Secret Origins #10 - The Phantom Stranger

Secret Origins (1986-1990) #10 by Mike W. Barr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Phantom Stranger has always been more of a plot device than a character to me. When I shared an MC Escher drawing on Twitter, someone shared the cover of this Secret Origins issue with me, clearly having been inspired by it. I found a mint copy on eBay for two bucks so it was no big expenditure.

Secret Origins #10 tells four possible origins for the Phantom Stranger. In one version, he's the Wandering Jew, cursed to wander the earth until Judgement Day. In another, he trades his life to save a city in biblical times, again doomed to wander the earth. In the third tale, he's a man from the end of time, caught in a time loop he's destined to repeat forever. In the final tale, he's an angel that refused to take sides in the war between God and Satan.

The creative teams on the four tales are an all star cast: Mike Barr & Jim Aparo, Paul Levitz & Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Dan Mishkin & Ernie Colon, and Alan Moore and Joe Orlando. The Moore tale was the best written but I prefer Dan Mishkin's time loop explanation for the Stranger's origin. Jim Aparo's art in the first chapter is my favorite, though.

Honestly, I'm not overly fond of any of these tales as The Phantom Stranger's definitive origin. I also didn't think there was that much variety in the origins with three of the four being tied to events in the bible.

While The Phantom Stranger's origin is probably best left to the reader's imagination, the four tales in this collection were interesting takes on the character. Three out of five stars.

View all my reviews