I’m constantly amazed by what I don’t know about Golden Age comic books. Like, up until a couple of days ago I had absolutely no idea Dell had published Large Feature Comics, a Four Color type series of reprints of (mostly) then current comic strips. And if you’re thinking that today’s entry makes for a nice break from all of the British/ Australian black and white reprints I’ve been posting about…Large Feature Comics was also published in black and white.

Still well regarded comic strips like Dick Tracy and Terry and the Pirates were represented, sure, but there were also a lot of strips which sadly have been all but forgotten. I suppose it says everything you need to know about me that I really, really want to read that issue featuring The Nebbs, which was a ripoff of The Gumps. Which is another old comic strip that I know mostly from reading books about old comic strips.

I say “mostly” because one issue featured black and white reprints of Phantasmo, Master of the World, one of Dell’s oddball attempts at doing a superhero from their anthology title The Funnies.

Having gained mental powers in Tibet that allowed him to astral project and gave his spirit self super strength and the ability to fly, become invisible and grow to enormous size. Upon returning to America he took the name Phil Anson and naturally used his powers to fight crime. Essentially invulnerable, Phantasmo’s only Achilles Heel was his unoccupied body, which was protected by Whizzer McGee a bellhop at the hotel Anson was staying at. This made McGee the only teen in comic book superhero history to sidekick for tips.

As you’ll soon see for yourself while you can’t call Phantasmo good exactly it’s a feature with several points of interest. To wit, his name. OK, sure, it gets points for originality, but what does it actually mean? It’s a strange and awkward word and looks weird hung on a logo; not to mention it must have been a hard word for 1940′s kids to wrap their mouths around.

Phantasmo was simultaneously an exemplar of several different Golden Age superhero tropes, besides the obvious one; white playboy gets his superpowers while on vacation in Tibet I mean. Boy, The Shadow must have felt like a putz when he realized he gotten a lot more than just invisibility. He’s a representative of both The Nearly Naked Superhero (he really should size up those shorts) as well as The Guy Who Could Do Anything (while it certainly ratches up a characters ‘wow factor’ it doesn’t do him any favors, dramagurically speaking).

And, finally, we have a superhero who has something in common with Dracula (“You have to have someone watch over your body? So do I!”).