Phantom Stranger (Prime Earth)

Judas Iscariot is the apostle that betrayed Jesus and caused his death. After suiciding himself for his sin, the Council of Wizards cursed him to walk the Earth forever, so God sent him in a quest to atone his sins, turning him into the mysterious Phantom Stranger.

History

Origin

Judas Iscariot killed himself, filled with regret after betraying his closest friend, Jesus of Nazareth, for thirty silver pieces.

Rather than the Heaven or Hell he expected, he had found himself in a strange chamber, faced with the Council of Wizards. Though he felt he deserved his fate, he begged forgiveness, not knowing how dire his punishment would be. There were two others alongside him, and the wizards called them all the Trinity of Sin: The world's most egregious sinners. The wizards gave his punishment first, charging him with avarice, and forever branding the thirty pieces of silver that he had earned into his skin—though he knew that greed was not his greatest crime; it was the betrayal.

He awoke in the field of blood, alive. This place was significant to the crime he committed. As he called out with confusion at his apparent resurrection, a Voice boomed down, urging him to put on the robe that lay nearby and complete his punishment. When he put on the robe, he realized that it was the robe of his betrayed friend and it held a transformative power. From the moment he put it on, he would forever be a "Phantom Stranger". He realized that with each act he did in the service of the Voice, he would be one step closer to redemption. Until the voice came again, he would have to wander and remain nothing more than a stranger.^[4]

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The New 52

Impersonating Philip Stark

Trinity War

The Rise of Blight

Stopping Project Thaumaton

Trinity of Sin

DC Rebirth

Some time after the rise and fall of the Omega Titans, the Phantom Stranger joined the so-called Quintessence, an organization also formed by Hera, Highfather, the Wizard Shazam and Guardian Ganthet. The organization came to Earth to warn the Justice League about the dangerous Totality and its original owner.^[5]

During the Justice/Doom War, the Stranger and the rest of the Quintessence harnessed the residual energy of the being known as Doctor Manhattan who had previously tried to fix the damaged timeline. After the defeat of the Justice League at the hands of Perpetua, the Stranger and his comrades rescued the main Leaguers,summoning them to the Moon and gifting them Doctor Manhattan's powers in order to launch a final attack against the Mother of the Multiverse.^[6][7]

At the climax of the last Metal War, the Stranger was erased from existence, along with the rest of Creation, as a consequence of The Hands' Cosmic Judgment.^[8]

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Infinite Frontier

After The Hands restored the entire Creation,^[8] the Stranger was restored in the Multiverse inside the newly-born Infinite Frontier. After rejoing the Quintessence, the almighty beings used their ablities to imprison the reformed Darkseid on one of the new Multiversal centers, the so-called Earth Omega; The group then reached the deceased Wonder Woman inside the Sphere of the Gods, proposing her to join their team: however, after a journey across Earth 0 with the Spectre, the Amazon refused their offer.^[9]

The Stranger and the group returned to Earth Omega where they discovered the Darkseid had previously faked his capture. Being empowered by his past selves, Darkseid quickly defeated the Stranger and the others, almost killing the all.^[9] However, it was later revealed that the Stranger survived the clash against Darkseid but, as a consequence of the return of the Great Darkness,^[10] he was possessed, along with all of his comrades, by the omniversal entity and became of the servant of the corrupted Pariah.^[11]

During the clash between the Justice League and the Justice League Incarnate and Pariah's possessed Dark Army, the Stranger and the other Quintessence members came to the House of Heroes, helping the corrupted beings fight the ascended John Stewart and, eventually, murder the Leagues.^[11]

During the Dark Crisis, the possessed Stranger helped the Dark Army fight the heroes of Earth until he was freed by Pariah's possession.^[12]

All In

Years later, the Phantom Stranger, along with his comrades of the Quintessence, journeyed to the Moon after the defeat of Eclipso to prevent Darkseid from merging with the Spectre: however, the New God activated his Miracle Machine and manage to bound himself to the Wrath of God, using its divine powers to quickly defeat the Quintessence.^[13]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

• Divine Empowerment: After being cursed by the Council of Wizards to live forever in shame among the humans for his sins, God made the Stranger his eternal servant, resurrecting him with amazing abilities that would help him in his long journey towards salvation.
  • Immortality:^[4]
  • Flight^[14]
  • Magic:^[14] as a consequence of being empowered by God himself, the Phantom Stranger is considered one of the strongest magicians on Earth and among the strongest ever existed.
    • Intangibility^[4]
    • Divination^[4]
    • Astral Projection^[3]
    • Force Field^[15]
    • Chronokinesis: Phantom Stranger can pause time, allowing him to do his duty without disrupting others.^[16]
    • Eldritch Blast: Phantom Stranger is capable of expending large amounts of blue ethereal energies which are destructive enough to tear through buildings and even topple the Spectre.^[16]
    • Suggestion: Phantom Stranger forced a room full of police officers to fall asleep with a verbal command.^[16]
    • Ectokinesis: When confronting the original Philip Stark, Phantom Stranger removed and dissolved Stark's soul, sending the remnants to drift throughout Creation.^[17]
    • Possession: To adopt the life of Philip Stark, Phantom Stranger possessed and merged with Stark's body.^[17]
    • Emotion Manipulation: Phantom Stranger was able to remove Philip Stark's love for his family from his spirit, purify it, and take those feelings into himself.^[17]
    • Invisibility
    • Teleportation
    • Telepathy
    • Size Alteration: Phantom Stranger grows to incredible heights when he is exerting himself.^[18][16]
    • Transformation: Phantom Stranger can change people from one state to another. He's changed the Spectre to stone and reverts damage he's done to buildings back to normal.^[16]
    • Reality Alteration
    • Bio-Fusion: Phantom Stranger once physically merged his body with the Question's to increase their power while confronting enemies.^[19]

Abilities

• Occultism
• Storytelling
• Disguise

Weaknesses

• Non-Direct Interaction
  

Paraphernalia

Equipment

• Silver Necklace: a mystical necklace made from some of the silver pieces that Judas got for betraying Jesus; it grows up each time the Stranger recovers one of the original coins.^[1][20]

Notes

• Phantom Stranger was created by Carmine Infantino and John Broome, first appearing in The Phantom Stranger #1. However, in the Prime Earth continuity, Phantom Stranger first appeared as part of the New 52 DC Universe in Justice League (Volume 2) #6 by Geoff Johns and Carlos D'Anda.
• This character or object is an adaptation of Judas Iscariot, a character or object in traditional stories. These include, but may not be limited to religious texts, myth, and/or folk lore. More information on the original can be found at Wikipedia.org.
  

Trivia

• Phantom Stranger is considered the strongest of the "Archmage" classification, magic users who are either sorcerers who transcended enchanted objects and have become enchanted themselves or are higher beings that fell to a plane of existence.^[21]

Related

• 99 Appearances of Phantom Stranger (Prime Earth)
• 59 Images featuring Phantom Stranger (Prime Earth)
• 19 Quotations by or about Phantom Stranger (Prime Earth)
• Character Gallery: Phantom Stranger (Prime Earth)

Footnotes

Justice League member This character has been a member of the Justice League of America, or the Justice League in any of its various incarnations, sworn by a duty to act as guardians of America and the world by using their skills and/or superpowers to protect Earth from the clutches of both interstellar and domestic threats. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Justice League of America members" category.