Whiteness and the Colonial Origins of America’s First Superhero: Lee Falk’s The Phantom

The American superhero genre demonstrates a series of racial tropes intimately connected with whiteness. Although this may be seem self-evident given the prevalence of superhero narratives that center on the protagonists superior white bodies, Sean Guyens and Martin Lund state that the relationship between whiteness and the superhero is painfully unexplored. Notable exceptions include a small but ever-growing body of scholarship that spans from focusing on a specific character to the genre at large. What these studies have in common is that they predominantly focus on contemporary runs or series and inevitably overlook the origins of the characters. This article aims to focus on the history of a character that is said to have given birth to the American superhero genre at large: Lee Falk's (1911-99) the Phantom. The argument is that not only have whiteness and racism been an integral part of the genre but also the whole universe of America's first superhero has always been rooted in colonialism.