The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Character
The Phantom Stranger

The Phantom Stranger may or may not be Jewish.

From: "The Phantom Stranger" page on Wikipedia.com website (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Stranger; viewed 23 December 2005):

The Phantom Stranger is a fictional character of unspecified paranormal origins who battles mysterious and occult forces in various titles published by DC Comics, sometimes under their Vertigo imprint.

The Phantom Stranger is unique among most of his contemporary comic book characters in that neither his origin nor his exact nature have ever been revealed. DC produced a special issue of Secret Origins that gave him four different possible origins:

1. One tale (written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Joe Orlando) postulated that the Stranger was a fallen angel that sided with neither Heaven nor Hell during Lucifer's rebellion and thus was condemned to walk the Earth alone for all time.

2. Another proposes that the Stranger was originally a private citizen during biblical times that was spared God's wrath. An angel was sent to deliver him from divine wrath. After questioning God's actions, he commits suicide. The angel forbids his spirit from entering the afterlife, reanimates his body and condems him to walk the world forever to be a part of humanity but also forever separated from it. He is charged with turning humanity away from evil, one soul at a time.

3. A variation of the Wandering Jew story, as he offended Jesus on the way to the cross. Jesus then sentenced him to walk away from his home and country; to be errant until Doomsday.

4. The last was a proposal that the stranger is a remnant of the previous universe. At the end of the universe, a group of scientists studying the event are approached by the Phantom Stranger, warning them not to interfere in the universe's natural conclusion. The story concludes with the Phantom Stranger passing a portion of himself to a scientist, the universe is reborn, and the scientist from the previous universe is the Phantom Stranger in the new universe (a recursive origin?)

It is interesting that three out of four of these origins rely specifically on Judeo-Christian concepts (thus acknowledging them as reality-based within the DC Universe), which rarely figure into the origins of most comic book characters.

In his earliest appearances, the Phantom Stranger would prove supernatural events to be hoaxes. In later stories, the supernatural events were real and the Phantom Stranger was given unspecified superhuman powers to defeat them. He later appeared in various other DC Universe titles, sometimes as a major participant; in others, the Phantom Stranger just appears and gives advice or warning to the featured heroes. Occasionally he serves simply as narrator. In some stories he seems to be answerable to a mysterious Voice, implied to be God, although within the DC Universe mysterious benign Voices (such as the one responsible for Hawk and Dove's origin) are usually identified as the Lords of Order (albeit not always at the time of their original introduction).

The Phantom Stranger played a major part in Neil Gaiman's Books of Magic, taking protagonist Tim Hunter through time to show him the history and nature of magic. He has assisted the Justice League on numerous occasions, even being formally elected to the group in Justice League of America #103 (although he did not acknowledge his membership until Justice League of America #143).

He also attempted to prevent Hal Jordan from uniting the resurrected Oliver Queen with Queen's soul in Heaven in Kevin Smith's relaunch of Green Arrow, which earned him the Spectre's wrath (as Jordan was the Spectre's human anchor at the time).

Barr, Mike W. "'Tarry Till I Come Again'" Secret Origins #10 (2nd series) Jan. 1987 (1st story) (NY: DC).
This story is one possible origin of the mysterious hero known as The Phantom Stranger. In this story, which takes place in the time of Jesus, the Stranger is a Jew whose wife and child were killed by Romans who were trying to kill the child who it was said would be the Messiah. When he learns that Jesus has been captured by Roman soldiers, he bribes a guard to let him beat Jesus. The strangers' immortality is a punishment and a means to repent for his great sin. There is a similarity between this story and the story of the "Wandering Jew".

Gelbwasser, Michael. "Cool Characters Entice Kids: Jewish Superheroes Work Wonders in American Comics" Boston Jewish Advocate Jan. 7, 1997.

Gelbwasser, Michael. "Look! Up in the Sky! Jewish Superheroes." Jewish Advocate Oct. 19, 1995, pg. PG.
Discusses the Jewish super-heroes Seraph, the Blasters, Colossal Boy, Ragman, Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family, Mindboggler, Ramban, Golem, Judith, Dybbuk, Nuklon, Phantom Stranger and Sabra.