The Shadow: The Black Falcon

THE BLACK FALCON is not only the fourth Shadow novel I’ve read in 2018 but my fourth one overall. And, to date, it might be my favorite for all the action, mystery, and zeal of the storytelling.

As the story opens, Rowdy Kershing is at a poker game amongst his criminal brethren. When he loses his winnings, he needs to buy more chips. He does so with a fat wad of money he makes sure all around him see. What he hides is the presence of a falcon’s feather, dyed black. For Rowdy has been assigned a task: recruit some “gorillas” to be of service to the super criminal, The Black Falcon, who has already kidnapped one millionaire and taunts the police that he’ll do it again.

But as gruff a talker as Rowdy is, he pales when the Knight of Darkness enters the room. They all do. Action ensues and Rowdy squeals like a rat.

The next set piece is the preparations the police deployed to protect Elias Carthers, the next millionaire on The Black Falcon’s list. This is a great action sequence mainly for how it plays out and the clues it reveals. I know that in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, authors frequently left clues for the readers to draw their own conclusions. Pulp fiction was not too known for that, but the clues in this sequence are plain to see.

It is after these scenes where The Shadow, in disguise as millionaire Lamont Cranston, takes action not in Shadow garb. Again, I’m too new at reading these stories to know if this is normal or special, but I’m guessing it’s likely normal, seeing as how The Shadow inserts himself as Cranston into the action.

And by poking his nose into the action gets Cranston in hot water. You see, he’s a millionaire and he walks directly into the clutches of The Black Falcon. From here to the end, the action is fantastic, the revelations are eye-opening, and the ending is outstanding in a “how will he get out of this” manner.
Perhaps the reason I like this one so much is the similarities to the villains of Batman. The Joker or The Riddler rarely commit their crimes without letting everyone know ahead of time, and The Black Falcon is right in that wheelhouse. Surprisingly, the Falcon makes some deductions of his own, and that got me to worrying for The Shadow’s safety. This novel is from February 1934 so I needn’t have worried. There was still going to be another fifteen years of stories, but still.

At one point, The Shadow reveals his true face to another character…and author Walter Gibson doesn’t describe the face! He only describes the reactions of the other character. I found that simultaneously great and frustrating. Who really is The Shadow? And what must his visage look like to bring such dread?

Of the new productions by Audible, THE BLACK FALCON is not a full-cast recording but a single narrator. Thankfully, it’s the same narrator as the full-cast versions so there is continuity.
For those of y’all who have never read a Shadow novel, here is a good one with which to start. It’s got all the pieces in place for a rip-roaring pulp adventure tale.

Partners in Peril
The Shadow Unmasks
The Romanoff Jewels

The Shadow: The Romanoff Jewels

In the third Shadow novel I’ve read (actually heard; thanks Audible!), THE ROMANOFF JEWELS begins in the apartment full of wealthy men. Author Maxwell Grant (Walter Gibson) tells the reader who they are and why they’re there. One of those men is Lamont Cranston, otherwise known as…The Shadow.

Another one of those gentlemen is Marcus Holtmann. Unpretentious, Holtmann has a secret buried deep in his brain, a secret other men desperately want. You see, a friend of Holtmann’s casually let slip the hiding place of the Romanoff jewels, the very jewels seized by the Bolsheviks in 1917 when they overthrew—and murdered—Czar Nicholas II and his family. Priceless in value, nefarious men want to steal the jewels and return the czars to power. To bring out his knowledge, Holtmann is kidnapped and tortured by the insidious Michael Senov for the information.

Naturally the Shadow deduces Holtmann’s whereabouts and does his best to save the man’s life. But he was a few minutes too late. Holtmann was poisoned! With his dying breaths, Holtmann relates to The Shadow all that he divulged to Senov. Armed with that knowledge, The Shadow races across the Atlantic to thwart the attempt.

I won’t give away the ending here, but I’ll just say that a piece of information The Shadow relates I didn’t see coming…but it makes all the sense in the world.

This being only my third Shadow novel, I don’t know how prevalent it was for the Knight of Darkness to travel outside the confines of New York or even America, but I appreciated how, to the European adversaries he encountered, The Shadow was a complete unknown. At least the gangsters in The Big Apple are smart enough about The Shadow to be scared. In addition, I liked how The Shadow got injured at one point, so badly that he needed to be nursed back to health, once again proving he is simply a man.

Which leads to a question I hope long-time fans of The Shadow can answer: is there ever a novel in which author Walter Gibson relates The Shadow’s training?

I’m not sure what criteria Audible used to choose which Shadow novels they produced, but I think him traveling abroad might be high on the list. Or the great ending. PARTNERS IN PERIL is a good one because of how it was used in the first Batman story. THE SHADOW UNMASKS was a natural choice that The Shadow’s origin was reveal. THE ROMANOFF JEWELS not only had foreign travel but the revelation of a key aspect of The Shadow’s legacy.

I am thoroughly enjoying these books. Next up: THE BLACK FALCON.

Eighty-five Years of Doc Savage

Eighty-five years ago today, Doc Savage landed on magazine shelves for the first time and, one might argue, helped change popular culture all the way up to the present day.

The brainchild of Street and Smith publisher, Henry Ralston and editor John Nanovic, Doc Savage was the brighter answer to the magazine’s other runaway bestseller, The Shadow. But where the Knight of Darkness fought crime at night and in the, um, shadows, The Man of Bronze was a different type of hero. He strove “every moment of my life to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it. Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice. Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do. Let me do right to all, and wrong no man.” He was a paragon of virtue, the kind of person kids could look up to and revere.

Clark Savage, Jr. appeared in 181 adventures from 1933 to 1949, mostly written by a single author, Lester Dent. In nearly all of them, he was accompanied by his five stalwart brothers in arms: Monk Mayfair, Ham Brooks, John Renwick, Long Tom Roberts, and William Littlejohn. Each man of the Fabulous Five was an expert in his chosen discipline, but Doc bested each. Doc had trained his mind and body since birth to be a superman. He even had a Fortress of Solitude where he would retire from time to time to study. Invariably he would emerge from his seclusion with some new invention, knowledge, or something else to benefit humankind. His headquarters on the 86th Floor of the unnamed building in New York (but we all knew was the Empire State Building) was a palace of gadgets, technology, and books where Doc and his comrades planned their adventures. And his villains were trying to take over the world long before Lex Luther or Blofeld.

If you’ve read this far, I think you will recognize some names and terms. The obvious descendant is Superman himself. Extrapolate, if you will, what Superman wrought: Batman, DC Comics, other superheroes, Marvel Comics, novels, toys, merchandise, movie serials, major motion pictures with superheroes, and many other things that shape large chunks of popular culture. In fact, the biggest superhero movie to date, The Avengers: Infinity War, can trace its roots all the way back to a pulp magazine character that debuted eight-five years ago today.

I am woefully deficient in my Doc Savage reading, but then just imagine reading one novel a month at the pace Lester Dent and a handful of other co-writers drafted the books. You would finish in 2034! But these stories are fantastic to dip into from time to time for the breathless sense of adventure and wonder.

Generations of readers grew up on the original pulp magazines while other generations were raised on the Bantam reprints of the 1960s and 1970s, with Frank Bama's depiction of Doc with a widow's peak and a tattered shirt.

Nostalgia Ventures reprinted the entire run, adding historical commentary. And Will Murray has been using abandoned outlines from Dent’s personal papers to write new adventures, including one in which Doc teams up with The Shadow, bringing the entire saga full circle.

Now, in this 85th year of Doc Savage, I plan to read a few more adventures, including the black-and-white comics from the mid 70s as published by Marvel Comics. I'll be reviewing these yarns as I get to them, beginning with The Polar Treasure next week. 

What are your favorite Doc Savage stories? How about a Top 10 list?

The Shadow: The Shadow Unmasks

Hot on the heels of my first Shadow novel, PARTNERS IN PERIL, I have now read my second, THE SHADOW UNMASKS. And I loved it just as much.

In order to kick start my Shadow experience, I decided to listen to the new productions at Audible Studios. They feature a main narrator and multiple voice actors for the cast. Both I’ve heard are fantastic and recommended. As a result, however, I’m reading these Shadow novels out of order, which means what I learned in UNMASKS surprised me.

Up until now, I’ve always thought The Shadow was, in fact, Lamont Cranston. If my memory serves me, that simple one-to-one equation was on the radio shows and it certainly was on the Alec Baldwin movie. As I started in with UNMASKS, I was expecting the same, and it started out that way until the story took an interesting turn.

The main plot of UNMASKS involves a crook named Shark Meglo (great name!). He and his gang have a straightforward plan: find, attack, and kill the buyers of some rare and valuable gems before the buyer can utter the name of the seller. For you see, the master crook behind the entire operation recycles the gems in new settings. Every three weeks or so a new member of the wealthy class dies. All of them had recently purchased gems.

Naturally, the story begins with the most recent murder. The Shadow tries to thwart Shark’s evil plans…but fails. He learns vital clues to what’s going on, however, information needed to prevent the next death. But a distant accident lands on the front pages of New York’s newspapers. A plane accident in England injured a few Americans. The story not only listed the names of the individuals but splashes their photos. There, for all to see, is the real Lamont Cranston. The problem is, especially if you are police commissioner Ralph Weston, who reads the newspaper standing outside the Cobalt Club, is that you are literally talking to Lamont Cranston. Only it’s The Shadow in his disguise. There follows a fun subterfuge as the Agents of The Shadow basically try and convince Weston that he didn’t really see Lamont Cranston but Cranston’s nephew. And the commissioner bought it.

The odd turn the story took for me was when Kent Allard, famed aviator who crashed in the Guatemalan jungle a dozen years ago, has made a reappearance. He arrives in New York to great fanfare and very quickly, we learn Allard is really The Shadow. And, lest anyone (me included) wasn’t hip on how it all shook down back then, The Shadow visits the house of an old ally, Slade Farrow (another great name!) and reveals his true identity, complete with the entire background. The reasoning is spot on—The Shadow uses the identity of Cranston as long as Cranston stays out of New York—but I couldn’t help wondering how many times in this series and, of course, the comic book masked heroes, that the characters revealed their identity to others. It also makes me wonder if, after this August 1937 issue (number 131 overall) if Lamont Cranston was ever used again. Long-time readers of The Shadow: please let me know.

Anyway, after that startling revelation, the story continued until the inevitable end. Two things struck me about this ending. One, the big finale was somewhat low key. I guess you can’t have every novel end in a big shoot-out or something. The second thing was that The Shadow is very much like Sherlock Holmes in that he knows the likely ending far in advance and just moves the various chess pieces along the way, usually with his agents none the wiser.

I’ve now read two Shadow novels and I’m not gonna stop now. They are a blast. And, as a lifelong Batman fan, I’m really fascinated to research more in depth how Bill Finger drew on his love of The Shadow and helped shape the Dark Knight Detective.

So, fellow Shadow fans, where does this story rank in the all-time list?

Batman: Detective Comics No. 27

A couple of days ago, I reviewed Partners In Peril, the first Shadow novel I had never read. I selected this novel because the publisher packaged this novel with a couple of historical essays indicating how it was adapted into the very first Batman story. Today, take a look at Detective Comics No. 27 and "The Case Of The Chemical Syndicate," the first Batman adventure.

When you read the two stories side-by-side, it is obvious how writer Bill Finger took the Shadow novel and distilled it down to six, tight pages. The comic book opens with "young socialite" Bruce Wayne talking with Commissioner Gordon at the policeman's house. Gordon receives a call informing him that Lambert “the chemical king” has been stabbed to death and his son is being held as the prime suspect. Feigning boredom, Bruce tags along with Gordon to the Lambert house where he hears the young man's story of how he found his father, dead, with the knife stuck in his back, and his father's last dying word, "contract." When questioned about his father's business contacts, young Lambert names three men. And, with the speed of a 1939-era comic, one of those men – Stephen Crane – telephones the house. Crane, too, has received death threats, and Gordon urges Crane to stay put until police protection can arrive. It is at this point that Bruce Wayne, exhibiting disinterest, empties his pipe and exits.

The action cuts to Crane's house where he is brutally shot by some thug. As the thug escapes out the window onto the roof, he and his partner are met with the first image the world ever saw of Batman, or “The Bat-Man,” as Finger styles it. The hero quickly dispatches both thugs and snatches the paper recently stolen from Crane's house. Upon reading the purloined document, he speeds away in a red sedan. Yeah, just some random car. Can you image driving along a road and seeing Bat-Man behind the wheel?

Paul Rogers, the second of the business partners, visits Alfred Stryker, the last of the business associates of the murdered chemical king. Stryker's assistant, Jennings, wallops Rogers on the back of the head, ties him up, and informs the injured man that he is going to kill him with nerve gas used to experiment on guinea pigs. As the glass dome comes down, Bat-Man enters the scene. He throws himself into the dome, seals the incoming gas with a handkerchief (would that even help?), then breaks the glass dome, freeing both him and Rogers. With little effort, Bat-Man takes out Jennings right before Stryker himself arrives.

And the villain is revealed to be Stryker. As explained by Bat-Man, Stryker had agreed to pay his three former associates an annual fee, but with the three of them dead, not only would Stryker own the entire company, but he could keep all the money. With his plan revealed, Stryker draws a gun to kill the hero, but Bat-Man wallops him over a railing and down into the vat of acid. "A fitting end for his kind," mutters Bat-Man in a vein likely normal in Depression-era pulp stories but seems rather cavalier from here in the 21st Century.

The story wraps up with Bruce Wayne and Gordon again chatting until the last frame when it is revealed Bruce Wayne is secretly...The Bat-Man.

As a debut, it’s got all the ingredients necessary to whet the reading appetites of kids and adults in 1939, especially the tag ending. It would have been something if the modern convention of splash pages were in effect back then because the reveal could have been the last page. As it was, it was merely the last frame on the page. It also makes you glad that Bill Finger re-worked Bob Kane's original idea for the character--primarily a red suit--into the dark image of The Bat-Man. Still, this kind of character begs for a second and third adventure and we’ve gotten a monthly installment of Batman ever since. Stop and ponder that for a moment: For something like 950 months in a row, we have had at least one Batman story each month, with many months—especially in the 1990s when four Bat-titles were published—more than one. That’s a seriously incredible feat.

The one question I’d love to have ask Bill Finger was why this particular story from The Shadow was used? For debuts, it’s best to put out the best possible story. Did Finger think this was the best? Did he not yet have a handle on the character? Only a reading of the new few issues will reveal the answer, something I’m doing in these next few weeks.

The Shadow: Partners in Peril

Well, it took a while, but I finally read my first Shadow novel.*

I think like most of us, I’ve known about The Shadow for a long time. I first discovered him back in the late 70s when my parents purchased some old-time radio episodes on cassette to listen to on vacations. Ten years later, some of those episodes were broadcast on local Houston AM radio on Sunday nights and I’d listen to them as I returned back to college in Austin. And I’d even began collecting the wonderful reprints by Vintage Library to say nothing of some of the comic adaptations. Actually, up until now, the only time I’d encountered The Shadow in print was the two times he guest-starred in Batman comics (my reviews here and here).

Interestingly, it was because of Batman that I first wanted to read PARTNERS IN PERIL. The good folks a Vintage packaged PARTNERS along with LINGO and commissioned a couple of article about how PARTNERS and The Shadow influenced Bill Finger and Bob Kane to create Batman. The historian in me always gravitated to the historical commentary before I read the stories, and this collection is fantastic with not only historical commentary by Will Murray and Anthony Tollin but an introduction by Jerry Robinson, co-creator of Robin and the Joker. But today, the focus is on this November 1936 story.

Reed Harrington calls the police with a desperate situation: he’s been marked for death at midnight. For over a week, Harrington has tried to evade the mysterious caller, but every time, the mystery man finds him. With no one else to turn to, Harrington asks the police for help. Detective Joe Cardona is assigned the case and he’s there in the room when Harrington receives a call just before midnight…and falls dead! In short order, Arnold King arrives at the dead man’s apartment with the same incredible story. What links these two men? Well, they both were former partners of the Milcote Chemical Corporation. Armed with police protection, King holes up and waits…until he, too, falls dead. King dies of electrocution; Harrington of poison.

Enter: The Shadow. He directs his agents to discover the identity of other partners of the company and land on three: Simon Todd, Thomas Porter and his son, Ray. But what complicates the mystery is that Harrington, King, and the two Porters all are former partners of the chemical company. Who would want them dead? Perhaps it is sinister agents of a foreign power out to discover the secret formula for the new chemical weapon created for the United States to use in the next war.  Perhaps it’s something else, but you know before you even read the first word that The Shadow will emerge triumphant.

THOUGHTS

First of all, I really enjoyed this story. I liked how the action played fairly quick and straight. I have since learned that the author of PARTNERS wasn’t Walter Gibson but Theodore Tinsley. In fact, PARTNERS is Tinsley’s first Shadow novel. I read he studied Gibson’s writing style and aimed to achieve a certain verisimilitude with the prose. Today, I can’t say if he did, but the prose flowed well. An aspect of the writing that was likely a product of the times was the omniscient narrator where you rarely got into the characters heads, much less The Shadow. That was likely intentional because Tinsley has us readers (and certain characters) witnessing a thing only to reveal later that The Shadow had already performed a different task. It was very much like the movie serials of the time.

Speaking of The Shadow himself, I enjoyed his disguises and his ability to blend into his surroundings. He appeared both as a young and old workman and Tinsley treated us readers to a classic sly wink as the disguised hero vacated a scene just as another character paused and frowned in odd recognition. A surprising aspect of The Shadow’s character was when he constantly seemed to be five steps ahead of events. Like Sherlock Holmes who knew, for example, the villain in the The Hound of the Baskervilles before he even left London yet sent Watson on errands anyway. The Shadow did the same thing with his team which consisted of Burbank, a man who communicated the plans to other agents, reporter Clyde Burke, and Harry Vincent, who acts as The Shadow’s second-hand man. Ironically, just like Doc Savage’s compadres, Vincent gets himself in trouble and The Shadow has to rescue him, but Vincent proves an able partner.

I listened to PARTNERS from a new all-cast recording up on Audible. It was fantastic and I got a definite old-time radio vibe. There were no sound effects,  but there was soft jazz music at the end of each chapter. A funny aspect of the narrator was his slight pause every time “The Shadow” was mentioned in prose. Another note on the recording: they edited out much of the attribution. Since I had the hard copy and there was a particularly great action sequence, I marked it to re-read and study. It was then, while the audio was playing in my ears, that I noticed they were leaving out some words. As an avid audiobook listener, I wish other productions would do the same thing.

I thoroughly enjoyed PARTNERS IN PERIL and I’ll be quickly moving on to more Shadow novels. THE SHADOW UNMASKS is the only other full-cast recording while THE VOODOO MASTER and THE BLACK FALCON are narrated traditionally.

*P.S. In 2018, I’m reading mindfully and part of that is to read more of what I already own. Ironic timing, then, when I open up the hard copy to mark the passage I mentioned above only to find the receipt. I checked the date: 14 January 2009. I finished PARTNERS  on 14 January 2018. Nice serendipity.

Batman and The Shadow Meet Again: Batman 259

[This post originally was published in July 2016]

Nearly a calendar year after Batman 253, Batman 259 landed in the spinner racks across America in December 1974. Denny O’Neil is again the writer. The artists, whom I failed to note, are also the same: Irv Novick and Dick Giordano. The opening splash page shows a shoot-out with three hoodlums, a shadow in the shape of The Shadow, and a nurse, a gentleman in a suit, and a young boy. Breathlessly, O’Neil warns young readers that they haven’t opened the wrong magazine. “The Caped Crusader is in this scene! But you may not recognize him…because the event you are witnessing occurred a quarter of a century ago.” The gentleman turns out to be Thomas Wayne; the boy is his son, Bruce. The hoods are making their way off with the Starlight Tiara. The unsuspecting civilians walk into the escape and the nurse trips and falls. In the process, the nurse rips off the bandana from one of the hoods. It’s Willy Hank Stamper, the Boy Genius of Crime [doncha just love all the extras to characters back then?]. Just as Stamper is about to shoot her, Thomas Wayne leaps into action. He knocks Stamper away. A shootout ensues and Thomas, Bruce, and the nurse huddle on the floor. There, young Bruce is traumatized by the gunshots. The Shadow triumphs, Stamper is put in jail, but the scars in young Bruce remain.

In a quick two pages, we see Stamper in jail, the murder of Bruce’s parents, and the appearance of the dread Batman. (I always loved that O’Neil used “dread” as an adjective to describe Batman.) After a brief conversation between Batman and Commissioner Gordon—where the cop questions why Batman never uses a gun—Batman as Bruce goes to visit Mildred, the nurse from the opening panel. It’s just at the right time, too. She’s in her wheelchair on the roof of her old folks’ home. Stamper is there! So is Swofford, the jeweler, holding a large jewelry box. A quick fight ensues, but Stamper gets away because Swofford suffers a heart attack and dies. Interestingly, the box of jewels disappears right under Batman’s nose. Hmmm…

The next evening, at the Rare Gem Exhibit, the Starlight Tiara is on display. Bruce Wayne expects Stamper to strike. Instead, there’s a note that claims the Tiara is a fake. Upon closer inspection, it’s true! Suddenly, that peculiar laughter fills the loud speaker. Bruce knows that laugh. He also understands the message: “It will end where it began!” Now, Bruce heads back to the same building as the opening panel. The Swofford jewelry shop is now a dilapidated mannequin store. Batman walks in. Stamper’s there, of course, but he has no quarrel with Batman. Nonetheless, the Dark Knight Detective leaps into action. Stamper shoots at him, and then there’s an odd thing. Batman/Bruce has a flashback to that night 25 years ago. Again, he’s like the young Bruce who was traumatized by the gunshots. It freezes him as he remembers. Stamper’s about to shoot Batman when The Shadow’s laughter interrupts the action. Batman is snapped out of his fright and takes out Stamper.

Now, I’ll admit that in this day and age, Batman is all but a super man. He can do no wrong and has thought things out ten steps ahead of everyone. His brain is his super power. However, one of the things I still enjoy about Batman in the 1970s is that he’s still a man. He has the occasional moments like this. It humanizes him. So this scene worked for me.

The issue ends with Batman and The Shadow talking. The Shadow offers Batman a gift of a gun. Batman refuses. The Shadow points out that the box Swofford [where does O’Neil get these names?] was carrying had a hidden compartment. In there was the real Tiara. Lastly, Batman asks the obvious question: “You know my real identity.” That was the implication from their first adventure in issue 253, but it’s out in the open now. The Shadow assures Bruce that the secret is safe with him. The Shadow disappears into the night. Batman/Bruce laments that he didn’t get a chance to thank him. “He’s freed me from a dread [see the nice counter-use of the word here?] I didn’t realize I had.” O’Neil ends the issue with a text box: “The Batman does not fail…and neither does The Shadow.”

Overall, this is another excellent issue with these two heroes. It makes you really want to have more adventures with these two characters. Too bad that never came to pass. The last panel is a simple box: “We dedicate this story to the memory of our friend Bill Finger.” The co-creator of Batman died in January 1974. Back then, I think only a few knew of Finger’s contributions to the Batman mythos. Now, it’s generally acknowledged that the character we know today as Batman is the way he is largely as a result of Bill Finger. Glad he got his nod.

One more thing: This issue is one of the 100-page issues. DC would write a new story for the featured character and then fill in the rest of the pages with reprints. This way, they could charge $0.60. It was a bargain! In the days before trade paperback collections, this was the best (only?) way for young readers like I was to read the older stories. There would also be special features, like “The Strange Costumes of Batman” in this issue. Best of all for someone of my age, this issue had the new Saturday Morning Schedule for CBS. It was a two-page spread of all the new shows and the times. Back when cartoons and kids’ programming was relegated to Saturday mornings, I would often look for current issues and hope they had a spread like this one. Granted, 1974 was a little ahead of my time, but it is still good to have a peek at what CBS thought kids would like. Good times, huh?

When Batman Met The Shadow: Batman 253

[This post was originally published on another blog in July 2016] As much as I love and enjoy continuity and canonization of material in comics, I also appreciate the more free and open days of the past. Nowadays, DC Comics controls Batman so much that EVERYthing he does is canon and must align with every other book being published. The same is true for just about every other property published in comics nowadays. It’s great because we typically get great titles and stories, but the chances that characters from two universes meet can be pretty low.

Not so in the early 1970s. Batman was enjoying a dark renaissance after the comedic turn he took in the 1960s in both comic and on television. Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams had taken the Dark Knight back to the night and returned him to the atmospheric stories from the 1940s. By 1973, DC had earned the right to publish a new series featuring the pulp hero The Shadow. Denny O’Neil was the writer of that series as well. So I bet it was a no-brainer to have the two dark detectives meet.

Batman 253 was the result. These were the years where Batman’s typical rogues gallery was off-limits to writers, so Batman would face bad guys that were a whole lot less colorful but no less deadly. In this story, titled, “Who Knows What Evil?”, Batman tracks some goons to the docks. I got a huge chuckle and thrill with the opening text of the story: “It is a dark time at Gotham Freight Yards, when dawn is no more than a distant promise…a time when furtive men do furtive things…and when the Batman moves like an avenging wraith.” Pure pulp goodness.

No sooner does Batman take out the goons than one nearly gets the drop on him. But a bullet from the shadows knocks the gun out of the goon’s hand and Batman survives. He hears laughter, “coming from everywhere…and nowhere.” That’s his first clue. Alfred helps Batman figure out that the counterfeiters are based out of Arizona, Tumbleweed Crossing to be exact. Bruce Wayne arrives by bus—yeah, you read that correctly—and gets a room at the local hotel run by an old geezer named Bammy. No sooner does Bruce arrive than a gang of young hoodlums in dune buggies zoom through the town. The slang O’Neil writes for both the youngsters and Batman is so charmingly late 60s/early 70s. Again, after Batman learns that the hoodlums got bribed with “Fool’s money,” he hears the laughter again. Now, he starts to think it may be “Him.”

Later, at the hotel dining room, Bruce meets Lamont Cranston, complete with gray hair on the temples. Bruce doesn’t know of Cranston’s alter ego, but a remark from Cranston is the last clue Bruce needs. Here, in another charming note that’s now gone from comics, there’s a little yellow box: “Bruce [Batman] Wayne seems to have cracked the case! Have you?” It allowed young readers to be detectives. Love this. Still later, toward the end of the book, another clue is revealed. The editor wrote a note with the page and panel number. Sure enough, the clue was there. Wonderful stuff! As you’d expect, Batman travels to the counterfeiter’s hideout and fights them. And, in a very Robin-like move, Batman gets ink thrown in his face. His mysterious benefactor rescues him again, then leaves a note to meet back in Gotham the next night. They do, and The Shadow reveals himself. Basically, Batman is a huge fan and just wants to shake the hand of the old pulp hero. The Knight of Darkness, on the other hand, wanted to know if the Dark Knight deserved his reputation. He did.

As the Shadow melts into the night, Batman asks if the Shadow will come out of retirement. You know what the Shadow’s reply is before you even read it: “That…only the Shadow knows!”

 This was such a fun issue. It lead directly into the Shadow comic series. The two heroes would meet again in Batman 259…but that’s a review for a different day.