The Shadow
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The Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of fictional vigilante The Shadow. One of the most famous pulp heroes of the 20th century, The Shadow has been featured in comic books, comic strips, television, video games, and at least seven motion pictures. The radio drama is well-remembered for those episodes voiced by Orson Welles.
Introduced as a mysterious radio narrator by David Chrisman, William Sweets, and Harry Engman Charlot for Street and Smith Publications, The Shadow was fully developed and transformed into a pop culture icon by legendary pulp writer Walter Gibson.
The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the Street & Smith radio program Detective Story Hour. After gaining popularity among the show's listeners, the narrator became the star of The Shadow Magazine on April 1, 1931; a pulp series created and primarily written by the prolific Gibson.
As the years passed, the character evolved. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama officially premiered with the story "The Deathhouse Rescue" and imbued the character with "the power to cloud men's minds" — the ability to become completely invisible — a trait associated with the character for years after the show ended. Even after decades, the unmistakable introduction from The Shadow radio program, intoned by actor Frank Readick Jr., has earned a place in the American idiom: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh! The Shadow knows..." These words were accompanied by a haunting theme song, Le Rouet d'Omphale, composed by Saint-Saëns.
Comic strips and comic books
The Shadow has been depicted in comics several times, beginning with a 1938 newspaper comic strip drawn by Vernon Greene.
Street and Smith published 101 issues of the comic book Shadow Comics from #1 - vol. 9, #5 (March 1940 - Sept. 1949) Archie Comics published an eight-issue series, The Shadow (Aug. 1964 - Sept. 1965) under the company's Mighty Comics imprint. At first, The Shadow depicted was loosely based on the radio version, but with blonde hair. In issue #2 (Sept.. 1964), the character was transformed into a campy superhero by writer Robert Bernstein and artist John Rosenberger.
In the mid-1970s, DC Comics published a critically acclaimed, 12-issue series (Nov. 1973 - Sept. 1975) written by Dennis O'Neil and initially drawn by Michael William Kaluta (#1-4 & 6). Faithful to the pulp-magazine and radio-drama character, the series guest-starred fellow pulp fiction hero The Avenger in issue #11. The Shadow appeared in DC's Batman #253 (Nov. 1973), in which Batman teams with an aging Shadow and reveals The Shadow as his "greatest inspiration". In Batman #259 (Dec. 1974), Batman again meets The Shadow, and we learn The Shadow saved Bruce Wayne's life when the future Batman was a boy.
In the late 1980s, another DC reincarnation was created by Howard Chaykin, Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Kyle Baker. This version brought The Shadow to modern-day New York. While initially successful, this version was not popular with traditional Shadow fans because it depicted The Shadow using Uzi submachine guns and rocket launchers, as well as featuring a strong strain of black comedy throughout. It was canceled after an issue in which The Shadow's head was transplanted onto a robot body.
In 1988, O'Neil and Kaluta, with inker Russ Heath, returned to The Shadow with the Marvel Comics graphic novel Hitler's Astrologer, set in 1941.
From 1989 to 1992, DC published a new series, The Shadow Strikes, written by Gerard Jones and Eduardo Barreto. This series was set in the 1930s, and returned The Shadow to his pulp origins. The series featured The Shadow's first team-up with Doc Savage, another popular pulp hero. The stories in this series often led The Shadow into encounters with well-known celebrities of the 1930s, such as Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, union organizer John L Lewis, and Chicago gangsters Frank Nitti and Jake Guzik. In issue #11, The Shadow meets a radio announcer named Grover Mills — a character based on the young Orson Welles — who has been impersonating The Shadow on the radio. The character's name is taken from Grover's Mill, New Jersey — the name of the town where the Martians land in Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds.
Dark Horse Comics published two miniseries based on The Shadow. "In the Coils of Leviathan" was published in 1993. "Hell's Heat Wave" was published in 1995. Both were written by Joel Goss and Michael Kaluta, and drawn by Gary Gianni. A stand-alone collection was published in 1994 as "The Shadow and the Mysterious Three," again written by Joel Goss and Michael Kaluta with Stan Manoukian and Vince Roucher taking over the drawing chores over Kaluta's layouts. A two-issue adaptation of the 1994 film, The Shadow, was adapted from a script by Goss and Kaluta and drawn by Kaluta from cover to cover. Dark Horse also published a team-up between The Shadow and Doc Savage in 1995.