By request, Phantom Stranger #42

[kingrockwell]

As of today, the Blackest Night revival of Phantom Stranger is now a month old, and therefore no longer a recent comic. I figured this is the perfect occasion for sharing the as-yet unposted tie-in.



Eight out of twenty-before pages.



The issue picks up where we left the Stranger in Blackest Night #2, fighting the Black Lantern Spectre with Blue Devil (Zatanna went to warn the JLA). Stranger, never one to know fear, opens with a fierce calling-out.



Cris isn't all that receptive, of course.




Cris punches the Spectre back into his chest and runs off looking for Hal Jordan. You can read all about what happened when he found him in Green Lantern #50 (and prolly last Wednesday's #51, i couldn't say for sure, not being a GL reader)
Anyway, the Stranger and Blue Devil decide to switch gears and focus on the task they were busy with when the Spectre attacked: investigating the empty grave of Boston Brand.



Using Devil's trident and various totems from Brand's grave, the Stranger divines Deadman's location, which is pretty obvious to a guy who knows Boston as well as the Stranger does. Nanda Parbat is under attack by hordes of Black Lanterns, who perceive it as a threat given its status as the place where death cannot enter.
Deadman's hopping between the BLs and using their own hands to rip their bodies apart, but the sustained exposure to the Black is starting to make him loopy. The Stranger tries to shake him out of it.



Nothing really new here, these seem to just be revisitations of the Stranger's multiple-choice-origins. Nevertheless, the Stranger gets a little more aggressive in bringing his friend back to his senses.



Of course, the Black Lantern Boston chooses this moment to pop in. The Stranger talks Deadman out of his hesitation toward re-inhabiting the body, given the adverse reaction it gave him last time he tried. The Stranger then wraps the possessed body in his cloak, in an effort to purge the Black from it.
The ring flies off as Stranger and Deadman crash within the walls of Nanda Parbat.

Later,



(the issue actually opened with the same narration, but i figured it made for a more apt closing here)

Comments

[salamangkiero]

See, this is the reason why I always loved the Phantom Stranger as a character. Written correctly, he's probably the most contrary, contradictory and badass magical character in DC. I've always had it in my head that the only reason why he prefers to remain an observer was because it appealed to his basic personality to be that way - not that there were really any rules tying him down. It's like a self-imposed limitation in payment for whatever sins or mistakes he has committed in the past.

In his sphere of influence, he is probably even more powerful than Dr. Fate. I'd say that he probably is more powerful, hands-down, but that his personal preferences prevent him from being more "flashy."

And really, if he were written as a true badass, then he would probably be one of the major players, being that he has not died (at least, it's never been shown categorically). and if some of the Vertigo stories are canonical, we're talking about a high-power classic Angel here, or at the very least a man empowered by what should be a divine (in the Judeo-Christian sense) role given to him.

Given that his multiple-choice origins are shown, is it possible that he's some sort of multi-facet being? That he's a gestalt of many "facets" that live different lives all across time? and given his abilities, he's probably the nexus point for all these personas. That would make him even more badass - and a potential landmine for anyone who tries to take him over, as Boston Brand discovered.

[bruinsfan]

I've always gotten the impression that while he may not have as much raw power as Dr. Fate (at least the full octane Nabu-in-control version), the Stranger operates on a higher plane in terms of breadth of awareness, responsibilities, and whatever his nature actually is. I loved that the Monitor was unable to find out anything substantial about him in Crisis on Infinite Earths and he was unaffected by the universe merger/timestream mix-up in that JLA-Avengers crossover.