The Shadow

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”

I first encountered the Shadow, the pulp hero, in the pages of Comics Scene Magazine, I think. They had a new item about a movie in development, accompanied by a reproduction of one of the pulp covers. I couldn’t tell you which one. It doesn’t matter; it was the look of the Shadow that caught my imagination—that face with the intense eyes, the eyebrows and aquiline nose, both of which went on for miles, the rest of the face hidden by the broad-brimmed hat and the red scarf, the only color in an otherwise black costume—and I was hooked.

I spotted the first issue of the 1970s DC Comics adaptation of the Shadow in my then-local comic book store (Comics & Comix on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley), drawn by the fantastic Michael Kaluta. It was pretty reasonably priced, so I purchased it. The story, drawn by Kaluta, written by Denny O’Neil, introduced me to the Shadow, his alter ego Lamont Cranston, and at least a few of his agents, including Margo Lane, Harry Vincent, Burbank and maybe Shrevvy the cabbie. The art was fantastic, and the story moody and mysterious. I loved that the comic explained the setup (the Shadow was a mysterious crimefighter who had set up an organization of agents who he used to investigate and stop crime) but didn’t give us an origin story. For me, it was the perfect introduction to the character.

I've read this collection so much, it's starting to come apart

I bought the rest of the issues that were drawn by Kaluta, although I was less interested in those drawn by other artists. (I was kind of a dummy back then.) From the letters page in the first issue (probably), I learned that the character had originally appeared in pulp magazines starting in 1931. Those were almost certainly out of my reach, but I also learned that they had been reprinted in paperback in the 60s and 70s. I began haunting used book stores in Berkeley, and eventually found a handful of reprints (with great Jim Steranko covers) including the first novel, The Living Shadow.

I no longer have that old paperback reprint of The Living Shadow; here is the Sanctum Press reprint

I also found a nonfiction book, The Shadow Scrapbook, from which I learned a lot of background information about the series. The character actually started as the host of an anthology radio series based on a magazine. But listeners were so interested in learning about the host character that he earned his own magazine title. The series was developed by writer Walter Gibson, a former journalist and magician, who is estimated to have written at least 283 of the 336 Shadow novels. This blew my mind, particularly since this meant that at the height of the character’s popularity, he was pumping out a new novel every other week. 

O'Neil and Kaluta introduce some of the Shadow's agents

For me, the stories captured my adolescent imagination through mood and sheer storytelling energy. Gibson—because the small sampling of stories I had were all by him—painted a portrait of a world full of mysterious dark alleys, abandoned houses, subterranean passages, sparkling nightclubs, chauffeur-driven limousines, opulent mansions, and clever criminals spinning complicated schemes far beyond the abilities of the police to solve. And at the heart of it all: the Shadow, a mysterious figure whose true origins weren’t revealed in the series until years later.

In his introduction to the Private Files of the Shadow, collecting the O’Neil/Kaluta issues of the comic—a book so frequently read by me that my copy is falling apart—O’Neil says that part of the Shadow’s appeal is that he’s basically a mysterious supervillain cast in the role of the hero. We don’t know who he is, we don’t really know his motivations, and we don’t see him as anything except the Shadow. From the comics, I thought his “true” identity was that of wealthy man-about-town Lamont Cranston, but from the scrapbook, I learned that was just an identity he had taken on, posing as Cranston when the real Cranston was away from New York. 

More Kaluta goodness

The Shadow is specifically suited to urban settings, I think. His greatest strength is working unseen, in secret, in, as you might expect, the shadows. These stories need tall buildings, narrow alleyways, city blocks, and secret underground passageways. They need the anonymity that cities afford. The Shadow is not a globe-trotting adventurer; he fights crimes in cities. I believe I’ve read one Shadow story set in a wilderness environment, and it worked, but it stood out because of its unusual setting.

I take entertainment as it comes, and try not to make excuses or claims of “guilty pleasures.” Certainly, Walter Gibson’s (and the other authors’) work on the Shadow isn’t necessarily on the same level of literature as, say, Dashiell Hammett’s mystery novels from around the same time. On the other hand, Hammett wasn’t writing two of those novels a month, either. Perhaps more importantly, the Shadow stories weren’t intended to be the same sorts of stories. To my mind, the Shadow stories are less hard-hitting crime tales and more fairy tales told in an urban setting, where evil and corrupt forces are defeated, rather than being elected into office, and the ideals of law and order prevail.

The Dynamite Comics reprint of the Marvel graphic novel by O'Neil and Kaluta

What makes the Shadow stories stand out, from this viewpoint, is the twists on that fairy tale format. With his roots in Depression-era America, it feels like the audience was ripe for something that played topsy-turvy with traditional formulas. As O’Neil notes, the perception of cities had shifted from shining beacons of hope to dark, mysterious, crime-ridden environments. Perhaps even worse, they were full of people who were different, who looked different, who acted different, and weren’t from America. Traditional institutions, like banks, had proven to no longer be trustworthy. Is it any surprise that the streets of New York City replaced the dark forests of yore? And that a character who would have once been the Big Bad Wolf becomes the hero of these stories?

Years later, Kaluta--inked by the great Russ Heath--is still fantastic

Another part of the appeal of the Shadow for me at the time was the period setting (although the stories weren’t period when they were written; they were contemporary). This would almost certainly have been after Raiders of the Lost Ark had made me a die-hard fan of period adventure, and those Kaluta Shadow comics would have fed right into that. I had probably read the Rocketeer by that point as well, but I probably wouldn’t have gotten the nods to the Shadow and Doc Savage at that point. But I loved the idea of these weird crime adventures set in the 30s.

So, ironically, it wasn’t too long before an attempt to relaunch the character came along and turned all that on its head.

In 1987, fresh off his own creation, American Flagg, (which I loved), writer/artist Howard Chaykin produced a four-issue comic reviving the Shadow. The twist: it would be set in modern times. It would also tell the hitherto (as far as I knew) untold origin of the Shadow. I remember having mixed feelings about that; at the time, I didn’t think the Shadow’s origin and background needed to be fleshed out. But overall, I loved the comic, and I loved this new version of the Shadow.

(Also ironically, Chaykin has made it very clear that he is not a fan of the character at all, and thinks the original novels are awful. So it’s unfortunate for him that his version of the character only got me more interested in reading more of the original, because after the Chaykin series I was a bigger fan than before.)

Chaykin's Shadow in action

I guess the Chaykin series was successful, because it spawned an ongoing series. Instead of Chaykin, it was written by Andy Helfer, and the first six issues were drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz. I think this was Siekiewicz’s first major project since Elektra: Assassin with Frank Miller, so that was a big deal. After six issues, Sienkiewicz left, but we got a single issue by Marshall Rogers before Kyle Baker took over, and the quality never dipped.

This particular version of the Shadow is one of my all-time favorite comics. Part of the fun of Chaykin’s revival, taken to greater extremes in the follow-up, is the fact that the Shadow returns and picks up right where he left off. There’s no culture shock, no pretense at a fish out of water story. He’s still the implacable crime-fighting force of nature he was in the pulps, and he gets away with it because he’s always right. And he still treats his agents like cogs in his machine, but now, they’re being written with the depth of characterization we expect from comics from this period. And they think the Shadow is kind of crazy, and kind of a dick. But they follow him anyway, because his goals are good, and because, at the end of the day, he is always right. He’s just not a particularly nice guy.

The series was also written with a ton of humor, helped greatly by the art. I read and reread those original issues again and again, and when Dynamite Comics reprinted them a few years ago, I read them again. They were just as much fun as I had remembered them. Unfortunately, the series ended on an unresolved cliffhanger, but considering that cliffhanger involved both the Shadow and his arch-nemesis Shiwan Khan with their heads transplanted onto robot bodies, it’s possible that no actual resolution could live up to the readers’ imaginations.

Sienkiewicz's first Shadow cover (from the Dynamite reprint collection)

Those Helfer/Sienkiewicz/Baker issues have a particular place in my heart. At one point in the late 80s, I was going through a particularly tough time, and rereading those stories really helped cheer me up.

Sienkiewicz's Shadow, in his unmistakable style

Received wisdom is that Shadow fans hate the Chaykin series, but I’ve seen plenty of comics fans express love for it and its follow up. Certainly, I am a Shadow fan who is fine with it, although I don’t know that I necessarily see it as a piece or as a continuation of the Gibson novels. It’s so completely different, and yet I can absolutely see the original in the DNA of these comics. It’s this weird neither-fish-nor-fowl thing: I don’t know that they would exist without the original Shadow stories serving as, if not inspiration, then motivation for their creation. But I think they are maybe better judged as comics in their own right, rather than of a piece with the original novels, because they are so jarring.

Fortunately for fans looking for a more traditional rendition of the Shadow, DC followed the Helfer/Baker stories with The Shadow Strikes!, written by Gerard Jones and drawn by the late Eduardo Barreto. At the time of publication, Jones was a favorite writer of mine, and Barreto was a fantastic artist clearly inspired by adventure artists like Milton Caniff and Frank Robbins. 

Set in the 1930s, Jones melded real history with pulp mystery and adventure and popular culture, as well as a more contemporary sense of storytelling and characterization. Barreto made everything look great. (Eventually, Barreto left, replaced by Rod Whigham and I can’t remember who the inker was. It wasn’t quite as fantastic, but certainly acceptable.) The backgrounds of characters like Margo Lane and Harry Vincent were fleshed out, the stories dropped hints about the Shadow’s background without spelling things out, and we even got cameo appearances from comic strip characters like the Asp and Punjab from Little Orphan Annie, and Popeye from Thimble Theater. And we got what may have been the first team-up between the Shadow and Doc Savage.

Kyle baker puts his own stamp on the character

The Shadow Strikes was another favorite Shadow comic of mine, but I haven’t reread it in forever. Unfortunately, a few years ago, Jones pled guilty to being a child pornographer, and now I can’t quite bring myself to read his work. On the one hand, there’s nothing really inappropriate about his work on the Shadow, that I can recall. And I’ve already bought and paid for them, so he isn’t getting money from me for rereading them. But still, it feels kind of weird, and is an issue I continue to wrestle with.

More Baker art

After DC, other companies picked up the license. Dark Horse held it briefly, and brought in Michael Kaluta to help tell new stories. For the most part, he only co-wrote their comics, but the art, by Gary Gianni, was so fantastic it didn’t matter. (And Kaluta did illustrate Dark Horse’s adaptation of the 1994 Shadow movie starring Alec Baldwin, so there’s that.) And Dark Horse did another Doc Savage crossover, and a team-up with their own superhero, Ghost.

And then the license passed on to Dynamite Comics, who did a series of stories written by different writers. I bought and enjoyed most of them, although some stood out more so than others, to my mind. One of my favorite creators, Matt Wagner, wrote, and sometimes drew, a couple of stories that I really liked. And I was really surprised by their Shadow/Twilight Zone crossover comic. I love both those properties, so of course I was going to read it, but it ended up being considerably better than I would have expected.

One of the best parts of the Dynamite series were the Alex Ross covers

Dynamite also published a new Shadow miniseries by Howard Chaykin, telling the circumstances of the Shadow retreating from society in the late 1940s. So it’s something of a prequel to his 1980s revival series. 

Chaykin returns to the Shadow, giving him a more traditional look this time

Perhaps most exciting for me personally, Dynamite also reprinted the 80s issues by Chaykin, Helfer, Sienkiewicz, and Baker. I still have those original issues boxed up somewhere, but it’s much easier to retrieve and reread them from my bookshelf. They also reprinted the 1988 Marvel graphic novel, Hitler’s Astrologer, which featured Denny O’Neill and Michael Kaluta’s return to the character.

Matt Wagner pits the Shadow against his own creation, Grendel

Perhaps best of all for me, in 2006, pulp fans Anthony Tollin and Will Murray started a publisher, Sanctum Press, in order to reprint the original Shadow and Doc Savage novels. Publishing two stories per volume, plus bonus features like comic book stories, background articles, and radio scripts, this felt like a dream come true for the guy who remembered combing through used book stores for whatever old paperbacks I could find. I immediately subscribed to their series, and eagerly devoured each new volume as it showed up.

Matt Wagner tells the fate of the Shadow's "friend and companion," Margo Lane

I fairly quickly realized that I enjoyed the Shadow books much more than the Doc Savage ones, and eventually let that subscription lapse. In fact, I let both subscriptions lapse for a number of reasons. I figured that I would eventually get back to the series and pick up the ones I had missed.

Matt Wagner--with artist Wilfredo Torres--tells his version of the Shadow's origin

And then, in December 2019, came the word that Conde Nast Publications, who owned the rights to the Shadow, were withdrawing all their licenses, and that Sanctum would have to wrap up their reprints just a couple stories shy of a complete reprinting, and would only have a limited time to sell what they had produced.

The first Sanctum Press Shadow reprint

I panicked. I immediately began buying up as many of the books as I could find. Fortunately, I was able to get a lot of them at 50% off. Some were listed as “out of stock” at the places I was shopping, so I checked Amazon or eBay. They were either not available at either place, or priced ridiculously high. I resigned myself to the idea that I would not end up with a complete collection after all.

I think this is maybe the cover I saw in Comics Scene all those years ago?

And then I was able to find those ones that I still needed, at cover price. And I’m pleased to say that I have a complete collection of the Sanctum Press Shadow reprints. It may not be a complete collection of all the Shadow stories every published, but it’s plenty for me. (It’s 151 volumes, each one containing 2-4 Shadow novels.) I’m currently working through reading them from Volume 1, in between other books that I read.

The Twilight Zone: The Shadow: So much better than I had expected

And that’s about it for this week. We are still under a stay-at-home order for the next month, so I will try to use that time to get ahead a bit on this blog. I hope everyone is staying at home, staying healthy, and doing okay in these incredibly strange, incredibly unsettling times. And I hope you are all finding things to cling to to help get through this time, whether it’s revisiting the adventures of a favorite hero, creating art, spending time or staying in touch with loved ones, or doing whatever it is you need to do.

See you next time!