Since 2012, Dynamite Entertainment has had the rights to do The Shadow comics. In addition to an on-going series (now ended), they have had several mini-series and one-shots with The Shadow. This is the first of three articles looking at what Dynamite has produced.
From 2012-14 they had an on-going series that ran 25 issues, broken up into several stories. They then did an issue #0 that lead into a volume two that lasted only five issues. These has since been collected into five volumes, so we’ll look at each of the story-lines.
The series kicked off with “The Fires of Creation” in issues #1-6. Written by Garth Ennis, this storyline had a version of The Shadow that in my opinion does not match with the pulp version. For me, the right way to view The Shadow is from the pulps: a spymaster now confronting crime and evil, making use of stage magic and disguise skills, along with a cadre of agents. And this is what they are: agents in play in his war on crime, not aides or associates or comrades in arm. If The Shadow picked up anything in the Orient, it would be martial arts and mental skills, but no occult skills like some try to give him.
Ennis, for some reason, gives The Shadow some kind of psychic power to see the future and influence people. And he has The Shadow being more violent than he should be, gunning down bad guys by the dozen. The Shadow is not the The Spider. He also makes use of the idea from The Shadow movie that Kent Allard had been a corrupt drug lord in the Orient before being converted to good. An idea I never cared for.
Also, for some reason the only aide who has any real involvement in the story is Margo Lane. The storyline is set in 1938 and has The Shadow, as Lamont Cranston, accompanying a government agent on a mission to Asia, which is really about securing uranium from the Japanese.
A bonus to the volume is the script from the first issue and all the covers, including the variants (there were about two or three covers per issue). This included covers by Howard Chaykin, John Cassaday, Francesco Francavilla, and others, and a set of sketch covers by Alex Ross.
Issues #7-12 were written by Victor Girschler and was collected as volume 2, Revolution. It has two stand-alone stories and a four-parter. No. 7 is stand alone and has The Shadow trying to work out his mystical powers, which are now on the fritz. He travels to Asia to consult with the masters who trained him, encountering the Red Raja, another student of the masters who was evil. The only agent working with him is pilot Miles Crofton.
Nos. 8-11 is titled Revolution, and has The Shadow getting involved with the Spanish Civil War where he encounters the female Black Sparrow, who is working for a mad man named El Rey who wants to become the new king of Spain. At the end the Black Sparrow seems killed, but I think Dynamite has used her further. George Orwell shows up in the story as well.
No. 12 has The Shadow organizing the downfall of some violent bank robbers. And by this time it seems that any mystic powers of The Shadow are ignored. Moe Shrevnitz shows up, but they have Margo as a blonde.
From this point, Chris Robeson takes over as writer. Issues #13-18 are collected in the third volume, titled Light of the World, which ran through the issues. Here, The Shadow goes up against his opposite, a nun with strange powers and trained in the use of the sword, using a “dha” (a sword from Southeast Asia) to kill evil men. The Shadow has to put a stop to her. Agents Burbank and Jericho Druke show up.
Issues #19-25 are collected as the fourth volume, Bitter Fruit. Nos. 19-23 have The Shadow first looking into a kidnapping case that leads him on a quest dealing with his girasol ring, after finding a duplicate on a severed finger. This takes him to a Soviet work camp where he contacts a member of the Tsar’s secret service that he was part of, looking for the White Tiger, then to Tibet where he meets up with another former warlord, now a captain in the Chinese army. Then he is in Central America with the Xinca tribe, whom Allard had dealt with in the pulps, and back to New York and a final meeting with the White Tiger.
The last two issues (#24 and 25) has The Shadow going up against the Zombie Queen of Chinatown, who has unleashed a zombie plaque. But thanks to Dr. Roy Tam, a cure is worked out. But the claim is made that The Shadow has a much larger cadre of agents than was shown in the pulps.
An issue #0 starts a story that would run through a volume 2, but that only lasts five issues. It was collected as Last Illusion. Here The Shadow goes up against a group of magicians trying to learn the secret of Houdini‘s “last illusion”: the secret of life after death. I didn’t care for the addition of real magic into the world of The Shadow. It’s as inappropriate as the psychic nonsense others had added.
At this point, this ends the on-going Shadow series. As noted, they have all been collected in trade paperback. No idea at this point of what further works we will see.
