The Phantom Stranger #3 - Oct. 1969

The first Neal Adams cover for The Phantom Series proper; and as usual it was a classic combination of action and mystery. I find the horses quite creepy, too.

This issue opens with a bunch of kids jumping the fence of an amusement park.

As soon as they make it over, they see the park's guard, Mr. Yanchus, except that--he's dead!

The kids are of course terrified, so they run away, and then they see a dark figure, who seems to know one of the kid's names...its The Phantom Stranger!

He tells Jody, the son of the man who owns the park and is being driven out of business by a series of accidents there, that he knows Jody's father, and he is after whoever it was who killed the guard!

When the kids say he disappeared like a ghost, that leads him to tell them a story about the first time a ghostly menace haunted this park, which dovetails into "The Stars Screamed Danger", reprinted from the original Phantom Stranger #5, by John Broome, Frank Giacoia, and Joe Giella.

...but before we get into the story, I want to mention this wonderful little panel by Bill Draut:

It's so simple and classic, I wouldn't be surprised if The Phantom Stranger had this on his business card.

Anyway, the story involves a mystic named Vasti, who, among other tricks, predicts that the stars and the planets are in alignment, which will lead to ghosts visiting Earth (huh?).

The Phantom Stranger is in the audience, and he wonders if Vasti is just a charlatan or is really a mystic...

Later that night, we see giant, hooded, green-colored ghosts assaulting the park's visitors, scaring them half to death.

After the Stranger saves a couple and helps them get down off of the Ferris Wheel, the owner of the park tells him that he inherited it from his father. And due to a stipulation in the father's will, any money the first son doesn't earn via the park goes to the older son, Jay. The Phantom Stranger sees a motive for the park to fail!

When the owner and his girlfriend are almost killed in an explosion, the Stranger discovers its Vasti behind it all, who was, Scooby Doo-style, trying to scare people off so the park has to close down and Vasti could buy it for cheap.

Just as the owner looks to thank the Stranger, he disappears!

Back in the present day, the Stranger tells the kids that ghosts never bothered the park again...until now. Jody then mentions that his parents are trying to figure this out, too, by consulting a doctor:

...oh great, everyone's favorite wet blanket.

After Dr. Thirteen bores his hosts with a story called "No Such Thing as Ghosts" from Star-Spangled Comics #126), he decides to head over to the amusement park to investigate.

When he arrives, he is none too happy to see The Phantom Stranger, and asks where Jody is. The Phantom Stranger sees that Jody is...gone!

They hear a scream, and both of them head off to find him.

The scream seems to be coming from the Tunnel of Thrills, where they run into all kinds of trouble:

...after Thirteen saves the Stranger's life after he almost falls into a pit of metal spikes(!), they wind their way down a small passageway into a hidden room.

Inside they see...Vasti!

Vasti makes a break for it, and Thirteen sees the Stranger has disappeared. He chases after Vasti, who climbs up the scaffolding of a rollercoaster.

As he's about to kick Thirteen off, to this death, the Stranger reappears and grabs Vasti from behind.

Vasti struggles, and slips out of the Stranger's grasp, falling to his death. Left behind in the Stranger's hand is...a mask?

Turns out Vasti was actually the older brother, Jay--he hired Vasti years ago, but when the plot fell apart, Jay had Vasti killed when he learned Vasti was going to talk to the police.

The Phantom Stranger shows Thirteen some the dynamite Jay had place all around the park, and does his disappearing act before Thirteen has a chance to ask how he managed to be in the right place in the right time.

The Stranger leaves Thirteen yelling into the night, promising they'll meet again someday...probably in about two months!

The Phantom Stranger #2 - Aug. 1969

From this cover, it kinda looks like The Phantom Stranger is teaming up with one of the Hardy Boys. Let's look inside and see if that's the case...

This issue continues the format of the Showcase tryout and the first issue of PS--namely, a combination of new material by Mike Friedrich and Bill Draut, surrounding a tale from the original Phantom Stranger series by John Broome and Carmine Infantino.

This issue opens with the new story, "The Man Who Died Three Times!", and I find this opening page highly disturbing.

I say that because, to this longtime comic reader's eye, it doesn't look like the opening page to a horror/mystery comic--with its day-glo colors and straightforward art style, it looks like one of those Public Service Announcements that DC used to run in its comics in the 50s and 60s--except this one ends with the Dad burning to death in a car accident.

I have no idea if artist Bill Draut meant it to look this way; in any case, it makes for a wonderfully perverse opening to the tale!

Anyway, little Billy tries to rescue his Dad, but it stopped by...The Phantom Stranger!

The Stranger clearly isn't that used to dealing with kids--first off, he calls the kid "sonny", and then assures Billy that he "won't find more of the driver than a few charred bones!" Phantom Stranger, Grief Counselor.

PS brings the kid home to his mother, and as they grieve, they are shocked to see...Dad walk in the front door!

He's in the same zombified state he was before he got behind the wheel, and claims to have nine lives, courtesy of an ancient totem pole that's right in the middle of their living room!

As Mom puts Dad to bed, The Phantom Stranger regales Billy with a tale from his past, similar to this--"The House of Strange Secrets", which is, in fact, not another DC mystery title from the 60s, but is the title of the last story from The Phantom Stranger (Vol.1) #1.

A man gets lost on a dark road, and stops to figure out where he is:

...a guy sitting there, alone, facing the door, cigarette holder, with that hair? I'd turn right around!

The man begins to pull a knife from behind his back when The Phantom Stranger arrives and pushes Neal Hunter out of the way!

As they get up, they now see that the opulent house has instantly changed into a cobweb-strewn, dusty wreck!

Hunter is knocked out by some gas emitting from a candle, and then the lights come back on, and we learn that the man in waiting is a sorcerer-in-training, and has been living in this house--the former home of a great magician--to learn the Black Arts.

This guy claims he needs to spill the blood of someone for his powers to manifest themselves, but The Phantom Stranger lands a sock in the jaw and he runs off.

He then grabs a giant sword, attempting to cleave the Stranger in two. PS then backs him up towards some live wires. When the man's sword touches the wires, he is instantly electrocuted to death!

The Phantom Stranger leads Neal back to the main road...and then disappears!

PS does the same disappearing act with Billy at the end of the story, just in time for Billy to see his Dad has left a suicide note, saying he's going to jump off a bridge to prove his he has nine lives!

Billy arrives at the bridge just in time to see his Father plunge into the water, where the corpse is met by...Dr. Thirteen!

They all head back to house, where both the Stranger and the Father make a surprise re-entrance:

...I love that first panel, with the Stranger standing in the shadows like that.

The Stranger disappears yet again, leaving Billy at the mercy of Dr. Thirteen, who tells the young lad another one of his boring, taking-all-the-fun-out-of-it stories, "The Girl Who Lived 5,000 Years!", which ends like all of Thirteen's stories do--pooh-poohing any supernatural elements.

The next day, the father appears at a construction site, where he is almost killed by a falling beam, but saved at the last minute by The Phantom Stranger!

This snaps Dad out of his trance, and he explains to both PS and Thirteen how he got this way--some local mobsters threatened him and his construction company, for the sake of their boss, the perfectly named "Mr. Big." He reluctantly agrees, but when he realizes he can't look his son in the face, he returns to their hideout(!) and tells them he wants out.

The mobsters have an enforcer, a swami-looking guy named Ramu-Guru (that's an even better name than Mr. Big!), who hypnotizes the man into trying to kill himself--then, when the mob murders him, no one will suspect anything! A perfect, flawless plan if I ever heard one.

The mob reads that "The Man With Nine Lives" is still alive, so they got to his house to try and rub him out. They fire their guns, but turns out who they think is their man is just a dummy...it's a trap, courtesy of The Phantom Stranger and Dr. Thirteen:

...Thirteen demands to know how the father escaped the car crash and the plunge, but the Stranger doesn't bother with all that--just as he thanks Thirteen for his help, Billy sees that The Phantom Stranger has disappeared...again!

The mob's plan is almost comically over-complicated, which makes me look fondly upon them--today's mobsters pretty much just kill people and run prostitution rings, which is no fun at all.

I would've loved to have seen an episode of The Sopranos where Tony hires a swami to help him commit various crimes.

The Phantom Stranger #1 - June 1969

The Phantom Stranger gets a second chance!

Like his Showcase try-out, this first issue of The Phantom Stranger consists of a mix of reprinted material from the earlier PS title, plus new material by Mike Friedrich and Bill Draut (this time handling both the penciling and inking).

This issue opens with a passenger jet about to take off, and we get to hear the thoughts of three of the passengers--one of them, John Martin, is on his way to meet a woman.

Another, Carson Rand, is thinking of some badly needed "papers" he plans to get from someone at his destination, and the third, rodeo star(!) Bart Benson, is on his way to a competition.

Somehow these three men know each other, and a photographer takes a picture of them. This is the last time this particular jet is taking this route, so its going to be in the papers (slow news day).

But all does not go well, to say the least:

...a wonderfully exciting, frightening sequence, courtesy writer John Broome and artists Carmine Infantino and Sy Barry.

Two nights later, we see a man as he tosses and turns in bed, the "voice" of Carson Rand ringing in his ears.

But that's not all--he wakes to see a green-robed, ghost-like figure who demands "the papers"!

The man goes to his wall safe to get them, when he is stopped by...The Phantom Stranger!

PS lands a haymaker on the "ghost", causing him to trip and run out of the room. As the man tries to figure out what the heck is going on here, he sees that the Stranger is gone, too.

The next night, at a ranch in Colorado, a promise is mysteriously burned into a hunk of wood, claiming that the horse named Roughneck "is mine", and is signed by...Bart Benson!

The horse then starts to buck and kick, as if its being ridden. Suddenly the Stranger appears, calms the horse, and reveals (to kind of no one in particular) that this horse has been trained to respond to a series of high-pitched whistles, and that the message "burned" into the wood is, in fact, made from zinc compound, which glows when struck by moonlight.

Lastly, we see the woman of John Martin's affections, Margo Phillips, on a foggy San Francisco street. She is met by what it seemingly the ghost of Martin, who reaches out to her so she can join him in "the other world."

He is stopped by the Stranger, who reveals that this ghost is actually a man named Matt Wright, who had been stealing from the nightclub where Margo works. Turns out, as soon as he read of Martin's death in the air crash, he worked out this whole plot to bump off Margo--who knew what he was doing at the nightclub--and used the ghost angle to throw the police off the trai (I dunno, seems like an extraordinarily complicated scheme to me).

Anyway, turns out the three man and the Stranger have a connection:

...creepy!

Next up is another Dr. Thirteen story, "The Hermit's Ghost Dog!", from Star-Spangled Comics #125--when you think about it, considering all the ghost-debunking The Phantom Stranger is personally doing in these stories, you wonder why Thirteen hates PS so much.

This issue features the first letters page, "Mail to The Phantom Stranger", featuring all positive letters, asking DC to give PS his own book. One of the letters is from a young fan named Martin Pasko!

The new Phantom Stranger story is next, and is called "Defeat the Dragon Curse...Or Die!", featuring a very captivating first page, as you can see here--Draut's work is clean and precise, if not all that mysterious.

Dr. Thirteen arrives at arrives at a friend's house, and all seems normal, until an explosion, killing the Doctor's friends, leaving only their child, Larry, alive!

As they try to figure out what happened, The Phantom Stranger arrives and points out carved into the floor is the sign of Ching Hi Fu--"a long forgotten dragon symbol of death!"
Thirteen and PS get into another one of their arguments, but a handy flashbulb going off provides the Stranger a chance to disappear. Larry, now an orphan, is temporarily taken in by Thirteen and his wife Marie.

Meanwhile, an ominous figure prays inside a pagoda, promising "the terror of Ching Hi Fu" will strike again tomorrow!

The next night, during a party in Chinatown, the same mysterious dragon appears, followed by a huge fire! As the people inside flee for safety, The Phantom Stranger appears and attempts to calm the panicked mob.

Thirteen also arrives, and they once again see the mysterious symbol, this time on a wall. It's here we get our first real, non-draped-in-shadows shot of The Phantom Stranger:
...kinda looks like John Carradine to me.

The Stranger disappears again, leaving Thirteen to try and figure out what is going on. The small boy Larry wonders aloud why the curse seems to be on new buildings...

Thirteen uses this piece of information to make a phone call, and right after we hear the announcement of new fine dining restaurant opening up in Chinatown.

Thirteen, Marie, and Larry wait outside and they see two mysterious shadows approaching--one is The Phantom Stranger, but the other is the man behind the curse!

The Stranger grabs him and demands to know what's going on. Turns out this man was an architect who built most of the old buildings in Chinatown, and is aghast the "ugly shoe boxes" that are going up, replacing his work!

Not able to determine how he pulled this off, exactly, the Stranger and Thirteen head off their long-standing "it was magic/no, it was science" argument.

What they can agree on is that the young Larry provided the tip that led them to figuring it all out.

The story ends with the Stranger making another one of his patented mysterious disappearances, but I feel compelled to call shenanigans here.

The kid is looking right at the Stranger as he disappears--so did the Stranger disappear into thin air? If so, wouldn't Dr. Thirteen have to admit he's got some sort of supernatural ability? Its one thing to do the old Batman/Commissioner Gordon thing, its another to be able to vanish as someone is directly talking to you.
Oh well, still a fun story--the setting is nice, and Draut (and the uncredited colorist) do a good job mixing the bright colors of New Year's in Chinatown with the dark, shadowy world of The Phantom Stranger.
__________________________________________________

The Phantom Stranger, as a title, didn't get a lot of ad love by DC, and since I love old-school comic ads, every time I find one for PS I'll be posting it here.

Are you prepared? Well...are you?

Showcase #80 - Feb. 1969

The (sort-of) return of The Phantom Stranger!

This try-out of The Phantom Stranger is an odd hybrid, consisting as it does of new framing material by Mike Freidrich, Jerry Grandinetti, and Bill Draut surrounding two reprinted stories from the first Phantom Stranger series and a Dr. Thirteen story from Star-Spangled Comics.

But before we get to all that, let's take a moment to talk about the first of what will be many superb Neal Adams covers for The Phantom Stranger--interesting to consider that the main visual motif of the character of not being able to see his eyes is not used for the character's debut to readers! I also like how that one kid on the far left isn't all that scared.

This issue opens with some kids wandering through the streets of their creepy village on their way to an equally creepy cave. They gather around a lit candle, and discuss "a curse" that is supposed to fall upon the town that day. Some are skeptical, but they get scared when they see a mysterious shadow on the wall. Turns out its...The Phantom Stranger!

The Stranger decides to tell the kids a spooky story, one that he had experienced first hand!

Then we fade into "The Three Signs of Evil", reprinted from The Phantom Stranger #2 by John Broome, Carmine Infantino, and Joe Giella, which opens on Mark Davis, an artist who is taking "a leisurely walk" through Manhattan's Columbus Circle.

He runs across a group of men talking and discussing some weird symbols and "utilizing the power of moonlight." Huh?

The men see Davis, and that he is sketching what he sees, and they tell him to leave them alone. He does, but they decide amongst themselves to make sure what he saw never leaks out.

He is met by a man on the street, who sees Davis' sketch, and offers to buy it. Davis naively agrees to follow the man to discuss it (when an artist smells a sale...). He is led to a private courtyard, where he is attacked by a group of men to are here to kill him!

Luckily, he is helped by a mysterious stranger, whom these cult members seem to know--they call him "The Phantom Stranger!"

The Stranger beats the men up, and he and Davis escape. Davis notices the strange weapons the men used, and the Stranger tells him they are artifacts from various cults from around the world.

Examining Davis' sketch, they determine that the cult's next stop is Washington Square, so they head there:

I just have to mention, for a little, seven-page tale, this story captures a real creepy mood here.

The nighttime setting in a big city, which (even at this late at night) should be teeming with life, yet is almost totally devoid of people, reminds me a lot of my favorite Val Lewton film, The Seventh Victim. Its also about a creepy cult and was set in New York City. Instead of feeling safe being in the middle of the busiest city in the world, the empty streets give off a real feeling of dread; and Broome, Infantino, and Giella capture it here. (I wonder if Broome ever saw The Seventh Victim)

Anyway, Davis uses himself as a decoy, and soon he is grabbed by members of the cult and dragged to an abandoned subway station. Its here they tell Davis that they need a human sacrifice to increase their mystical powers.

As they are about to kill him, the cult leader's is startled to see the room fill with moonlight, which is the work of the Stranger! He and Davis knock them all out, and then the Stranger surrounds their limp bodies with a strange powder, which he claims will keep them form escaping.

Davis flags down a police officer, and when he turns to introduce the cop to his mysterious friend, he sees that The Phantom Stranger is....gone!

Back in the present(?), the kids love the story...but notice that as they chat, the Stranger has pulled the same disappearing act!

As they leave the cave, they are met by yet another stranger...Doctor Thirteen!

He tells them the Stranger's story is all bunk, and then relates his own tale to them, "I Talked With the Dead!" (from Star-Spangled Comics #123), which underscores "there are no ghosts" view of life.

Suddenly, the Stranger returns, and he and Thirteen have what it obviously another in a long line of arguments about whether the supernatural really exists.

They agree to disagree and try and figure out the curse afflicting this village. In the town square, they see a giant green, winged bug fluttering overhead--the curse!

Both our heroes quickly determine this creature is not real, and the Stranger suddenly appears inside it, knocking out the pilot who was using the creature as a diversion while his cronies robbed the town's bank. Thirteen takes care of them, and the case is solved.

Thirteen then reiterates to the kids that there are no monsters or ghosts, but as he turns to the Stranger, he sees that he has disappeared...again! He swears to the heavens that someday, somehow, he will prove that the Stranger is a phony! The end.

The art for the wraparound sequence, by Grandinetti and Draut, is equally good as the Infantino/Giella combo--there are times when the art is so simplified it achieves a sort of abstract grandeur, like the panel on the far left. I love how simple it is, almost Alex Toth-like.

And the last panel, with its crazy perspective and collage-ish composition is, to me, a real grabber of an ending. If I had read this book at the time, I definitely would've wanted to read more.

Obviously, kids in late 1968 agreed, since The Phantom Stranger--after just this one try-out issue--graduated into his own title, again. Be here tomorrow for kick-off of The Phantom Stranger, Volume 2!