The Phantom, 2/2/25

A fun thing about The Phantom (the comic strip) is that it's one of the oldest superhero franchises, and the Phantom (the character) hasn't really changed much since the strip launched during FDR's first term, so he recognizably fits into the "superhero" slot in our collective understanding of the world but one of his primary "superpowers" is "shoots guns". The current Sunday storyline is sort of a Phantom: Origins flashback, showing what the current Phantom's Phantom ancestor was up to during the Moroccan invasion of the Songhai Empire in the 1590s. Turns out what he was up to was using his "shoots guns" superpower, even then! Hey kids, you want to see a guy get shot in the chest, right here in the newspaper? It's OK, it's, uh, old-timey.

Curtis, 2/2/25