Issue 1597 - Fortnightly, 2011

• "The Fourth Son" - story by Lee Falk and art by Sy Barry.

Re-presenting The Fourth Son, a 1991-92 Lee Falk Sunday adventure which ranks among his most strange Phantom adventures.!

Surprisingly, Lee never revealed much about The Phantom line, despite writing stories about his incredibly popular character, from 1936 until his death in 1999. He told us much about the first Phantom, something about the second, a great deal naturally, about the 21st, but until the appearance of The Fourth Son, only a little about the others. The same applies to all but a few Phantom wives!

Lee once said he believed he would only confuse things by telling the full story of all Phantoms and much preferred to bury their histories under the Phantom Legend...The Ghost Who Walks...The Man Who Can Never Die…

Why then, did he suddenly break away from his own policy and create this completely unexpected story set in the early 1700s—about the 8th Phantom and his wife and their three triplet sons, who were followed a year later by a fourth son? Why depict the fourth son (known only as Kit Four) as such a short lad when his father was recognised as the tallest Phantom who ever lived! Why indeed, did Lee change his own Phantom history? He says, for example, in this story, that ...