Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men

Daniel Chan, has written, in Cheap Thrills – Darwinism, barbarism, eugenics and swashbuckling, (Off the Edge 48) his usual brilliant article, this time concerning the old Pulp magazines (so called because the paper they were printed on, was cheaply made out of wood pulp paper).

Due to the sheer brilliance of Daniel’s piece, and the depth of information he had included on those Pulp heroes he had written about, I had read it through before I realised that not one mention was made of the Pulps being a precursor to American comic books. Neither was there a mention of one of the most famous Pulp heroes – The Shadow, whose stories featured in radio shows, films, books, magazines and comic books.

While many other outstanding characters emerged from the Pulps, many of which Daniel has named, few were to have such an ongoing impact into modern American popular culture than The Shadow.

The Shadow is rumoured to be the creation of one Walter B. Gibson. Emerging as an eerie narrator from a very popular detective radio series - Detective Hour (American radio, 1930) in 1931 The Shadow was given a Pulp magazine which lasted for eighteen years, and was to have many writers. Five years later (1936) The Shadow was given his own radio series with The Shadow being played by a young, articulate, Orsen Wells - the show ran until 1954.

In 1938 a Shadow syndicated comic-strip began. This led to books, comic books, films, magazines etc. The shadow has been reprised many times since the 1930s, mostly in comic books, but one lack luster film was made in 1994 with Alec Baldwin starring, this chased previous films from 1937, 1938, 1940 and 1946.

The Shadow will be remembered by his by-line - "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh! The Shadow knows..." But The Shadow will also be remembered for influencing the style of another great detective, one who, like The Shadow, shies from the light and prefers the intimacy of shadows to strike fear into the hearts of men who do wrong– the dark knight himself – Batman.

In interviews with comic historians it has been revealed that Batman was originally written by writers who had worked on episodes of The shadow, and that one writer especially – Bill Finger, emulated The Shadow’s style to depict the Batman character. Stranger than that, in The Shadow (1939) story ‘Death's Harlequin’ there is a villain only known as Number One, from whom The Joker, Batman’s most infamous nemesis, may be derived.

Number One dresses in a clown's costume with wide white ruffles at the neck and large white buttons. "The thin lips were drawn away from skull-like teeth. The cheeks were sunken and leathery. Dank black hair lay matted thinly on a baldish scalp the color of old parchment. A living corpse in the costume of a gay Harlequin! With a wide-muzzled gun. And a jeering laugh that made the silence in the room crawl with menace." (The Shadow #173 "Death's Harlequin", Vol. 29, No. 5, Published: 01/05/39).

Stranger still - Theodore Tinsley who was involving in writing the ‘Death’s Harlequin’, Shadow story, was also writer of the very first Batman comic story.

Many Shadow enthusiasts claim that Batman could never fill the void left by The Shadow’s departure from popular culture, but this has not prevented people from continuing to allude to The Batman as The Shadow’s natural successor.

In the Batman comic, (no. 253 - Nov 1973), a story, appropriately called Who Knows What Evil--?, teams Batman and The Shadow working together against their common foe – wrong doers, further emphasising links between the two dark detectives. At one point during this comic book story, Batman faces The Shadow and says - “I’ve never told anyone this….but you were my greatest inspiration.”

It is a pity that Daniel Chan omitted The Shadow from his, otherwise, excellent article, especially as The Shadow has such poignant links to The Dark Knight and the on-going Joker/Batman mythos.