Publication history The second Phantom Eagle was an unrelated
World War I hero created by writer
Gary Friedrich and artist
Herb Trimpe in
Marvel Super-Heroes #16 (September 1968). As Trimpe described, Marvel production manager
John Verpoorten "had been a classmate at
SVA. When I got out of the
Air Force in October 1966, he worked in the production department at Marvel. He said they were hiring freelance people, and I should come up to the office and show my work to
Sol Brodsky, who was Stan Lee|Stan [Lee]'s right-hand man at the time. I said, 'Okay'. Later, while I was in the
photostat department, I did the Phantom Eagle freelance, the first book I penciled. I think". Trimpe in 2002 described the character's creation: The character made few appearances beyond his debut. The first was a time travel story in
The Incredible Hulk (vol. 2) #135 (January 1971). Next came a
flashback appearance in
Ghost Rider #12 (June 1975), in which the Phantom Eagle, as the cover proclaimed, was a real phantom.
The Invaders #7 (July 1976)
retconned the character as a member of the
Freedom's Five, a newly created World War I team of costumed adventurers never subsequently seen. The Phantom Eagle also appeared for two panels in
Thor Corps #3 (November 1993), when the antagonist briefly alters reality. may have been an unused cover of issue #12. In 2014's
All-New Invaders #12, there's a flashback of Freedom's Five and it is revealed that Phantom Eagle died at the end of the war.
Fictional character biography In 1914, Karl Kaufmann was a skilled American pilot from
Oshkosh, Wisconsin, whose German parents had returned to their native country. Kaufmann had become an expert stunt-pilot and co-owner of a flying circus, by 1917, when the United States entered
World War I, and desired to fight the
Central Powers. Concealing his identity so as not to risk reprisals against his parents, he devised a stylized aviator uniform with darkened goggles and a cape, and joined the European conflict to become an ace on the side of the
Allies as a U.S. Army Air Corps test pilot. In his first mission as Phantom Eagle, he successfully led a U.S. fighter squadron against an experimental dirigible aircraft carrier with which German forces attempted to invade New York; however, he witnessed the death of his best friend, Rex Griffin, as a result. At one point the time-traveling dictator
Kang the Conqueror sent the simpleminded brute the
Hulk back to 1917 in an effort to secure a victory for Germany, by preventing the Phantom Eagle from destroying a key German super-weapon. Another time, a brief altering of reality saw the Phantom Eagle's
biplane pursued by modern
jet fighters. The Phantom Eagle went on to join the team of costumed adventurers known as
Freedom's Five, consisting of himself (the sole American), the
Crimson Cavalier, the
Silver Squire,
Sir Steel, and
Union Jack. Kaufmann and his parents were later killed together near the end of the war by German pilot Hermann von Reitberger, who strafed both the Phantom Eagle and the two civilians with his machine guns as they fled from Germany into Alsace, France. Swearing vengeance, the Phantom Eagle's spirit haunted and hunted von Reitberger through the years until, after a chance, modern-day encounter with the original
Ghost Rider, he battled the aged German in aerial combat. With von Reitberger's death, Kaufmann's
vengeful spirit was allowed to pass on. Sometime later, the ghost of the Phantom Eagle's plane assisted Doctor Strange and the Punisher. They were trying to stop a collection of mystically powered mobsters.
Powers and abilities The Phantom Eagle was a normal man with no superhuman powers. He possessed good hand-to-hand fighting skills, and was an expert stunt-flyer and combat pilot. He customized his own World War I vintage biplane.
Other versions Counter-Earth Phantom Eagle Another Phantom Eagle exists on
Counter-Earth, located on the far side of the sun. He is the counterpart of
Nefarius, the Lloyd Bloch of the
main Marvel Universe.
MAX Writer
Garth Ennis and penciller-inker
Howard Chaykin produced an alternate-reality version of the character in a
World War I-set miniseries,
War is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle #1–5 (May–September 2008), published under Marvel's mature-audience
MAX imprint. The series is set in the same continuity (Earth-200111) as Ennis'
The Punisher and
Fury MAX series. ==References==