The Phantom Detective was Thrilling’s most popular pulp hero, outliving both The Shadow and Doc Savage in terms of longevity, though with fewer stories.
As Thrilling also had a comicbook line, known by most as Nedor Comics, The Phantom Detective like other pulp heroes made the transition to the comics. These comics ran from 1946-49. Like many costumed heroes, he gave way to jungle and western stories.
His comics ran in Thrilling Comics #53-62 and 65-70, and in America’s Best Comics #26. Stories were typical of the era, being about nine to 12 pages in length. As such, the stories were scaled down from the pulps. I am uncertain if any were based on the pulp stories themselves.
The basic elements from the pulp are here. The Phantom Detective is really wealthy bachelor Richard Curtis Van Loan. He is often called into action by his friend, Frank Havens, publisher of the New York Clarion, either being called or seeing the red signal light from the building’s roof. During these stories, he is either referred to as “The Phantom Detective” or “The Phantom.” He is either in disguise or is wearing a tuxedo, top hat, domino mask, and opera cloak. To prove his identity, he sometimes shows his special jewel-encrusted domino-mask badge.
However, because these stories are short, there are no secondary characters. Muriel Havens, his love interest, isn’t here, nor any other girlfriend. Nor any other assistants or associates. In the first story, we are told The Phantom has a substitute identity of chemist Dr. Bendix, but this character doesn’t appear in that story, nor any other!
As comic book stories go, these are about average for the time period.
Now, if you want to read these stories, your best bet is the collection from Gwandanaland Comics, who produces several collections of public-domain comicbooks. They often will do character collections, pulling together all the stories of a particular character. Issue #1233 is the “Complete Phantom Detective” collection, and is fairly good. They do have other pulp-related works, including a collection of The Mask, reprints of pulp-related Big Little Books and Better Little Books, and more. So check them out. I’ll be reviewing future collections they do that are pulp related.
