Il Giustiziere Mascherato
"Il Giustiziere Mascherato" was an Italian comic based on "The Phantom".
History
Casa Editrice Nerbini published a popular weekly magazine called L'Avventuroso which in mid-1937 sold about 500,000 copies weekly. L'Avventuroso contained several newspaper stips from USA, among others one Sunday page of "Flash Gordon" and a page each of "Mandrake the Magician" and "The Phantom" consisting of six daily strips.
Nerbini collected the published strips from L’Avventuroso into albums that they were constantly sold out, so Nerbini had to reprint the albums periodically.
In 1938, during the fascist rule of Italy, Nerbini received a notice from Ministero della Cultura Popolare (The Ministry of Popular Culture) saying that all publishers had to stop the import of US comics and publications. As the publisher ran out of US strips, the popular characters began to disappear from L'Avventuroso.
Nerbini was in lack of material to print and hired several Italian artists, among them Roberto Lemmi. He illustrated several titles for L’Avventuroso such as "Il Segno di Roma", "Nel Paese dei Pigmei" and "La Nave Corsara".
In issue 249 from July, 1939 was a story by Lemmi with a new character, "Il Giustiziere Mascherato" dressed in green tights and a red mask. This was in fact a thinly disguised redrawn version of "The Phantom". Next L’Avventuroso printed an American Phantom adventure and then 4 more stories of "Il Giustiziere Mascherato" by Lemmi.
During the last story Lemmi changed the color of the tights, altered the design, replaced the template, and changed the name of the character. After a few months, "The Phantom" was almost back in L'Avventuroso, but redesigned compared to the original version.
From issue 333 (February 23, 1941) L'Avventuroso re-started the original US publication of "The Phantom".
Stories
| # | Title | Issues |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Il ritorno di Diana" | L'Avventuroso #? |
| 2a | "Barlett, la jena de mare" | L'Avventuroso #? |
| 2b | "I mercanti di schiave bianche" | L'Avventuroso #? |
| 2c | "Il giustiziere all'opera" | L'Avventuroso #? |
| 2d | "Il trionfo della giustizia" | L'Avventuroso #? |
| 3 | "La bella smemorata" | L'Avventuroso #? |
| 4 | "Spie sul mare" | L'Avventuroso #? |
| 5 | "I trafficanti d'armi" | L'Avventuroso #? |