Night Owl wrote:
Comic Book Artist 13 shows a picture of an new Phantom villain "The Red Spectre" with a notation that it was "being developed by Don and writer Roger Stern."
Were you scheduled to be the new writer of Charlton's the Phantom before its cancellation and, if so, can you tell more about your plans for the character?
Not exactly.
See, back in the mid-70s, when I was working with Bob Layton on the CPL and Charlton Bullseye fanzines, I started corresponding with Don Newton. And when Don started drawing the Phantom, he encouraged me to submit stories for himm to drawn. I sent Charlton three or four plot ideas, and they eventually accepted the one that I thought was the least original... all about the Phantom discovering a lost Atlantean colony in a remote corner of the Deep Woods.
Anyway, I wrote and was paid for that story -- still have photocopy of the check -- but the story was never even drawn. Charlton cancelled the Phantom before Don ever got a chance to draw it.
Don was really bubbling over with great ideas for The Phantom. He especially wanted to develop a regular antagonist, a real opposite number for the Phantom that he had tentatively called the Red Spectre. But that particular idea was shot down as being "too much like Marvel." To which I always wondered, "And this is a bad thing ... why?" Remember, this was at a time when Marvel was beating everyone in sales.
Of course, it could have been that Charlton was getting flak from King Features. I guess we'll never know.
But it all worked out for the best. Don went to work for DC, who 1) paid him much more than Charlton ever would have and 2) gave him an opportunity to draw Batman and Captain Marvel.
And I eventually got a few writing gigs myself. A few years ago, I even wrote a couple of Phantom stories for Egmont.
-- Uncle Rog
