Comic Book / The Shadow

The Shadow is a long-running comic book series.

The Shadow, the vigilante "who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men", started out as the narrator of the Detective Story Hour radio series in 1930. The character became so popular that The Shadow soon debuted as the hero of a series of pulp fiction novels, with The Shadow becoming a vigilante. The Shadow operated mostly at night, using a secret identity as an Idle Rich man. He had no inherent superpowers, but his studies of the mystic arts eventually led to him acquiring certain skills, like the power to project his voice, the power of invisibility, and psychic abilities such as "the power to cloud men's minds." With those tools, The Shadow fought evil and caught bad guys that the cops couldn't catch.

The pulp fiction novels spawned a hugely popular long-running radio series starting in 1937. The radio show then led to the comic book series, which debuted in 1940. Unlike the radio show where The Shadow's true identity was Lamont Cranston, the original comic book series stuck with the pulp fiction version and named him Kent Allard. Also, the character of Margo Lane, The Shadow's sidekick and Love Interest invented for the radio show, was not initially included in the comic book series. The Shadow has run in comic books in several incarnations:

• The original Street & Smith comic book series ran from 1940 to 1949.
• Archie Comics released a mostly In Name Only version that ran for only eight issues in 1964 and 1965.
• DC Comics has done several editions of The Shadow, including a 12-issue run 1973-75, a four-issue run in 1986 (The Shadow: Blood and Judgment), a 1987-1989 run and, eight months after that one ended, a 1989-1992 run (The Shadow Strikes!). There was also a crossover with Batman, Batman and The Shadow: The Murder Geniuses, in 2017.
• Dark Horse Comics published four different short editions of The Shadow from 1993 to 1995.
• Finally there was Dynamite Entertainment, which published various editions of The Shadow from 2012 to 2016, as well as co-publishing the Batman crossover with DC Comics in 2017.

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Tropes:

• Accomplice by Inaction: In Dynamite #23, the Shadow calls out the White Tiger for being so focused on his own survival that he turns a blind eye to the suffering of others.
• Anti-Hero: The Shadow of the Dynamite Comics (written by Garth Ennis, of course) is recast as a full-blown Sociopathic Hero; World War I spy Kent Allard floated into Shanghai one day and used his skills to become an opium kingpin, only to be abducted by Buddhist monks who specialized in turning the foulest of villains into forces for justice; he then killed every ranked criminal in the city and used their resources to re-invent himself in New York as Idle Rich man Lamont Cranston. This version of the Shadow is an Ax-Crazy Laughing Mad psychopath who kills for the sheer joy of it, and makes no pretense of heroism; by killing evil-doers he at least has the pretense that Smiting Evil Feels Good. Hell, his motivation throughout "The Fire of Creation"(which takes place in Japanese-occupied China) is that he knows that the MacGuffin (weapons-grade uranium) will be used to create nuclear bombs, resulting in the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He just likes to point out that they really have it coming for the Rape of Nanking.
  The Shadow: Soldiers of Nippon! Cowards! Butchers! Rapists! Desecrators of China! I know you scum of old, I know what evil lurks within your craven hearts! You slaughter peasants and their women, and you call yourselves men?! You hoist infants high on bayonets, and you call yourself soldiers?! You rabble! You motherless pigs! Come try your steel on me! Heh. Heh, heh, heh... Heh heh ha ha ha ha ha...! Ha! Ha! Ha ha ha ha! [pissed-off soldiers then charge right at his "clouded" image — into a minefield — and are blown to paste] HAHAHAHAHAHAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In Dynamite #24 and #25, despite his own mystic powers, the Shadow is convinced there's a rational explanation for the Zombie Apocalypse. He's right.
• Badass Boast: In Garth Ennis's run on the comics, the eponymous character gives a retort to Margo Lane's concern
  Margo: But there could be an army waiting for you...!
  The Shadow: Then God have mercy on their souls.
• Beard of Barbarism: Buffalo Wong from Garth Ennis's run on the comics has a big, messy Beard of Evil.
• Been There, Shaped History: The Shadow sometimes crosses paths with historical events and figures. For example, the MacGuffin of the Dynamite arc "The Fire of Creation" is uranium-235 that gets used in the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
• Beneath Suspicion:
  • The true identity of the Light from that arc of the Dynamite run? A hospital nurse, who Margo has a close encounter with.
  • The killer in Dynamite #21 is an elderly washerwoman who no one would look at twice.
• Canon Immigrant: Margo Lane, created for the radio series, eventually showed up in the pulp stories as well.
• Catchphrase: In addition to his standard "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men" catchphrase, in DC's Neil\Kaluta comics he also had "The Shadow never fails!"
• Cheap Costume: In The Shadow: Year One from Dynamite Comics, Lamont Cranston is attending a party when he sees Margo Lane being abducted by gangsters who plan to throw her off the roof. Not having his Shadow accoutrements with him, he is forced to improvise a mask out of his dress scarf, and rely upon his mind tricks to do the rest.
• Dangerously Close Shave: In The Shadow One-Shot 2014: Agents of the Shadow from Dynamite Comics, Cliff and Clyde interrogate a gangster by replacing his barber while he is getting a shave. Cliff holds the razor against his throat while commenting how he has never done this before till the gangster tells them what they want to know.
• Death Dealer: In The Shadow #0 from Dynamite, the Shadow takes on a group of stage magicians. One of them attacks the Shadow by flinging razor edged playing cards at him.
• Disney Villain Death: Used in DC's Neil\Kaluta and Jones\Barreto comics.
• Femme Fatalons: In The Shadow: The Death of Margo Lane from Dynamite Comics, the Red Empress has razor-edged decorative nail sheaths that she uses as her primary weapon. When she attempts to slit Margo's throat, the Shadow shoots her in the hand; destroying most of her hand.
• Forced Euthanasia: During World War II, the Japanese send a secret mission to retrieve a Mineral MacGuffin from China led by General Akamatsu and Major Kondo. Once it's in his hands, Major Kondo has a breakdown on realizing he's been tricked and the rocks are worthless, causing the general to commit seppuku... and just before beheading him, Kondo reveals that nope, those were the right rocks all along, but the general was kind enough to kill himself and leave him in charge of the operation (Kondo plans to sell the rocks to the highest bidder, but they're stolen from him again). Karma bites Kondo later, when those same rocks reappear in the skies of Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945...
• Gory Discretion Shot: In issue #4 of Garth Ennis's run on the comics, the Shadow and co. encounter a village that has been massacred by the Japanese. There are plenty of male corpses, but the females... All we get to see are the horrified reactions of two characters.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • In Dynamite #8, a seemingly ordinary couple is killed. Their deaths are widely dismissed as just another murder, but the Shadow knows they chanced on something that the murderers were trying to hide.
  • In Dynamite's the Light arc, the first victim of that murderer doesn't match the profile of the subsequent victims. After some investigation, the Shadow concludes that he must have known something about the Light that she didn't want to get out.
• Horrifying the Horror: Despite the Shadow's Terror Hero ways, in Dynamite's Special #1 he has a disturbed look when he learns just what his old comrade has been up to.
• In Name Only: The Archie Comics version bore little relation to previous incarnations in radio and print, being an international spy, wearing a green-and-blue superhero costume with tights, having gimmicks like jet-powered boots, and generally being much more campy than before.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In Dynamite's the Shadow #6, the Shadow remarks that a Death Ray is "sort of thing you'd read in some dime store magazine".
• Mutual Disadvantage: In #7 of the Dynamite comics, the Shadow and Red Raja, having trained under the same old masters, No-Sell each other's supernatural powers. They end up settling things in a Sword Fight.
• Not My Driver: In The Shadow #100 from Dynamite, a wealthy gambler leaving his club with his poker winnings discovers that his driver is not really his driver when his car turns into a deserted alley. A few moments later, he is murdered and robbed.
• Rogues Gallery: Unique to the various comic books (standalone series and crossovers alike), we have Black Sparrow, Dr. Gerhard Zorn, The Stag, The Light, Black Dragon (a one-shot villain in the pulps), Devil Kyoti, The Talon, Monstradamus, Professor Solarus, and even Grendel and Shiwan Khan's granddaughter Batu Khan.
• Sarcastic Confession: In Dynamite #12, when quizzed about his whereabouts the previous night, the Shadow gives the truth: he was at a Chinese brothel. The questioner promptly tells him that he doesn't "have to make up outrageous stories".
• Seppuku: In Dynamite's the Shadow #6, the Japanese general does it after the quest to find the "rocks" turns out to be a dud.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Margo gives one to the Light in Dynamite #16.
  Margo: Now wait just a second, sister. You're a fine one to talk about sin, running around with swords and murdering people. Isn't murder a sin? Or did that part get left out of the rulebook you were handed?
• Thrown from the Zeppelin: In Dynamite #10, one of the conspirators gets cold feet and asks to be excused. He gets it... in the head.
• Tired of Running: In Dynamite #17, though it's the villain who says she's "through running".
• The Unreveal: In Dynamite's The Shadow #0, Harry Houdini's widow claims to have been told great secrets by her dead husband, which she passes on to the Shadow. All we get is a convenient thunderclap and the Shadow's declaration that she should forget, lest people kill for it.
• Where It All Began: The Dynamite comics' Girasol arc started in New York City, and after travelling the world, returns to NYC for the finale.
• Whip of Dominance: In the Fires Of Creation storyline, The Shadow's recurring foe is The Black Sparrow; a Femme Fatale that's Dressed Like a Dominatrix and the head of the gun-smuggling outfit The Shadow is trying to put down. Her primary weapon is the whip, which she tries strangling The Shadow with multiple times.
• Zombie Apocalypse: One happens in Dynamite #24 and #25, caused by the Big Bad of the two-parter.