interest in Han Solo, I thought he lost some of her zip).

Since the movie is set in the 1930s, their relationship has a Nick-and-Nora-Charles, Tracy-and-Hepburn feel to it, with the kind of rat-a-tat style that was so much a part of the period.

The moment which completely sold me on the film comes when Diana is bound and helpless in the cabin of a boat, being guarded and lorded over by a slightly kinky henchwoman. The Phantom gets the drop on them, literally, when he comes crashing in through the ceiling. After having released Diana, who not only takes the rescue in stride but actually seems blasé about it (as if she takes for granted that she’s going to be rescued because she’s privileged), the question remains of what to do with the henchwoman.

“Tie her up—” instructs The Phantom briskly.

Diana hauls off and belts the henchwoman into the middle of next week, knocking her unconscious with a single punch. “—or don’t,” The Phantom concludes.

I thought that was great (egotistically, I suppose, since I’d done similar sorts of riffs in writing of my own, wherein the hero just kind of shrugs it off, as circumstances abruptly change around him and his intentions become moot). One of the big problems in so many action films lately—particularly comic-book related ones—is that all the dialogue sounds exactly the same. All of it is filled with the same kind of macho, swaggering puns, as if some sort of generic How-to-Write-Heroes book was circulating and everyone was taking their cues from it.

And the film had the presence of Treat Williams as the villainous, skull-acquiring schemer. Williams hasn’t been this over-the-top since he danced on a dining room table in Hair. And he doesn’t need bizarre facial makeup or a garish suit in order to sell his villainy. An evil Donald Trump: Not only was he evil, but he reveled in his own evilness with a zealousness that was almost endearing. He didn’t have to rationalize or justify himself. He was The Bad Guy, period, and it’s just so good to be bad.

Mention should also be made of Patrick McGoohan, appearing as a genuine ghost: the ghost of The Phantom’s father, slain before the film’s action takes place. The scenes between the two of them helps to underscore the lineage that The Phantom carries with him. In a way, it’s representative of all those who have gone before and all the emotional and family baggage that The Phantom carries with him.

The bad news is: no pygmies. That surprises me. In a movie summer where one of the big protagonists is a guy with a hunchback, and in a film where the lead runs around in purple tights, the filmmakers thought that the movie-going public couldn’t handle pygmies? Geez.

The film is chock-a-block full with daredevil antics, frenetic action, a couple of screaming unlikelihoods, and an “I-Can’t-Believe-I’m-Seeing-This” sequence in which The Phantom and Diana, trapped in a plane that’s heading toward a final impact against a mountain, transfer from the hurtling plane to The Phantom’s galloping white horse pacing them just below the landing gear. I heard mutterings in the theater afterward that it was too much like an Indiana Jones film, the mutterers apparently oblivious that Indiana Jones is merely a rehash of The Phantom and a few other 1930s and ’40s movie serials. Indy is the copy; The Phantom is the genuine article.

Just as this film is the genuine article: one of the most faithful and fun comics adaptations ever.

What’s the bad news?

It tanked at the box office, and I’d be very surprised if there were any more Phantom films. Which is a crying shame. After 21 generations, The Phantom has finally come up against insidious forces even he can’t overwhelm: the summer movie-going glut and an apathetic public which couldn’t be sold on giving the film a chance.

“Slam Evil.” Cripes.

Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.