Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

The Shadow #1-4, #6

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When DC got the rights to do a Shadow comic book in 1973, they immediately did four things exactly right.

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First, they did the pulp magazine version of the Shadow rather than the radio version. These were indeed two distinct characters. The radio guy, whose show ran from 1938 to 1954, was wealthy man-about-town Lamont Cranston, who had the hypnotic power to "cloud men's minds so they could not see him." Along with his "friend and companion, the lovely Margo Lane," he investigated crimes, using his invisibility to uncover clues and often psych out the bad guys.

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In the pulps, which were published in the 1930s and 1940s, Cranston was only one of several identities used by the Shadow. He couldn't literally turn invisible, but was very good at lurking in the shadows. Dressed in a slouch hat and dark cloak, he employed a network of agents to help him collect information and confronted villainy with a pair of blazing .45 automatics.

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Both versions of the Shadow are excellent, but the pulp character had more visual appeal. The covers of the original Shadow Magazines, usually done by artist George Rozen, were consistently superb and provided numerous examples of just how cool the pulp Shadow looked.

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So--given the choice between a vivid, dramatic image of the Shadow, cape bellowing in the wind as he blasts away with his pistols, or the image of a guy you, um, well, can't see--then the pulps are definitely the way to go.

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The second thing they did right was to get Denny O'Neil, veteran Batman writer, to script the book. The Shadow was one of the major influences for the creation of Batman, so it was safe to say that O'Neil was just the right man for the job.

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O'Neil had done many single issue stories starring Batman that had effectively mixed the detective story genre with comic book action. He did the same thing with the Shadow. A crime (or series of crimes) would be committed. The Shadow and his agents would investigate, following up clues in a logical manner or employing deductive reasoning to solve the crime. Along the way--and at the finale--there'd be several exciting, well-choreographed action sequences. It was an effective and entertaining storytelling method that worked as well for the Shadow as it did for Batman.

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The third thing DC did right was to keep the Shadow in the 1930s, where he clearly belongs. Some characters, like Batman, can survive updating, but the Shadow was a product of his era. Take him out of that time, as artist/writer Howard Chaykyn tried to do later on in an awful 1980s series, and he just isn't the Shadow anymore. Robin Hood belongs in medieval Sherwood Forest; the Lone Ranger belongs in the Old West; and the Shadow belongs in Depression-era New York.

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Finally, DC got Mike Kaluta to do the art work. Kaluta was perfect for the job--his visuals dripped with authenticity, suspense, menace and violence. He caught the look of the times and the look of the Shadow perfectly.

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Sadly, the Shadow only ran a dozen issues and Kaluta only did the art for five of those issues. But those five stories are wonderful. In addition to the reasons stated above, O'Neil and Kaluta also managed to give each story a unique setting for its grand finale. In the first issue, the Shadow confronts a gang of thugs attempting to blow up the George Washington Bridge. In the next issue, he and Margo Lane join a carnival to catch the bad guy, then battle him aboard a moving train. Future issues feature encounters in a grave yard, the death house of a prison, and the narrow streets and dark alleys of Chinatown. The stories never fell into a rut, either in terms of plot or in terms of visuals. It's sad that the book didn't run longer.