Issue 1592 - Fortnightly, 2011

• "The Sons of Captain Walker" - story by Janne Lundstrom and art by Hans Lindahl.

To say the first story created mixed feelings among our loyal readers would be a masterpiece of understatement!

Janne Lundstrom’s experimental script confused many younger readers and rankled a surprising number of diehards who could not understand why Lee Falk’s official history was subjected to so many twists and turns.

The bottom line of all the consternation is a simple one: There is no proof—not even a hint — whatsoever in anything Lee wrote, to suggest that not only did the father of the first Phantom marry a South American Indian, but actually fathered two sons!

The first of the two sons disappears from the scene very early in the piece and until this second episode we haven’t a clue what actually happens to him!

Bear in mind that the first son—in theory at least—was destined to become the first Phantom.

That the honor falls to Christopher (Kit), who is the second son, is probably far more interesting.

Lee Falk, despite drifting a little from Great Britain to the United States of America as he tried to set up the birthplace of the first Phantom’s father, not once dropped even a hint about the nationality of the mother of the first Phantom.

Now, according to Janne Lundstrom’s script, the mother was a South American Indian and the father was English.

You may well ask why young Kit Walker carries no visible facial characteristics of his mother’s bloodline!

If there is an answer, it lies somewhere in Lee Falk’s own Phantom history. Sift through the family tree which was originally compiled by Frew’s resident historian Barry Stubbersfield and you will find a number of early Phantom wives came from such areas as Italy and other European countries and the Asian nation of India.

Yet no Phantom family male offspring has ever veered away from looking like all his forefathers.