Phantom Eagle

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Phantom Eagle is the name used by three fictional comic book aviator heroes. The first was introduced during the 1930s-1940s Golden Age of comic books by Fawcett Comics. The other two have appeared sporadically in various series published by Marvel Comics.

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[edit] Fawcett Comics

Wow Comics #6 (July 1942). Phantom Eagle at right. Artist unknown.
Wow Comics #6 (July 1942). Phantom Eagle at right. Artist unknown.

[edit] Publication history

The first Phantom Eagle was introduced by uncredited creators in Fawcett Comics' Wow Comics #6 (July 1942). Following his debut, the Golden Age Phantom Eagle appeared in every issue of Wow through the final issue, #69 (August 1948). His primary writer-artist was Marc Swayze.

[edit] Fictional character biography

The Phantom Eagle was teenager Mickey Malone, who, though forbidden by superior officer Sergeant Flogg at his military airbase in Great Britain, was determined to fight the World War II Axis powers. Donning an aviator-styled costume and building his own airplane, he takes the name Phantom Eagle and becomes a secret ace. He later forms the Phoenix Squadron, a group of fellow teen pilots. During the post-war period, Malone formed a charter airline and searched for the Golden Chalice, a lost artifact upon which is inscribed the "Formula for Peace".

[edit] Marvel Comics

Phantom Eagle (Marvel Comics)

The Phantom Eagle's debut. Art by Herb Trimpe.
Publication information
Publisher Marvel Comics
First appearance Marvel Super-Heroes #16 (Sept. 1968)
Created by Gary Friedrich & Herb Trimpe
In story information
Alter ego Karl Kaufman
Team affiliations Freedom's Five
Abilities None: Ace World War I pilot

[edit] Publication history

The second Phantom Eagle was an unrelated World War I hero created by writer Gary Friedrich and artist Herb Trimpe in Marvel Super-Heroes #16 (Sept. 1968). As Trimpe described, Marvel production manger John Verpoorten "had been a classmate at SVA. When I got out of the Air Force in October 1966, he worked in the production department at Marvel. He said they were hiring freelance people, and I should come up to the office and show my work to Sol Brodsky, who was Stan [Lee]'s right-hand man at the time. I said, 'Okay'. Later, while I was in the photostat department, I did the Phantom Eagle freelance, the first book I penciled. I think".[1]

The character has made few appearances beyond his debut. The first was a time travel story in The Incredible Hulk #135 (Jan. 1971). Next came a flashback appearance in Ghost Rider #12 (June 1975), in which the Phantom Eagle, as the cover proclaimed, was a real phantom. The Invaders #7 (July 1976) retconned the character as a member of the Freedom's Five, a newly created WWI team of costumed adventurers never subsequently seen. The Phantom Eagle also appeared for two panels in Thor Corps #3 (Nov. 1993), when the antagonist briefly alters reality.

Ghost Rider #50 (Nov. 1980) contains a page of pinup art by Trimpe that one historian speculates[2] may have been an unused cover of issue #12.

[edit] Fictional character biography

In 1914, three years before the United States entered World War I, Karl Kaufman, a skilled American pilot from Oshkosh, Wisconsin — whose German parents had returned to their native country — desired to fight the Central Powers. Concealing his identity so as not to risk reprisals against his parents, he devised a stylized aviator uniform with darkened goggles and a cape, and joined the European conflict to become an ace on the side of the Allies. At one point the time-traveling dictator Kang the Conqueror sent the simpleminded brute the Hulk to WWI in an effort to secure a victory for Germany, by preventing the Phantom Eagle from destroying a key German weapon. Another time, a brief altering of reality saw the Phantom Eagle's biplane pursued by modern jet fighters.

The Phantom Eagle went on to join the team of costumed adventurers known as Freedom's Five, consisting of himself (the sole American), the Crimson Cavalier, the Silver Squire, Sir Steel, and Union Jack.

Kaufman and his parents were later killed together in Germany near the end of the war by German pilot Hermann von Reitberger, who strafed both the Phantom Eagle and the two civilians. Swearing vengeance, the Phantom Eagle's spirit haunted and hunted von Reitberger through the years until, after a chance, modern-day encounter with the Ghost Rider, he battled the aged German in a dogfight. With von Reitberger's death, Kaufman's vengeful spirit was allowed to pass on.[3]

[edit] Other versions

[edit] Counter-Earth Phantom Eagle

An issue of Thunderbolts revealed another Phantom Eagle existing in the Marvel Universe's Counter-Earth, located on the far side of the sun. He is the counterpart to our Earth's Lloyd Bloch, a.k.a. Nefarius, and lost his Moonstone to Karla Sofen, a.k.a. Moonstone, when the reformed-supervillain team the Thunderbolts were stranded on Counter-Earth.

[edit] MAX

Writer Garth Ennis and penciler-inker Howard Chaykin produced a version of the character in a World War I-set miniseries, War is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle #1-5 (May 2008-  ), published under the alternate-reality Marvel imprint MAX. [4] [5]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Green Skin's Grab-Bag: "An Interview with Herb Trimpe" (no date). Note: Trimpe had actually made his professional penciling debut with two Kid Colt Western stories, in Kid Colt, Outlaw #134-135 (May & July 1967).
  2. ^ Grand Comics Database: Ghost Rider #50
  3. ^ Ghost Rider #12 (June 1975)
  4. ^ Nick Lowe on Marvel Max's War is Hell series, Newsarama, January 7, 2008
  5. ^ Laura Hudson, Ennis Moves from Punisher to Phantom Eagle, [[Publishers Weekly], February 19, 2008.

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