... and only a few short weeks ago, I went off on my patented "I Hate All Great White Jungle Heroes" rant, too.

It gets worse: not only am I going to praise Lee Falk's epic adventure creation -- i.e., "The Ghost Who Walks" -- to the high heavens... but: I'm also going to come right out and confess, point blank, that the Phantom is one of my all-time favorite costumed heroes. Right behind the Batman and Captain America, in fact.

There. I said it.

Oh, God... I feel so free.

For those (as yet) uninitiated into the mysteries of Phantom Lore, proper... a brief, introductory tour:

First off: the Phantom wasn't one hero. He was an entire familial line of heroes.

The way it all worked, see, was as follows: "the Phantom" was a hereditary position -- a "family business," if you like -- with its origins extending as far back, in the canon, as the thirteenth century.

The job's actual, stated responsibilities were straightforward enough: Keep Peace In the Jungle. Protect the Innocent. And -- above all else -- Visit Ruination Upon the Wicked.

What the heck: beat's pulling third shift at the local KFC outlet.

Whenever the (then-)current "Phantom" grew too aged or enfeebled to carry on the family's do-gooding "franchise" in an appropriately efficacious fashion... the mantle of responsibility (along with the tres nifty purple long johns and domino mask) would be summarily handed down, then, to the next eldest male child in the family line.

[SIDE NOTE: this arrangement has always set me to wondering, however: what would happen if -- just if, mind you -- a succession proved necessary, somewhere along the way... and the only suitably "able" representative of the Walker clan happened, at that precise moment, to be a woman? Or: what if the only Walker available, right then and there, turned out to be a blind man? Or even just a suitablybrave, self-sacrificing and athletic adult male... who simply happened, by chance, to be a midget...?!? The mind fairly reels, doesn't it...?]

The "present-day" Phantom has always been (as per the character's creator, Lee Falk) the stout-hearted Kit Walker, and his Silver Age exploits were best chronicled within the pages of Charlton Comics' series of the same name (with some absolutely lovely pencils by the likes of Jim Aparo, among others; see accompanying cover, for instance).

The reason the character was often referenced (by friend and foeman alike) as "The Ghost Who Walks" was -- pure and simple -- the illusion of immortality afforded the character, in having "been around" (so far as any non-initiate could possibly tell) for hundreds and hundreds of years. Each successive "Phantom" adhered to the credo of "Don't Ask; Don't Tell," when it came to sharing with others the knowledge that the jungle avatar was not one man, but -- rather -- a full score of them (or more).

This elegant little storytelling conceit lent a marvelous, atmospheric "feel" to the inevitable confrontations between Our Hero and This Issue's Bad Guys,as the latter were continually dumbfounded whenever they (presumably) managed to "kill" the Phantom... only (some time later on, in the midst of their villainous doings) to be confronted by the grim, implacable visage of their tormentor, anew!

It should be noted, here, that there was one singularly un-Silver Age-ish aspect to the character (one very much in keeping with Lee Falk's initial conceptualization of same, by the by): the man neither blushed, nor wilted, at the prospect of "lethal force," in the maintenance of his jungle peace-keeping duties. He toted (and, frequently, used) firearms, and was ever accompanied by the faithful "Devil" -- a massive, kill-on-command wolf. Interlopers within the Phantom's domain could expect little in the way of mercy outright, should they cross the imaginary line in the sand drawn by by Kit Walker (or any of his predecessors, for all of that). The cozy, no-harm-no-foul constraints of Superman's Metropolis were -- in more ways than one -- a thousand thousand miles away.

One of the finest of all the Charlton Comics tales was a nifty little number entitled "The Chain." In it, we are told the story ofhow one of Kit's predecessors found himself, at one point, captured outright by a particularly loathsome and hated foeman.

Said nastyman -- an arrogant European nobleman, who'dd set himself up as a despot over the local natives -- conceived of a particularly ugly means by which he might both publicly humiliate our hero, and (ostensibly) shatter his spirit. The Phantom was chained to the swivel-post of a gigantic ground well , and forced to perform the same functions, re: those normally carried out by the lowliest oxen: to continually wind his steps, over and over and over again -- day after grinding day -- 'round the circumference of his peculiar durance vile.

The Phantom stoically endured this hellish torture. For months.

You see: he'd noticed, in the course of his ceaseless labors, that the chain which held him shackled to his post was scraping alongside the surface of the stone well... and, doubtless, had been doing for, for quite some time.

... and, so: onward and ever onward, he trudged and labored.

Waiting.

... and -- ultimately -- deliverance (inevitablly) arrived, in the form of a long-tortured chain link finally having been worn thin and unreliable enough for the Phantom to snap his bonds from their moorings... and for the abused hero to set about the too-long-delayed business, in turn, of Visiting Ruination Upon the Wicked.

It was as satisfying and visceral a storytelling "moment" as ever I'd seen within the pages of a mainstream American comic book, way back then... and retains every last iota of its storytelling luster, in my opinion, to this very day.

"Vengeance" (as the saying goes) "is oftentimes slow... but it is always certain, for all of that."

Lee Falk's THE PHANTOM enjoys the peculiar distinction, I believe, of being (perhaps) the very first costumed adventurer to fit the baseline parameters of what we, nowadays, recognize as being those of the "super-hero." His origins pre-date those of both Superman and the Batman, of a certainty, and (I'm working from memory, at this juncture; I hope and pray I'm not about to embarrass myself, unduly) those of quasi- contemporaries Doc Savage and the Shadow, as well.