Issue 1609 - Fortnightly, 2011

• "Eden" - story by Donne Avenell and art by Hans Lindahl.

Eden was published by Frew in Issue No 931 in 1989 and for many reasons, this adventure created more than the usual interest.

Written by the late Englishman Donne Avenell and illustrated by the incredibly talented Hans Lindahl, it painted a new and quite controversial, for the time, picture of the fabled isle of Eden, tweaking some of Lee Falk’s official Phantom history as it developed.

All of that will be re-discovered as you read this masterpiece of comics writing and art.

However, for Those Who Just Came In, a few things require advance explanation.

Lee Falk came up with the idea of Eden in his 1960 Sunday story, The Honeymooners and had The Phantom offer the use of Eden for their real-life honeymoon to the aptly-named characters Adam and Eve. Eden was already stocked with formerly wild animals which were now tamed and existing on a vegetarian diet.

Phantom enthusiasts loved the concept of Eden and Lee wrote many more stories about the isle up until his death in 1999—without once even hinting at the existence of the character Arch, whom you will meet in the story in this edition.

However, in 2005, new Phantom newspaper strip writer George Oleson created a story he called  The U-Boat Mystery and this was partly based on the 1989 Swedish adventure you are about to read.

I stress the word partly, because there is no mention of Arch in The U-Boat Mystery!

Instead of rusting remnants of World War Two on Eden, Oleson drafted in a scenario about a centuries-old secret temple which is found on the isle.

In many ways, it is something of a shame that Lee Falk’s ultra-simple official history of Eden has been manipulated by other writers.

Lee’s concept was pure and touching, because he set out to prove nothing else other than the theory that given the correct encouragement and assistance, people and animals can co-exist in absolute peace.