David Liss &
Colton Worely “The Shadow Now” (Dynamite, 2015)
I’m going to assume that you know some general things about
the Shadow. Pulp character, maybe the
first “dark knight”, knows what evil lurks, etc etc…
The twist on this run is that it’s a setup to tell stories
with the Shadow in modern times. As the
story opens he’s recently returned from the far east (where he’s gone for some
mystical spa – he’s now a young man).
His organization is betrayed & he loses everything…
Basically this is a big soft reboot on the whole Shadow
universe. The story brings him into the
modern era & sets him up for future stories. There’s quite a bit of play with the “man out
of time” motif, but without the humor that you may be used to seeing in that
trope.
Worely’s art tends towards the realist look that is often
used in Dynamite’s books. I like it,
although at times the dark palettes and heavy use of shadows made some details
get lost.
On the whole I’m not sure that this reboot really
works. Like so many pulp characters, the
Shadow has some problematic elements that are embedded deeply. These elements need to be addressed,
particularly if he’s going to be operating in the modern world.
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