Phantom's in the window, again!

I'm so jealous! Why couldn't I win this
uhhh... "awesome" art?

So recently I bought a pile of 25 Phantom comics from a second hand store. Out of all of them, only two had classic Phantom stories from the newspapers. Almost all of them were Team Fantomen stories. (I talk more about that in this post, if you're confused.)

So out of 25 issues only two had newspaper stories. Out of 25 issues how many had a classic image of Phantom in a window? One. One of the newspaper issues.

This is why I hate Team Fantomen stories! They just don't honour the classic Phantom iconography!!

Fortunately, Sy Barry? Sy Barry knows what he's doing!

This story is actually a really typical Phantom story. It's about secrets. Secrets are really important to the Phantom, and to the Phantom mythology. A lot of Phantom stories are about either uncovering ancient secrets (a really common theme in Team Fantomen stories) or guarding secrets against people who just wouldn't understand.





In this case it's the jungle olympics. Basically -- the Phantom brough the olympics to the jungle. But the jungle is hardcore, so they modify the games to make them way more badass. Y'know what? I'll let Lee Falk explain all about them.

Spoilers: The olympics don't stay secret.

So of course eventually one of the competitors blabs to outsiders about the olympics and the enormous pot full of gems. This leads to a theft that the Phantom has to put right. Which of course leads to this...

Now that's what we're here for!

The Phantom beats the crap out of the three guys, takes the cup and the jewels back, and heads back to the olympics to set everything straight. It's a simple story, but as usual a lot of fun. Plus Phantom gets to beat the crap out of some dudes, so that's good.

Anyway, we're here for one reason! So, let's add this little bastard to the big ole collage.

More! mooooore!

There are more stories in this book, including a neat early Falk story, but maybe we'll talk about that some other time.

--Andrew S.
(Spoiler: We probably won't talk about it some other time.)