Just Stay at Home

Well well well. I'll be if this isn't some interesting news. The return of dead titles? That's a clever bit of trickery. A great idea, really. If they have to skip a month (and I'm going to cut Ivan Reis some slack because it looks like he's actually going to finish this big event without any help) this is certainly a clever way to do it. Let us exam each resurrected title in turn:

The Power of Shazam! #48: Black Lantern Osiris? Yes please. But could that really be all? Do the members of the Marvel Family have any other serious dead adversaries? I can't think of any... But there's always Billy and Mary's parents...

The Question #37: Ah, I've been waiting for this since Blackest Night was announced. No one else could write it but Greg Rucka. I'm wondering how exactly they'll do the Black Lantern Question. Most of the Black Lanters are distinguished by their gruesome faces. That won't work with the Question...

Suicide Squad #67: Booyah! More John Ostrander Suicide Squad is always good. And there are a lot of dead guys on that team...

Phantom Stranger #42: I loves me the Phantom Stranger. And Peter Tomasi does good work. This is a definite buy.

Catwoman #83: Black Lantern Black Mask, eh? I suppose it was inevitable... But I didn't see it coming. Sometimes my prognostication skills are better than other times.

The Atom and Hawkman #46: Oh, this oughta be fun. The Atom stuck up against three Black Lanterns? One his loopy, loony, murdering ex-wife? Craazy.

Weird Western Tales #71: Black Lantern Jonah Hex will be worth the price of admission alone.

Starman #81: This is the biggest surprise, I;d say. I never thought James Robinson would ever return to Jack Knight. But there you have it. I hope it lives up to the standards of the original series.

Which one are you looking forward to the most?

We superhero fans love our supergroups. Our publishers know this and so they sometimes cobble together teams to satisfy our appetite that wind up being pretty unsatisfying. You ever go to one of those events where you think there's going to be a buffet, and what's actually offered is a variety of h'ordeurvres? That's how I feel reading the likes of Infinity Inc and Outsiders.





But that's not my point. I've always like the idea of a sort of "Mystic League of America", a supergroup of mystics formed along the lines of the JLA/JSA. I thought DC had this concept locked when they created the Sentinels of Magic, but they never ran with it. Even worse, they went instead with the Outsiders of Magic, the Shadowpact; on the whole, readers didn't go with them.





Why didn't/doesn't this idea fly? Is it because, unlike the spandex crowd, magician's powers are too vague and indistinguishable from one another? Too little interest in magic characters?






I picture a group very much like the Sentinels of Magic, but narrowed down a bit. More like the classic JLA rather than a JLU of magic (because perhaps early over-expansion of the Sentinels watered down the concept and hindered its popularity; a club to which everyone belongs doesn't have a lot of perceived value!). I'd even make sure there was a bit a parallelism going on, like so.


























Dr. Fate, in for Superman
Phantom Stranger, in for Batman
Zatanna, in for Wonder Woman
Tempest, in for Aquaman
Blue Devil, in for Green Lantern
Deadman, in for Flash
Dr. Occult, in for Martian Manhunter

One of the best reasons to love the Phantom Stranger? The Phantom Stranger's Hat.

I bet you're thinking, "Yeah, it's so cool how his hat always stays on his head, except for that one time in got knocked off in Hell in that big Swamp Thing story!"

But you're wrong.

The Phantom Stranger's hat, you see, is not a mere object he wears at will. It's some kind of semi-sentient, quasi-independent entity, that simply chooses to stay with him most of the time. Kind of like my dog.

Sometimes, however, it simply goes walkabout.

In this panel, for example, the Phantom Stranger puts his hat on, which has been noticeably absent for most of the action in the story.

Where was it? How did he get it back? Even I do not understand all the workings of the Phantom Stranger's hat. But you know all those times the Phantom Stranger mysteriously disappears? It's not him; it's the hat, and it simply takes PS along for the ride. Kind of like walking my dog.

Here's another one from the Archives of the Phantom Stranger's Naked Head:



This is one of those stories where the hat is absent. UNTIL... the Epilogue.


What the heck is PS's hat doing lying in a previously unseen alley? Rumor has it, the hat sometimes goes off tomcatting with its alley-buds.. You know....Sargon's turban, the Helm of Fate, Eclipo's Phyrgian cap. Sometimes they get in fights and beat up Felix Faust's desert-hat-thingie or the Matter Master's dunce-cap. Other times, they meet up with Zatanna's Red Caterpillar Hat, and... well, you know.

And what's the meaning of juxtaposing the Phantom Stranger putting on his hat with some guy shooting a security guard? What does "meaning' mean in a Phantom Stranger story...?!

Sometimes, the hat gets feisty and decides to chase cars...

or just start howling at people it doesn't like.


The Phantom Stranger's hat deserves its own Who's Who page, a Heroclix pog, and an indy band named after it.

Because, in a Phantom Stranger story, anything can happen.

Really. Anything.

Like, say, for example...

Well, the Showcase Presents: The Phantom Stranger Volume 2 came out, and you know what that means: more lessons on Why We Love the Phantom Stranger.

Really, there are few characters odder than old PS. He should be called the Phantom StrangEST. No real name, no origin (and, no, the "unfallen angel" story does not count), no consistent powers, no clear guidelines as to when he will or will not appear and/or act. In other characters, these would be flaws; in the Phantom Stranger, they are strengths. Along with the outfit. And "Rod Serling on 'shrooms" way of speaking.

Speaking of shrooms, one of the reasons we love the Phantom Stranger is that, well... you never quite know what he's going to do. Maybe he's about to disappear or let loose with the cosmic zippity-zap; maybe he's just going to bitch-slap somebody across the room or start making out with some endangered hippy-chippy. Or maybe he's going to do....

See, just when you think you know him, he turns out to be... a stranger. Still, you know he totally had this poster in his college dorm room:

Can't you just see him, in the turtleneck and medallion, staring at the poster and practicing the Face-Melting Trick? All the while telling his roommate he's preparing "not to fear the face of Evil, but to teach it to fear the Face of Him", when really he's just doing it to get hippy chicks...