How The Phantom Became A Symbol For Papua New Guinea Warriors

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While the Phantom may have never reached the American icon status of contemporaries like Batman and Superman, in the Independent State of Papua New Guinea (PNG), he is the most popular superhero by far, and his influence is felt throughout the culture. Debuting in a comic strip by Lee Falk in 1936, the Phantom is considered by many to be the first costumed superhero. Beyond comic books and strips, the Phantom has been used in PNG public service promoting everything from literacy, to nutrition, to safe sex. The Phantom even found his way onto the shields of PNG's toughest warriors.

Introduced to the Highlands of Papua New Guinea during World War II, The Phantom comics had a setting and subject matter that mirrored the country's environment, setting them apart from the other superhero books available to the people there. The fictional tropical country of Bangalla, where the Phantom resides, is not unlike the PNG’s Highlands. But while Bangalla was created to be exotic, in PNG it was familiar, just as comic readers from urban locales could easily see themselves in Gotham or Metropolis. And much like Americans painted the likes of Superman, Donald Duck, and Popeye onto their combat vehicles, PNG tribes painted the Phantom onto their war shields.

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After decades of peacetime in the Highlands, conflicts between the tribes arose again in the late 1970s. Enter Kaipel Ka of the Wahgi people, the go-to artist as battle shields were brought out of retirement in need of repainting. According to the short documentary The Man Who Cannot Die by Mark Eby, Ka took it upon himself to modernize their designs. He combined “the ideas of the white man and the man from the