Lee Falks' The Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks is 90 Years Old Today

Posted in: Comics, DC Comics, Mad Cave Studios, Marvel Comics | Tagged: lee falk, The Phantom

Lee Falks' The Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks is 90 Years Old Today

Lee Falks' The Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks was published for the first time today, ninety years ago, and still going strong

Published Tue, 17 Feb 2026 14:56:07 -0600
by Rich Johnston
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Article Summary

• The Phantom, created by Lee Falk in 1936, celebrates 90 years as the world's first costumed superhero.
• Famed for his purple suit and skull ring, The Phantom inspired key superhero tropes like secret identity.
• The Phantom's legacy spans newspaper strips, comics, and adaptations, with global cult status in Australia and India.
• New stories from publishers like Mad Cave keep The Ghost Who Walks alive for fans in the USA and beyond.

The Phantom, the enduring legend known as The Ghost Who Walks, marks a remarkable milestone today, his 90th anniversary. On the 17th of February, 1936, Lee Falk's adventure comic strip The Phantom appeared in comic strips across the USA, introducing the world to what is widely regarded as the first costumed superhero in comics history, predating Superman by two years and Batman by three.

Created by Lee Falk, who had already launched Mandrake the Magician in 1934, Falk initially wrote and sketched the early days himself before handing artistic duties to Ray Moore, whose clean, illustrative style helped define the character's iconic look. The purple suit, often rendered in gray tones for the non-Sunday strip, black mask with no visible pupils, skull ring, and twin holsters gained new life when the Sunday colour strip followed in 1939.

The Phantom is focused on a boy named Christopher Walker who survives a pirate attack by the Singh Brotherhood off the Bengal coast in the 16th century. Washed ashore in the fictional African nation of Bangalla, he was nursed back to health by local tribes who believed him a spirit. Swearing an oath to fight piracy, cruelty, and evil, he became the first Phantom. The mantle passes from father to son, each believing the previous one immortal—creating the illusion of a single undying hero. This Phantom, Kit Walker, was the twenty-first to hold the legacy from his hidden Skull Cave, aided by his loyal wolf Devil, horse Hero, the Bandar tribesmen, his wife and famed explorer and journalist Diana Palmer and their children Kit and Heloise.

Falk wrote the strip until his death in 1999, and subsequent creators such as Ray Moore, Wilson McCoy, Sy Barry, Keith Williams, and others have kept the strip in continuous syndication through King Features for nine decades. At its height in the 1960s, it reached hundreds of newspapers worldwide and over 100 million readers.

The Phantom's influence on the superhero genre introduced concepts such as the secret identity, the costume as a symbol of fear, reliance on skill and reputation rather than superpowers, and the idea of a hero who "cannot die." There have been adaptations to other media such as the 1996 Billy Zane film, the animated TV series Defenders of the Earth and comic books from DC, Marvel, Dynamite and more, with the stories especially popular in Scandinavia, India, and Australia, with Mad Cave currently publishing new Phantom and Defenders Of The Earth comic books in the USA.

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