When Archie picked up the licence in 1963, they played it more or less straight for oneissue:
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Tales From The Quarter Bin--The Shadow of Riverdale?!?
There have been a lot of portrayals of The Shadow over the years...
...but none quite like the Archie Comics version!!
Wha...?
When Archie picked up the licence in 1963, they played it more or less straight for oneissue:
But it didn't take long for them to decide they would rather make it a super-hero comic than a pulp crime series:
And when Jerry Siegel took over as writer, well, all connection to the past sort of vanished, as the book tried harder and harder to look like Marvel comics of the day:
Hey, who needs powers of hypnosis and mind control and a blood-curdling laugh...
...when you can have utility belt gadgets and quips!
Hell, the book even mocked the very idea of the "old" Shadow:
Still, you can't argue with Shiwan Khan's death traps:
Archie's The Shadow ended after 8 issues, leaving a cliffhanger unresolved, and mankind will never know if he ultimately triumphed over the insidious Elasto!
When Archie picked up the licence in 1963, they played it more or less straight for oneissue:
The family that owns Archie Comics also owned paperback publisher Belmont Books, which licensed The Shadow for a series of new novels under the Maxwell Grant name!
ReplyDeleteWalter Gibson wrote the first one in classic 1940s pulp style, but Dennis Lynds, who replaced him for the rest of the run went for a combo of the radio version of the character set present-day (1960s) in the James Bond/Man from U.N.C.L.E. world of spies and way-out gadgetry!
http://atocom.blogspot.com/2013/09/pow-thwok-biff-holy-heroes-its-shadow.html
DC's Shadow series also had a "dead end" cliffhanger and was one of my favorites from the late 80's. Miss Helfer's take on the character and his supporting cast. It was very off-beat.
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