Frank Havens Muriel Havens Steve Huston Chip Dorlan Jerry Lannigan
Abilities
Excellent detective, master of disguise and escape.
The Phantom Detective was the second pulp hero magazine published, after The Shadow. The first issue was released in February 1933, a month before Doc Savage, which was released in March 1933. The title continued to be released until 1953, with a total 170 issues. This is the third highest number of issues for a character pulp, after The Shadow, which had 325 issues, and Doc Savage, which had 181. In western titles, Texas Rangers would have around 212 issues of their main character, known as the Lone Wolf.
The Phantom Detective in America's Best Comics #26 (1948)
The series was published by Ned Pines' Thrilling (also known as Better or Standard) Publishing. Ned Pines had a comic book imprint, which collectors usually refer to as Nedor Comics, and The Phantom Detective had a series in their title Thrilling Comics #53-70 from 1946 to 1949 as well as America's Best Comics #26 in 1948.
Stories were credited to several pseudonyms. The first eleven Phantom Detective stories were published under the Better house pseudonym of "G. Wayman Jones", and were largely written by D. L. Champion, a.k.a. Jack D'arcy. The rest were published under the pseudonym "Robert Wallace". These were largely written by Edwin V. Burkholder, Norman A. Daniels (36+), Anatole F. Feldman, Charles Greenberg, George A. MacDonald, Laurence Donovan and C. S. Montanye. Less frequent contributors included Paul Chadwick, Norvell W. Page, Paul Ernst, Emile C. Tepperman, Henry Kuttner, Ray Cummings, Ralph Oppenheim and others. Ryerson Johnson is credited with #46, The Silent Death.
There have been several reprints of Phantom Detective stories over the years. Soft porn publisher Corinth Books released the most, with 20 titles.
Character overview
The Phantom (as he was called in the stories) is actually the wealthy Richard Curtis Van Loan. In the first few issues of the title, the Phantom is introduced as a world-famous detective, whose true identity is only known by one man—Frank Havens, the publisher of the Clarion newspaper. Richard Curtis Van Loan is orphaned at an early age, but inherits wealth. Before World War I, he leads the life of an idle playboy, but during the war he becomes a pilot and downs many German planes.
After the war, Van Loan has a difficult time returning to his old life. At the suggestion of his father's friend, Havens, he sets out to solve a crime that had stumped the police. After solving it, he decides he has found his calling.
He trains himself in all facets of detection and forensics, and becomes a master of disguise and escape. He makes a name for himself as the Phantom, whom all police agencies around the world know and respect. When dealing with law enforcement officials he carries a platinum badge in the shape of a domino mask as proof of his true identity. The initial stories were less about a detective than an adventurer using disguise and lucky escapes to conclude his cases.
In one issue, Havens installs a red beacon on the roof of the Clarion building, which he turns on when he needs to see the Phantom. (This served as an inspiration for Batman's Bat-Signal; two early Batman editors, Jack Schiff and Mort Weisinger, got their start editing The Phantom Detective under editor-in-chief Leo Margulies.)
Other people in Van Loan's life include Muriel Havens, Frank Havens' daughter, with whom he is in love, and Clarion reporter Steve Huston. Laurence Donovan introduced a kid sidekick named Chip Dorlan in the 1939 novel, The Sampan Murders. After Pearl Harbor, Chip joins the Army as an Intelligence officer, returning briefly to the series after the war. Van Loan's former mechanic and pilot, Jerry Lannigan, assists him in several cases, as do others from time to time.
The Phantom employs several alternate identities, including Lester Cornwell and Dr. Paul Bendix, a chemist.
The pseudonym "Robert Wallace" was coined to evoke popular British thriller novelist Edgar Wallace, and was also used on short stories and novelettes not featuring the Phantom.
Cultural references
The early episodes of Lee Falk's The Phantom newspaper strip strongly resemble the Phantom Detective. Abruptly, Falk abandoned this tack for the exotic adventure approach, abandoning his Manhattan locale and the Phantom's original identity of playboy Jimmy Wells.
Reprints and continuations
The property slid into the public domain when the copyright was not renewed, allowing others to bring the character back into print.
From 2002, Adventure House has been reprinting the stories of The Phantom Detective. As of 2018, 133 of the 170 novels have been reprinted, 126 of them as replicas, including the cover and additional contents, of the original Phantom Detective pulp issues.
In 2006 Wildside Press LLC printed the "first new Phantom Story in 50 years": The Phantom's Phantom, which takes place in 1953 after the original pulp series ends. It was written in the first person, which allows an in-depth study of the Phantom's personality that never occurred in the pulps.
In 2016, Airship 27 Productions published a new anthology featuring five original Phantom Detective stories by Gary Lovisi, Gene Moyers, Whit Howland and Robert Ricci.
In popular culture
In the film The Artist, George Valentin adopts an appearance similar to the Phantom (minus the cape) for A Russian Affair, the film showcased at the movie's start.
Gardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer known best for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. He is estimated to have written more than 4,000 comics stories, including 1,500 for DC Comics. Fox was also a science fiction author and wrote many novels and short stories.
The Shadow is a fictional character published in the United States of America by magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson, The Shadow has been adapted into other forms of media, including American comic books, comic strips, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles.
Milton "Bill" Finger was an American comic strip, comic book, film and television writer who was the co-creator of the DC Comics character Batman. Despite making major contributions as an innovative writer, visionary mythos/world builder and illustration architect, Finger was often relegated to ghostwriter status on many comics—including Batman, and the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott.
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip, first published by Lee Falk in February 1936. The main character, the Phantom, is a fictional costumed crime-fighter who operates from the fictional African country of Bangalla. The character has been adapted for television, film and video games.
Ronald Joseph Goulart ( ) was an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy, and science fiction author.
Detective Comics is an American comic book series published by Detective Comics, later shortened to DC Comics. The first volume, published from 1937 to 2011, is best known for introducing the superhero Batman in Detective Comics #27.
Mandrake the Magician is a syndicated newspaper comic strip, created by Lee Falk before he created The Phantom. Mandrake began publication on June 11, 1934. Phil Davis soon took over as the strip's illustrator, while Falk continued to script. The strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate.
Steve Englehart is an American writer of comic books and novels. He is best known for his work at Marvel Comics and DC Comics in the 1970s and 1980s. His pseudonyms have included John Harkness and Cliff Garnett.
The Avenger is a fictional character whose original adventures appeared between September 1939 and September 1942 in the pulp magazine The Avenger, published by Street & Smith, which ran 24 issues. Five additional short stories were published in Clues Detective magazine (1942–1943), and a sixth novelette in The Shadow magazine in 1943. Decades later, newly written pastiches were commissioned and published by Warner Brothers' Paperback Library from 1973 to 1974.
James N. Aparo was an American comic book artist, best known for his DC Comics work from the late 1960s through the 1990s, including on the characters Batman, Aquaman, and the Spectre, along with famous stories such as The Brave and the Bold, "A Death in the Family", and "KnightFall".
Nick Carter is a fictional character who began as a dime novel private detective in 1886 and has appeared in a variety of formats over more than a century. The character was first conceived by Ormond G. Smith and created by John R. Coryell. Carter headlined his own magazine for years, and was then part of a long-running series of novels from 1964 to 1990. Films were created based on Carter in France, Czechoslovakia and Hollywood. Nick Carter has also appeared in many comic books and in radio programs.
Lawrence Louis Donovan was an American pulp fiction writer who wrote nine Doc Savage novels under the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson, a pen name that was used by other writers of the same publishing house. However, there are nine Doc Savage novels duly credited to Donovan, published between November 1935 and July 1937.
Thrilling Publications, also known as Beacon Magazines (1936–37), Better Publications (1937–43) and Standard Magazines (1943–55), was a pulp magazine publisher run by Ned Pines, publishing such titles as Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories.
William Murray is an American novelist, journalist, short story, and comic book writer. Much of his fiction has been published under pseudonyms. With artist Steve Ditko, he co-created the superhero Squirrel Girl.
Standard Comics was a comic book imprint of American publisher Ned Pines, who also published pulp magazines and paperback books. Standard in turn was the parent company of two comic-book lines: Better Publications and Nedor Publishing. Collectors and historians sometimes refer to them collectively as "Standard/Better/Nedor".
Batman Legends was a monthly anthology comic book series published in the UK by Titan Magazines as part of their DC Comics 'Collector's' Edition' range. Initially published by Panini Comics for 41 issues between October 2003 and November 2006, Titan subsequently took over publication with the launch of the comic's second volume. The title reprinted Batman-related comics originally published by DC Comics in the United States, typically including three stories per issue in a serialised format.
Batman R.I.P. is an American comic book story arc published in Batman #676–681 by DC Comics. Written by Grant Morrison, penciled by Tony Daniel, and with covers by Alex Ross, the story pits the superhero Batman against the Black Glove organization as they attempt to destroy everything that he stands for. It has a number of tie-ins in other DC Comics titles describing events not told in the main story.
Marvel Science Stories was an American pulp magazine that ran for a total of fifteen issues in two separate runs, both edited by Robert O. Erisman. The publisher for the first run was Postal Publications, and the second run was published by Western Publishing; both companies were owned by Abraham and Martin Goodman. The first issue was dated August 1938, and carried stories with more sexual content than was usual for the genre, including several stories by Henry Kuttner, under his own name and also under pseudonyms. Reaction was generally negative, with one reader referring to Kuttner's story "The Time Trap" as "trash". This was the first of several titles featuring the word "Marvel", and Marvel Comics came from the same stable in the following year.
Doc Savage was an American pulp magazine that was published from 1933 to 1949 by Street & Smith. It was launched as a follow-up to the success of The Shadow, a magazine Street & Smith had started in 1931, based around a single character. Doc Savage's lead character, Clark Savage, was a scientist and adventurer, rather than purely a detective. Lester Dent was hired to write the lead novels, almost all of which were published under the house name "Kenneth Robeson". A few dozen novels were ghost-written by other writers, hired either by Dent or by Street & Smith. The magazine was successful, but was shut down in 1949 as part of Street & Smith's decision to leave the pulp magazine field completely.
Norman Arthur Danberg, better known as Norman A. Daniels and other pen names, was an American writer working in pulp magazines, radio, and television. He created the pulp hero the Black Bat and wrote for such series as The Phantom Detective and The Shadow.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
