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The Shadow: Year One #1 Second Opinion

By Leroy Douresseaux
February 21, 2013 - 09:46

The Shadow: Year One, image of Cover A by Matt Wagner

The Shadow began as a mysterious radio narrator.  Then, pulp writer Walter B. Gibson fully developed the character into the one we know, the mysterious crime-fighting vigilante with psychic powers.  The Shadow became a pop culture icon.  The character is no stranger to comics, having debuted in a daily newspaper comic strip in 1940 and also starring in a comic book series that ran during the 1940s, entitled Shadow Comics.

In 2012, Dynamite Entertainment returned The Shadow to comic books with a new regular series.  Dynamite’s latest release is The Shadow: Year One, a new miniseries from writer Matt Wagner and artist Wilfredo Torres.

The Shadow: Year One #1 opens in Cambodia, 1929.  Chanda, a young gang member, runs to his cousin for aid.  It seems his boss, the fearsome warlord, Kai-Pang, has been killed by “a dark spirit… thirsting for vengeance.”  Now, that spirit wants Chanda.

Later, on October 30, 1929, the wealthy, world traveler and adventurer, Lamont Cranston, arrives by ship in New York City.  A young reporter’s interest is piqued by Cranston’s return to America.  Meanwhile, Margo Lane, a kept woman, is having a disagreement with her keeper, New York-based criminal and hood, Guiseppe “Joe” Massaretti.  Margo and Joe’s relationship is about to bring The Shadow out of the shadows.

THE LOWDOWN:   For a time, I was a huge fan of The Shadow.  I read Howard Chaykin’s four-issue miniseries, The Shadow (DC Comics), several times.  Chaykin, who provides one of four covers for the first issue of The Shadow: Year One, created a very popular re-imagining (before that word was used) of The Shadow.  Eventually collected as The Shadow: Blood and Judgment, Chaykin’s miniseries was also controversial.

Whereas Chaykin’s The Shadow was flashy, crazy, sexy, cool and maybe just a tad bit aggressive and in-your-face, The Shadow, as drawn by Wilfredo Torres, is quiet and smooth.  Torres’ art is straight from the David Mazzuchelli school of comics-as-Film-Noir, but this is a low-budget Film-Noir, with straight-ahead camera work.  It’s no frills, just meat-and-potatoes, as if the camera just stands still and shoots what is in front of it.

Matt Wagner’s script offers intriguing tidbits throughout, but he writes a first issue that is frustratingly and mostly set-up.  This is barely a prologue.  The way this story is presented seems to suggest that the actual story hasn’t really started.  Will this series turn out to be good?  I’ll put my money on Wagner to deliver quality, if not excellent, work.  But for now, this first issue is so much cock-tease.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Fan of The Shadow will want to try The Shadow: Year One.

 

Rating: 8.5 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12