Phantoma

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Phantoma (or Phantaman) is a Japanese superhero who first appeared in the 1930's, making him probably the first Japanese super hero. A live action movie was filmed in 1966, starring Osamu Tezuka. A 52 episode anime series was produced a year later.

Phantoma was golden, had a skeletal face and muscular body. He wore a high collared black and red cape and carried a pointed scepter that was able to conjure lightning and cause minor earthquakes. His appearance would be heralded by a little golden bat flying in, followed by a spooky, reverberating laughter that seemed to come from everywhere.

Ogon Bat was a actually a protector from Ancient Atlantis, who was put into suspended animation in an Egyptian tomb, to be awakened in the future to fight the forces of evil.

In modern times, Phantoma had been dicovered by Prof. Yamatone’s family and a little orphan girl called Marie in a tomb in modern Egypt. The tomb’s inscription described him as a “god of justice and protector of the weak”. When Yamatone’s family was threatened by Gorgo (Dr. Zero’s main henchman) Marie started to cry and beg for help. Her tears fell on Phantoma’s body and re-animated him. From then on, he would come whenever Marie would ask for his help.

His main antagonist was Dr. Zero, the leader of a crime syndicate bent on world domination. Dr. Zero wore a black mask with batman-like ears and had 4 different colored cat eyes which could fire deadly beams. He also had no lower body, and hovered around atop a min-flying saucer. Dr. Zero also had a metal pincer in place of his right hand and had a habit of booming his name “ZEEEEEEEEEEEERO”.

Phantoma’s other great villain was Dr. Death, a somewhat darker version of himself who he was supposedly created to fight.

Ogon Bat was know as Fantasmagorico in most of Latin America and as Fantomas in Brazil.

In Brazil, the series arrived without an intro and one was quickly spliced together by Cinecastro using scenes from an episode and the theme from another cartoon, Journey to the Center of the Earth. This was also the case for at least 2 other anime series: Shadow Boy and Paaman (Super Dinamo)