The Living Shadow

I will confess that I am not a comic/graphic novel fan, so I don't have much experience to judge a good comic from a bad one. I enjoyed this one and the art looked good - particularly the iconic drawings of the masked Shadow with guns drawn, scarf flying and trench coat flaring.

Although this comic is set in pre-World War II China (actually pre-Pearl Harbor China), it was obviously written much later....presumably in the last decade. So, it has modern sensibilities. I am still interested in seeing what classic 1930s The Shadow comic books looked like.

The Shadow is a hard ass. None of this “I won't take a life” ethics of Batman. The Shadow guns down everyone in the room. He also is not morally conflicted because, as he says, “he knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men” and the people he guns down are running a surplus of evil.

The Shadow has a mission to redeem himself from his own evil and he tends to use people like pawns, including his love interest, Margo Lane. By the time he's done, his OSS liason, Mr. Finnegan, is a shadow of himself.

The story involves The Shadow's return to China to prevent Japan from acquiring raw U235 for its dastardly purposes. The story clicks along. I wondered at times where alter ego Lamont Cranston was hiding the Shadow outfit, but best not to ask questions like that.