Interesting, But It Won't Hold My Interest Long

Phantom Stranger 1
DC Comics
Dan Didio, writer
Brent Anderson, artist

The first issue of this title opens with the Phantom Stranger appearing in a New York City park in time to briefly interact with a young boy chasing a ball. The Stranger scares the boy, and while he is not directly responsible, he also does nothing to prevent the tragedy that follows. All of this leads to a gathering of people, one of whom being the Stranger's latest target for betrayal. If that all sounds rather unsympathetic, it was intentional.

I don't much care for this new version of the Phantom Stranger if all he's going to do is cause others pain, even if, as theorized in the pages of this issue, it is all for the greater good. The closing scene of the issue, showing that the Stranger does seem to have a family and a home that he goes to at the end of the day, doesn't even make me feel sympathy or find likability in this character. It just makes me fearful that his family is at best an illusion, or at worst, pawns he uses to make himself feel better about his situation without regard to what that will eventually do to them when they learn his true nature.

There are two saving graces in this issue that will keep me reading a bit longer in hopes that things are not quite what they seem. One is the promise in the last panel and teaser copy for the next issue that indicate an appearance by Pandora. The other is the meat of this issue. The person the Stranger betrays in order to lose another one of his pieces of silver is a teenage empath named Rachel who is trying to help people as best she can while remaining hidden from her other-dimensional demon father, Trigon.

For those to whom that doesn't sound familiar, in the old DC Universe, the New Teen Titans member Raven sometimes used a civilian name Rachel. Raven, both her superhero codename and her given name as far as we know, was born of a human mother, Arella, and an other-dimensional demon named Trigon the Terrible. After the child was conceived, Arella was taken to a place called Azarath by the pacifists who lived there. This is where Raven was born, and under the tutelage of these people of Azarath, Raven grew up, learning to use her empathic abilities to heal and help others, but to shun emotions, lest her father find and possess her, using her as a doorway to conquer our dimension. In fact, the formation of the New Teen Titans in the old DCU was at Raven's urging in an effort to combat her father after she first failed to enlist the aid of the Justice League of America.

While I don't much like this current incarnation of the Phantom Stranger, it was interesting to see this slightly altered version of an old favorite character, even if she was poorly mistreated.