Comics / Comics News

Wagner Takes on The Shadow for Dynamite

By Philip Schweier
January 22, 2013 - 15:42

Matt Wagner

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Ask Matt Wagner, who is writing The Shadow: Year One, an eight-issue series from Dynamite Entertainment. Wagner has written other pulp-based material such as Green Hornet: Year One (also from Dynamite) and DC Comics’ Sandman Mystery Theater.

“My history with The Shadow goes way back,” Wagner told ComicBookResources.com. “I first heard "The Shadow" when I was about 12 or 13 in the mid '70s. At that point, several companies had reissued the original radio shows on LP vinyl.”

A sample of Jim Steranko's pulp-style Shadow covers

Around the same time, DC Comics published a series featuring the work of Denny O’Neil and Mike Kaluta, and Pyramid Books started publishing some of the pulp novels in paperback featuring covers by Jim Steranko. “I really, really lapped that up. I grew to love The Shadow. Here was this dark and mysterious character that seemed to embody all the motifs I loved about Batman and Zorro and a host of other characters. I didn't realize at the time that The Shadow was a precursor of that archetype.”

Wagner goes on to say that due to prior commitments, he was unable to work on the character when Dynamite first obtained the rights. Once his schedule loosened up, he was able to make a pitch to Dynamite publisher Nick Barrucci.

Walter Gibson, who wrote most of the original pulp stories in the 1930s and ‘40s, revealed The Shadow was in World War I and lived in the Orient for a while and worked for the Czar in Russia. “But there was never a story about how he came back to America and took up his fight against crime. About how he took on this costumed persona as the Shadow. That's the story I'm going to tell, and I couldn't be happier.”

Wagner told CBR that his story is greatly informed by the pulp version and follows that motif, but also incorporates elements from Howard Chaykin’s Blood and Judgement, a four-issue series published by DC Comics in the 1980s, as well as Garth Ennis’ story published last year by Dynamite. “So I'm distilling a bunch of elements into one,” Wagner said.

The first Shadow magazine was published in 1931, and Wagner’s story is set in 1929. “I figured there had to be some specific threat that brought him back. America was already in the midst of Prohibition, and that was slowly coming towards its end. So I have Cranston first setting foot on American soil the day after the stock market crash, which came to be called 'Black Tuesday.' I figured the combination of Prohibition and financial hardship and desperation of the impending Great Depression would be the perfect setup for this great wave of crime that would call him back to the States.”

The Prohibition-era setting naturally implies gangsters will be the bad guys, but Wagner also promises the debut of major criminal mastermind. “The supervillain has to be equally a mystery as The Shadow himself. And I'll say straight up front, it will not be Shiwan Khan. He's just the most overused villain in the character's long history, so I have a brand new villain who will be unveiled slowly. That's another factor that brings him back to the States. He's been chasing this villain since even before he was the Shadow we now know.”

The series is drawn by Wilfredo Torres, and will feature covers from the likes of Alex Ross, Howard Chaykin, Chris Samnee and Wagner himself.

The Shadow: Year One #1 ships this February from Dynamite Entertainment.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12