History

  The Brotherless One. The Grey Walker. The Spirit of Humanity. Many are the epithets associated with the enigmatic Phantom Stranger, but none of them fathoms his entire being. Was he once an angel who neither sided with Lucifer nor fought against him? Or an angel who fell in love with a mortal? Is he the Wandering Jew of legend? A former scientist who observed the origin of the universe? The theories are many, but unconfirmed. What is known is that the Stranger is an immortal being of great supernatural power but no extraordinary physical abilities. In the past, he has mainly appeared before people with moral dilemmas, guiding them but never making their decisions for them. More recently, he has confronted several supernatural threats to humanity. "The Stranger comes when the Stranger is required", he claims, but by whom, nobody knows. Although he is a friend of few and a stranger to most, he has sometimes allied himself with other servants of justice such as the JLA, the Trenchcoat Brigade, the Sentinels of Magic, or the Quintessence. For a while he served the Lords of Order, but this was apparently a temporary arrangement. True friendship with the Stranger is a rarity, but among those closest to him are the occult detective Dr. Occult, the ghost-breaker Dr. Thirteen and the psychic Cassandra Craft (with whom he had a love affair). His main enemies have been Tannarak, Eclipso, and Tala. The full secret of the Stranger will seemingly never be revealed, and perhaps he has walked his path for so long that he cannot remember it himself.