Phantasm

Phantasm
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
In-story information
Alter ego	Andrea Beaumont

The Phantasm (Andrea Beaumont) is fictional character, a DC Comics supervillainess, and enemy of Batman.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Andrea Beaumont is the daughter of wealthy businessman Carl Beaumont and his deceased wife, Victoria. In his youth, while attending Gotham University, she meets Bruce Wayne. When Andrea meets him again at Bruce's house, he defeats him in a small fight. His victory over Bruce is short-lived when Bruce knocks Andrea to the floor and he pins him down. It was at this moment, that she fell in love with Bruce. He is internally conflicted by his desire to lead a normal life with Andrea and keep the promise he made to his murdered parents to fight crime. He finally decides to abandon crime-fighting instead pledging part of his inheritance to the Gotham City Police Department so he can marry Andrea. As Bruce proposes to him at his estate, the two discover the cave that would later become the Batcave.

Andrea is forced to break off the engagement and move to Europe, however, when he learns that his father has double-crossed the Mafia. Carl Beaumont set up dummy corporations for some of the most powerful mob bosses in Gotham, including Chuckie Sol, Sal Valestra, and Buzz Bronski. When they learn that Beaumont has embezzled from them, they demand immediate repayment. Unable to quickly access the money he had stolen and subsequently invested, Carl flees with Andrea and eventually settles on the Mediterranean coast. By then, he has parlayed the money he'd stolen into a sizable fortune. However, when Beaumont's father refuses to make donations to Arthur Reeves, a politician formerly in his employ, the young politician sells information on the Beaumonts' whereabouts to the mob. Although Carl has repaid them, the vengeful gangsters want interest compounded in blood and plan to use the information to have him killed. They send their hitman Jack Napier who would later become the Joker to kill Carl Beaumont. Andrea encounters Napier as he leaves his villa, and discovers his murdered father only seconds afterward.

Consumed with hatred, Andrea waits patiently for 10 years, planning the demise of the men who destroyed his happiness. When he returns to Gotham, she dons a costume reminiscent of the Grim Reaper, complete with a smoke-generating device and scythe-bladed gauntlet. Disguised as such, and mistaken by everyone as Batman, she kills Sol and Bronski. After Bronski's death, she learns that Batman is, in fact, Bruce Wayne. Batman quickly discovers the link between the mobsters and Carl Beaumont and questions Andrea, but she rebuffs him. When the Phantasm attempts to kill Valestra, she nearly falls into a trap laid by the Joker, which she escapes. Batman attempts to apprehend her as he flees from Valestra's residence, although she easily evades him and the police. When Andrea realizes that the police will arrest Bruce in his stead, she quickly changes out of his costume and helps him elude the authorities. In a final attempt to conceal his identity, Andrea tells Bruce that the Phantasm is his father, and that he has returned to stop his murderous rampage. The two then spend the night together.

Andrea tracks the Joker to his hideout at the derelict Gotham World Fairgrounds, but the Clown Prince of Crime has deduced his identity, and is ready for his attack. The two fight hand-to-hand in the "Home of the Future" exhibit before he lures Andrea to a giant turbine. He attempts to kill him by sucking him into it, but Batman intervenes, breaking the machine moments before its blades would have crushed him. Andrea attempts to justify his actions. She asks him to let him carry out his vendetta without interference. For once completely helpless, Batman begs him to leave. Andrea agrees and disappears in a cloud of smoke. After a battle between the Dark Knight and the Joker, Andrea reappears to claim the defeated maniac. As the fairgrounds explode, Andrea disappears with the Joker, with the latter laughing maniacally.

After escaping the inferno through a series of sewers, Batman assumes that Andrea and the Joker have perished in the blaze. However, he survives and leaves a locket for Bruce in the Batcave as a keepsake. In the penultimate scene of the film, Andrea stands on the vespertine deck of an ocean liner, all alone.

Comics

The Phantasm makes his first return appearance in Batman & Robin Adventures Annual #1 (1996). The Phantasm also appears in Batman Adventures: Shadows and Masks, in which Andrea goes undercover in the Black Mask's organization, the False Face Society. During this story arc, she confronts Bruce at Wayne Manor and asks him not to interfere with her operation. He rebuffs Andrea, referring to her as a killer and thus unworthy of his consideration. She eventually fights Batgirl, who takes some of her gas pellets. She also tries to kill Black Mask.

He later has to fend off against a completely insane Arthur Reeves who was poisoned by Joker Venom earlier, who had taken up his Phantasm identity and intended on killing him. However, he managed to trick Phantasm into falling off the skyscraper they duelled at to his death.