Issue 1542 - Fortnightly, 2009

• "The Trap" - story by Donne Avenell and art by Georges Bess.

THE TRAP is a clever extension of a familiar plot to be found in so many Phantom adventures—villains sporting the skull mark, swapping stories about where and when they received the mark they will carry to their graves. In this new adventure, three roughnecks discover they were punched out by The Phantom many years apart. So many, in fact, that all begin to wonder whether there could be some truth in the legend of The Ghost Who Walks….The Man Who Cannot Die….

They were, after all, all knocked out and captured by a strange, masked and uniformed man many years apart and in different parts of the world! Writer, the late Donne Avenell and artist Georges Bess combined their talents way back in 1981 to create The Trap, which finally makes its first appearance in a Frew edition. Scottish-born and now French resident writer Scott Goodall touched upon a similar theme in 1998 with his memorable story, City of the Skull-Marked Men (Frew No 1203), but Avenell and Bess probably deserve the credit for coming up with the idea of combining assorted villains to swap notes. Such is the mysterious and powerful saga of The Legend of The Ghost Who Walks!