Pulp-Powered Comics: Howard Chaykin's The Shadow: Blood & Judgment

The character of the Shadow was one of my first links to the world of pulp fiction. I became a huge fan of the character when central Iowa radio station WHO started playing the old radio serials irregularly between 9 and 10 p.m. Already a superhero fan, I quickly took to the Shadow even though, thanks to Ron Fortier’s comic at Now, I was more familiar with the characters in the Green Hornet episodes they also played. The movie would soon come out and continue my fandom. But the Shadow’s days in comic were pretty much past already (not counting one or two Dark Horse issues).

It wasn’t until the last couple months that I finally stumbled across a copy of Howard Chaykin’s 1986 Shadow miniseries. Published at the height of DC’s move to edgier material (the same year as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen), it strived to do something few would ever dare to do. It brought the Shadow in to the eighties.

In the process, Chaykin finally gave the Shadow a detailed origin. Though it feels more than a little clipped from the Green Lama’s background, the origin works perfectly to explain both where Kent Allard received his powers and why he assumed the name of Lamont Cranston.

We meet the older versions of his classic forties sidekicks, some of which quickly die. Harry Vincent and Margo Lane would still play prominent roles as would Harry’s daughter, a thoroughly modern woman proved a little more old-fashioned than she thinks by the Shadow.

The “Suggested for Mature Readers” title charged the Shadow with more sex and violence than even his old pulps allowed while still crafting an entertaining tale of the classic character reborn.

Sadly, the follow up series would quickly derail the character’s modern day take. The character fell in to the trap of being violent for violence’s sake while not giving enough Shadow to really please the classic fans. Not even art from the likes of Bill Sienkiewicz and Kyle Baker could save it. The Shadow would disappear for a while from DC comics before being relaunched in a new forties-era series called The Shadow Strikes.

Nonetheless, Chaykin’s “Blood & Judgment” is worth a read. Give it a looksy if you can find it in a used book store or comic shop. Recommended.

Pulp Month Presents Tarzan Tuesday: Super-Crossovers!

When Dark Horse picked up the Tarzan license in the mid-nineties, they immediately set out to make him a franchise player with the company. They met with limited success. But one thing they did manage to do was create some great crossovers.

Tarzan’s first Dark Horse comic apparance actually came in a crossover: Tarzan versus Predator At the Earth’s Core. Written by Walter Simonson and drawn by Lee Weeks, the story serves as a sequel to the thirteenth novel, Tarzan at the Earth’s Core. This means the plot can be somewhat dense with characters not know to the casual observer, but I still found it a great deal of fun when I read it as a teenager (having never read a Tarzan novel). It holds up quite well even today, though I would say it’s one weakness actually falls in to the crossover territory. The Predators play a minimal role in the overall story, although this probably works for the best to let the true villains of the tale shine. Mildly Recommended.

Batman / Tarzan: Claws of the Catwoman is one of my personal favorite comics. Ron Marz and Igor Kordey teamed up to produce a great book with some amazing twists. Basically we get an Elseworlds version of Batman sometime in the early twentieth century as he meets the traditional Tarzan. They come together after an expedition sponsored by Bruce Wayne is exposed as a looting. The person who exposes it is a cat-garbed thief, but this Catwoman is nothing like Selina Kyle. The adventure quickly leads Batman, Tarzan, and Catwoman in to the jungles where they face the looter Finnegan Dent as he tries to return for the rest of his fortune. The Elseworlds twists play out perfectly over the course of the series, and Kordey may be the ideal Tarzan artist. All in all Batman / Tarzan: Claws of the Catwoman is great comics. Strongly Recommended.

The last of these stories releaed in real time is Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle by Chuck Dixon and the late Carlos Meglia. Unlike Batman/Tarzan, they produce an Elseworlds for both characters. John Greystoke never gets lost in the jungle. Instead a baby Kal-El is raised by apes. The tale focuses far more on Kal-El as he goes through the experiences shown in early Tarzan stories while John finds himself out of place in polite society. By the time the three issues end, both men are in Africa and fighting to save Jane Porter and Lois Lane from a certain evil empress. It’s failure is in not being as good as previous Superman as Tarzan tales. Sadly, Not Recommended.

The final collection we will cover today was actually nominated for a Harvey Award the year it arrived in stores. Originally printed as six issues of the ongoing Tarzan series from Dark Horse, Tarzan: Le Monstre would use Tarzan in a way quite similar to the later League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Through three two-part stories, Tarzan faces off with the Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Writer Lovern Kindzierski clearly knows how to tie these stories together and makes this level of meta-fiction look easy. The art team of Stan Manoukian and Vince Roucher bring the intricate style they used previously on Dark Horse’s Shadow comics to the architecture of Paris. This comic is a joy to behold and an even better read. Strongly Recommended.

Sadly, while Dark Horse still holds the Tarzan license, they have done little with the character in the past few years outside classic comics reprints. Hopefully, this will change in the near future, as comic fans may be more responsive to the classic character than in past years. We will just have to wait and see.

Pulp-Powered Prose: Tales of the Shadowmen volume one

Created by J.-M. & Randy Lofficier to revive classic French pulp heroes, Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 1: The Modern Babylon is an English language pulp anthology. Strange it seems at first, until you realize it is meant as a tie in to their two books Shadowmen, which give the history of these characters in details. But I digress, this is about Tales, so let’s focus on it.

The first thing you see is an excellent cover by Mike Manley featuring Judex, something of a French version of the Shadow (though he appeared years before the American character), and Frankenstein's Monster. The illustration clearly comes from Matthew Baugh’s opening tale “Mask of the Monster”. The story gets the anthology off to an exciting, action-packed start while introducing me (and I am sure many others) to some new classic characters.

Bill Cunningham continues the excitement with his story of an obscure pulp figure of France, Fascinax, in “Cadavres Exquis”. The story is another Shadow-esque riff, but it takes the character and puts him through hell as he faces his arch-foe Numa Pergyll.

The next high light is Wold Newton grandmaster Win Scott Eckert’s “The Vanishing Devil”. It takes French pulp character Francis Ardan and makes his similarities to Doc Savage more than just similarities. He is clearly Clark Savage, although Win always slides just a step away from saying it out right (probably do to copyright issues). He goes on a rip-roaring French adventure that puts him up against Yellow Peril villian Doctor Natas, a character Eckert makes clear is actually Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu. And this still isn’t the craziest bit of crossover storytelling this book has!

The editors write “Journey to the Center of Chaos”, a story combining H.P. Lovecraft created characters with an entire band of obscure characters, including the rather strange Sar Dubnotal. And of course a Cthulhu Mythos horror manages to pop up its evil head.

Two tales of Edgar Allen Poe’s original detective (and Frenchman) C. Augustine Dupin follow. Samuel T. Payne’s “Lacunal Visions” is somewhat disappointing. John Peel’s “The Kind-Hearted Torturer” is a much more entertaining and well written affair as the detective teams up with none other than the Count of Monte Cristo.

Chris Roberson does give us the story even stranger than Eckert’s with “Penumbra”. Framed around a French silent film from 1915 called Les Vampires, it stars the same director’s Judex. As he seeks to uncover the origins of the vampires, he encounters one Kent Allard, later the similarly attired Shadow. He also meets a young couple named the Waynes, Thomas and Martha. In the process you get a secret of a certain caped crusader’s origin that is only possible in a Wold Newton book such as this.

The book closes with Brian Stableford’s “The Titan Unwrecked”, a story starring Allan Quatermain, Ayesha, Dracula, and numerous literary and business figures of the turn of the century. Bad things start happening and things get almost as crazy as “Penumbra”.

A few more lesser stories round out the book, but even these so-so tales at least feature some truly unique figures. The writers really do cover the spectrum of pulp figures from obscure to quite common.

All in all, this book is a fun and exciting bit of pulp fiction. Though it’s a little pricy for a trade paperback at $22.95, I would say it was definitely worth it. Strongly Recommended.