A Look Back To A Phantasm

DC is a little dry this month, so I guess with the upcoming Batman: Sub-Zero I'd reminisce about the Batman: Mask of Phantasm - The Animated Movie. This movie came out at a good time; the show Batman the Animated Series was really starting to take off.

The movie itself was all around superb, from the writing to the art and from the characters and actors voice's to the soundtrack. I’m sure this movie will receive it's well deserved recognition for years to come, and this piece is to help insure that it does.

I haven't heard much about Sub-Zero yet, but the Mask of Phantasm appeared like a ghostly apparition in all venues of the comic field...

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT

Someone is killing off Gotham's most feared gangsters and the blame is placed on Batman. This leads up to a great scene which is also one of the most memorable from Batman's origin in regular continuity, you know the one where the G.C.P.D. has Bats seemingly trapped in a construction site. An old flame of Bruce's past comes back, who also has a tie to (can anybody guess) the Joker. You didn't really think the first animated movie wouldn't have him in it did ya? You can always count on the Joker to be the first because he's a sure-fire sale for the industry.

IN THE CARDS

The Mask of Phantasm made it into trading cards as a thirty card subset of the Batman: The Animated Series Trading Cards Series Two. The cards went through a brief depiction of the story and unlike the rest of the set consisted of airbrushed artwork. Also one of the four Vinyl Mini-Cels (the special cards of the set) has Phantasm versus Batman.

GO FIGURE

Yes, this movie even spawned action figures. Seven of them to be exact, unless your counting the two versions (white face & green face, the green being the rarer of the two) of Jet-Pack Joker, then there's eight. But the rarest of them all is of course Phantasm which is currently selling for around thirty-five bucks. But my favorite from this line which also, for some reason is beyond me, is the cheapest, is Retro-Batman. It's Bats without the yellow emblem on his chest. I find it odd that this piece hasn't risen in value (not that it would matter to me, I have mine opened and swinging in the top of my closet) but being that it's the current incarnation of Bats in The Animated Series. I venture to say that this might turn out to be a much sought after piece by collectors. So if you are one, I'd get one now while the getting's good.

THE LONGEST NAMED COMIC AWARD

How is this for a title "The Official Comics Adaptation of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Batman: Mask of Phantasm - The Animated Movie" for the cardstock cover and for the regular cover we have "The Official Comics Adaptation of the Warner Bros. Animated Film Batman: Mask of Phantasm - The Animated Movie". All I’ve got to say is that I'm glad they let us know it's "The Animated Movie" so we don't confuse it with the "Batman: Mask of Phantasm - Live Action Movie". (By the way that was sarcasm so don't go running to the video store and look for it.)

THE NOT STRAIGHT-TO-VIDEO VIDEO

Unlike SUB-ZERO, this flick didn't go straight to video. But, when it did make it to video, it also came with a free mini-comic which was the same as the official comic adaptation cardstock cover except...ah...mini.

PHANTASM IN CONTINUITY

Andrea Beaumont doesn't seem to wear the mask much, but she came back to Gotham and put it on to help save Bruce's life in Batman & Robin Adventures Annual #1. The book (a little over two years later) picks up were the movie left off. My suggestion to DC here is that they should make something drastic happen to change the life of Andrea Beaumont and add her to Batman’s infamous rogues gallery instead of making her a good gal. To me that's the reason they are having trouble writing her in, there’s just not enough conflict there. But overall I think the character has a lot of potential, I'd like to see something done with her. I enjoyed the movie and the annual thoroughly, I'd hate to see it end here.

GOTHAM'S GOTHIC SOUNDS

This movie was accompanied with a great soundtrack which doesn’t seem that too many people are aware of. I have the CD and I have got to tell you it's truly exceptional. As a matter of fact I'm listening to it as I write this column to help set the mood. If you like the theme of the The Animated Series then you'll love this original motion picture soundtrack. It's ten tracks of orchestrated coolness, but the eleventh track bites the big weenie; it's not even a composed piece, what were they thinking. I've taken the liberty to get a sound file for you. It's in a .WAV format and found at... http://home.earthlink.net/~vwkess/ (And I’d like to thank a good buddy of mine Will Kessler the proprietor of this page for helping me with this little project.) The BATTHEME.WAV is from track ten and called "BATMAN'S DESTINY". The second would have been JOKERSTRUT.WAV is from track nine "PHANTASM AND JOKER FIGHT". But I didn’t have enough room allotted to me. Maybe next month we’ll take the first one down and put up the other one. It’s all according to how many hits there are. But if you want the soundtrack, I'm sure you local music shop can still get a hold of this for you. I got mine from The Wall with the lifetime guarantee so that must mean that they are planning to have it in production for a long while because I'm not planning to kick-off anytime soon.

NON-RELATED NOTE

It seems some people had some things to say about last months column on New Year’s Evil. One reader went on to compare the Rogues to the Justice League Antarctica. And you know what, it was a similar idea. That's going back a ways, I almost forgot about it. It also seems that most people are hyped up on Prometheus.

CONTENTS OF CONTEST

Yes, that’s right the first ever Wally's World contest, where one can actually win something. Whether or not I'll have another in the future only time will tell. Anyway here's the question.

Q: On what day was Batman: The Mask of Phantasm released to theaters?

I don't want the year, that can be found by checking the copyright date, and I don't want to see Monday, Tuesday, etc... So here's a hint it was a holiday. Out of the correct answers the randomly picked Grand Prize winner will receive a 3.5 fluid ounce bottle of skin moisturizer to prevent those untimely wrinkles. Just joking, how does a Total Armor Batman which is an action figure from the movie sound? Three runners-up will receive a promo card from the Batman: The Animated Series Trading Cards Series Two set.

STRICTLY RULES

Send your answer to WNFrost@aol.com in the subject/header section write "Phantasm Contest" and in the body of your message put your answer, name, address, and Email address. Anyone who doesn’t follow these simple rules is subject to disqualification. The winners will be notified by Email and announced in next month's column. Don't worry I won't give your address out to anybody, but if I'm in the area and feeling a little hungry...just joking again. And please allow time for me to mail these prizes, I don't have a post office in my basement. Oh yeah, one more thing, the deadline is February 14th midnight (Valentine's Day).

ENDING NOTE

Well, with a sound file to download and a contest question to answer that should take up some time so I'm not going to waste anymore of yours with small talk. Good Luck!

-Wallace "Wally" Frost

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