"Haven't You Watched Enough Of This Marvel Shit?" Says Dad With A Garage Full Of Phantom Comics

Dad, Marvel, Queensland, Betoota, phantom, Garage

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

A suburban Queensland dad has roused on his adult sons over the weekend, after walking into the living room and seeing that the family television had been hijacked, once again.

Walter Tugun (62) had hoped to escape the Sunday heat and catch up on some test cricket highlights.

Unfortunately, after changing out of his yard clothes, he realised that the communal living space in his own home had been turned into a home cinema.

And yet again, his sons are watching some multicoloured superheroes bouncing between Skyscrapers somewhere in America.

This time, it was Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025).

"Christ" says Walter.

"Haven't you watched enough of the Marvel shit!?"

"There's like 30 of these movies"

Unbeknownst to Walter, there is actually 38 - and the entire franchise has just been rejuvenated by the cinema release of some new Spiderman remake.

The old man keeps firing pot shots.

"Why kind of grown men want to sit in here and watch this shit"

His sons, who have been superhero movie tragics since our Heath won a posthumous Oscar award for the Dark Knight in 2008, chuckle at their dad's hypocrisy.

"Just because your favourite superhero only has one movie" says Walter's oldest smart-arse, in reference to the poorly reviewed 1996 action film 'The Phantom' which was filmed on the Gold Coast and starring Billy Zane.

As a lifelong collector of The Phantom comic magazines, Walter is one of hundreds of thousands of post-war dads that subscribe to this uniquely Australian pop culture following.

With boxes and boxes of vintage Phantom comics taking up the entire garage, Walter will not stand for such slander in his house.

"Hey shut your mouth!" responds Walter, as he rushed to defend the Ghost Who Walks.

"They didn't have the same budget as these over-the-top Disney movies! They did the best they could but there was way too much backstory to squeeze into a 100 minute film"

"Plus these kinds of special effects didn't exist back then! They had to teach everyone how to ride horses"

"Plus they buggered up the casting... It should've been Brad Pitt! "

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