Freedom's Five
Phantom Eagle
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Karl_Kaufman_(Earth-616)
Karl Kaufman was an expert pilot who had been born in
America to
German parents who had since returned to their hometown of
Hamburg,
Germany. After high school,
Kaufman became an expert stunt-pilot and co-owner of a flying circus. Later, to protect his parents from reprisals,
Kaufman devised a stylized aviator uniform with darkened goggles and a cape and adopted the masked identity of the
Phantom Eagle. The
Phantom Eagle engaged in many aerial baffles, downed a remarkable number of
German planes, and thus became known as perhaps the greatest aerial warrior of the
World War I.
In his first mission as
Phantom Eagle, he successfully led a
U.S. fighter squadron against an experimental dirigible aircraft carrier with which
German forces attempted to invade
New York; however, he witnessed the death of his best friend,
Rex Griffin, as a result.
The
Phantom Eagle joined the
Freedom's Five, a team of costumed operatives who were instrumental in bringing about a number of significant victories for the
Allies during
World War I. The
Phantom Eagle was the sole American member of Freedom's Five. One of the greatest adversaries that the
Eagle battled as a member of the group was the
vampire Baron Blood.
One night shortly before the war's end, the
Phantom Eagle flew to his parents' home in
Germany so he could fight the
Germans under his own name. He was discovered by a
German pilot.
Hermann von Reitberger, who slaughtered
Kaufman and his parents with machine gun fire while they were still on the ground. Determined to gain his vengeance on
von Reitberger the
Phantom Eagle's spirit remained on
Earth. Only a week after his corporeal death, the
Phantom Eagle, flying a ghostly plane, shot
von Reitberger's plane out of the sky.
Von Reitberger survived, but was too frightened to fly again. For decades the
Phantom Eagle's ghost haunted
von Reitberger. Sometimes
von Reitberger somehow managed to escape from the ghost for years at a time, but inevitably the
Eagle caught up with him.
Finally, in recent years.
Johnny Blaze, who was then the vigilante known as
Ghost Rider, encountered both the aged
von Reitberger and the
Phantom Eagle's pursuing ghost. Driven to desperation
von Reitberger challenged the
Eagle to aerial combat.
Von Reitberger piloted a
World War I plane in order to baffle the
Eagle in his spectral one. During the combat, the
Eagle maneuvered
von Reitberger into crashing his plane into a hangar.
Von Reitberger died in the crash.
Karl Kaufman's spirit, finally freed from his mission of vengeance, passed from the mortal plane.
