9. The Phantom
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many forms of media, including television and film, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating in the African jungle. The series began with a daily newspaper strip on February 17, 1936, followed by a color Sunday strip in May 1939; both are still running as of 2007.
When Lee Falk died in 1999, he was succeeded by writer Tony DePaul and artists Paul Ryan (daily strip) and Graham Nolan (Sunday strip). Previous artists on the newspaper strip include Ray Moore, Wilson McCoy, Bill Lignante, Sy Barry, George Olesen, Keith Williams and Fred Fredericks.
New Phantom stories are also published in comic books in different parts of the world, among them by Moonstone Books in USA, Egmont in Scandinavia, and Frew in Australia.
While the Phantom is not the first fictional costumed crimefighter, he is the first to wear the skintight costume that has become a hallmark of comic-book superheroes, and the first to wear a mask with no visible pupils, another superhero standard
