{"id":5864,"date":"2017-03-03T10:10:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T15:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=5864"},"modified":"2022-09-10T11:48:10","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T15:48:10","slug":"pulp-comics-dynamites-the-shadow-mini-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2017\/03\/03\/pulp-comics-dynamites-the-shadow-mini-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulp comics: Dynamite’s ‘The Shadow’ mini-series"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"'The<\/a>
The Shadow: Year One<\/em> #3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since 2012, Dynamite Entertainment<\/a> has had the rights to do The Shadow<\/a><\/strong> 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 second of three articles looking at what they have produced.<\/p>\n

Here I will be looking at the several mini-series staring The Shadow: Year One, Shadow Now, Midnight in Moscow<\/em>, and Death of Margo Lane<\/em>. Masks<\/em> and other minis that have The Shadow with other characters will be covered in other postings.<\/p>\n

The Shadow: Year One<\/em> (2013-14, 10 issues) is written by Matt Wagner<\/strong>, and as the title indicates, is meant to show The Shadow’s first year of operating in New York. It actually starts in Asia, with The Shadow on the trail of another man. We will learn The Shadow’s background as the aviator-spy The Dark Eagle<\/strong>, and sadly adds in that in Asia he became a drug lord (an element I never cared for) and later would be taught by masters in Shamballah in the psychic disciplines.<\/p>\n

We see him moving into Lamont Cranston<\/strong>‘s estate (we learn of his agreement with Cranston) and starting to setup his first agents (he saves Claude Fellows<\/strong>). We also see Commissioner Weston<\/strong>, Joe Cardona<\/strong>, and Fritz the janitor<\/strong>. But like with the psychic stuff, the series plays a little loose with things, such as having Margo Lane<\/strong> appear from the beginning and having a somewhat “interesting” background for her. It also has his headquarters at the “B. Jonas” office, when that was just a dead-letter drop, and his sanctum was elsewhere. We also see someone investigating Cranston and also Kent Allard<\/strong>, and when he confronts The Shadow, we learn he’s Maxwell Grant<\/strong> and wishes to write up his stories.<\/p>\n

But despite the issues, it is a good series.<\/p>\n

The Shadow Now<\/em> (2014, six issues) is written by David Liss<\/strong> (who wrote Dynamite’s The Spider<\/a><\/strong> series, which was set in modern times) and brings The Shadow into modern times. Artwork is by Colton Worley<\/strong> who did the first storyline of Dynamite’s The Spider series, and gives an almost photo-realistic quality to the artwork.<\/p>\n

The Shadow returns to modern day New York after years in Shamballah. Thanks to what he’s learned there, he hasn’t aged, and presents himself as Lamont Cranston III<\/strong> (no mention is made of him really being Kent Allard). While gone, he had setup “The Shadow Network” as an information gathering organization, staffed by many of the children and grandchildren of his original agents. Shiwan Khan<\/strong> is aged and imprisoned. But he has put his own people into The Shadow Network (how is not revealed), and destroys it, breaks out of prison, and has The Shadow on the run. Khan finds his granddaughter, whom he trains to take over as he works on a scheme to restore his youth.<\/p>\n

The Shadow is aided only by the granddaughter of Margo Lane. But he soon starts adding new aides, and is able to defeat Khan’s granddaughter and tries to stop Khan, but he escapes, which sets things up for possible sequels.<\/p>\n

Some may not like the idea of bringing the pulp heroes into modern times, but here The Shadow is not as over-the-top as Howard Chaykin<\/strong> did in his series at DC.<\/p>\n

\"'The<\/a>
The Shadow: Midnight in Moscow<\/em> #1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Midnight in Moscow<\/em> (2014, six issues) is by Chaykin (story and art) and is a sort-of prequel to his Shadow mini-series done at DC<\/a>. Set in 1949 (the year the pulps ended), it has The Shadow working on an international conspiracy that takes him from New York to London, Paris, Berlin, and finally to Moscow to stop a plot that may plunge the world into a new war. Several of The Shadow’s aides appear, and he goes up again against Benedict Stark<\/strong>, the Prince of Evil<\/strong> (who appeared in four pulp stories written by Theodore Tinsley). But the real villain is someone else.<\/p>\n

At the end\u00a0The Shadow retires and disappears (but he will re-appear in the mini-series Chaykin did at DC). And there is an interesting scene where The Shadow had a holiday dinner with several other unnamed characters that are clearly Nero Wolfe<\/strong> (their host), Bulldog Drummond<\/strong>, Doc Savage<\/strong>, and Tarzan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It’s kind of a mixed bag of good and bad elements, but mostly good. The trade collection includes the script for the series as well.<\/p>\n

The Death of Margo Lane<\/em> (2016, five issues) is also by Matt Wagner (story and art) and has The Shadow confronting a new enemy: The Red Empress<\/strong>, who turns out to be the daughter of Shiwan Khan, looking for revenge against The Shadow after his death. And the title of the series has a big impact on the story, which you’ll have to fine out for yourself. Again, I could have done without the psychic stuff, and I’m not sure about the ending, but overall it’s another good story.<\/p>\n

All these series are collected in trade paperbacks. I have no idea what further series they may be working on, though we are getting a Batman<\/strong>-The Shadow team-up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 second of three articles looking at what they have produced. Here I will be looking at the several mini-series staring The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at Dynamite's The Shadow comics mini-series. #pulpmags #comics","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[18,14],"tags":[398,109],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-5864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comics","category-review","tag-dynamite","tag-the-shadow"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2017\/02\/the-shadow-year-one-3.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-1wA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5864"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14263,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5864\/revisions\/14263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5864"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=5864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}