Fictional Character Biography
In the jungles of the fictional African country of Bangalla, there is a myth featuring The Ghost Who Walks, a powerful and indestructible guardian of the innocent and fighter of all types of injustice. Because he seems to have existed for generations, many believe him to be immortal. In reality, the Phantom is a legacy hero, descended from 20 previous generations of crimefighters who all adopt the same persona. When a new Phantom takes the task from his dying father, he swears the Oath of the Skull: "I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms, and my sons and their sons shall follow me". The first Phantom married Christina, the daughter of a Scandinavian sea captain, Eric the Rover. The second Phantom married Marabella, the granddaughter of Christopher Columbus.
(The comic sometimes runs flashback adventures of previous Phantoms written by various authors who sometimes confuse Phantom history. Current stories have Marabella as the daughter of Columbus and marrying the first Phantom. As Columbus died in 1506 while, according to the new history, Marabella first meets the Phantom in 1544, this results in another inconsistency, requiring her to be at least 38 years old despite being depicted as in her early 20s. Inconsistencies in storylines and histories are not corrected as a mark of respect to authors, but Falk's original history takes precedence.)
The Phantom of the present is the 21st in the line. Unlike most costumed heroes, he has no superhuman powers, relying only on his wits, physical strength, skill with his weapons, and fearsome reputation to fight crime. His real name is Kit Walker. References to "Mr. Walker" are in the strip often accompanied by a footnote saying "For 'The Ghost Who Walks'", although some versions of the Phantom's history suggest that Walker was actually the original surname of the man who became the first Phantom.
Read more about this topic: Kit Walker
Famous quotes containing the words fictional and/or character:
“One of the proud joys of the man of letters—if that man of letters is an artist—is to feel within himself the power to immortalize at will anything he chooses to immortalize. Insignificant though he may be, he is conscious of possessing a creative divinity. God creates lives; the man of imagination creates fictional lives which may make a profound and as it were more living impression on the world’s memory.”
—Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)
“No sooner does a great man depart, and leave his character as public property, than a crowd of little men rushes towards it. There they are gathered together, blinking up to it with such vision as they have, scanning it from afar, hovering round it this way and that, each cunningly endeavouring, by all arts, to catch some reflex of it in the little mirror of himself.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)