Anyone who can add two and two, and come up with an answer that’s in the neighborhood of four wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Batman owes a lot to the most famous pulp crimefighter of them all: The Shadow. Both are great detectives who combine the scientific approach with the physical; both are rich guys who hide their criminological skills behind the mask of man-about-town (at least, that’s one of The Shadow’s disguises); and both work in a city that’s constructed of shadows and shrieks in the night.
But if you want to see just how much Batman owes to The Shadow, pick up a copy of Nostalgia Venture’s reprint edition of two pulp novels: THE SHADOW: LINGO / PARTNERS OF PERIL, now available as a “Foreshadowing the Batman” variant special. The book also includes a short story from a 1937 issue of THE WHISPERER magazine, and essays by Jerry Robinson and pulp expert Will Murray.
The first novel included is called LINGO, and it’s a pretty good one by usual SHADOW scribe Walter B. Gibson, using the standard “Maxwell Grant” house name. In it, The Shadow creates concocts fake mobster gangs in order to confuse and destroy real ones. Villainous Lingo Queed climbs the ladder of evil until he overreaches himself by trying to trap and eliminate The Shadow.
The story’s only real difficulty lies in the introduction of too many criminal characters too quickly. They are barely distinguishable as individuals, and Gibson doesn’t help us figure out who’s who by giving them interchangeable monikers like Trip, Rook, Ping, Bart, Karl, Buzz, Prexy, Blitz, Donner, Dancer and Prancer. Okay, just kidding with the last three, but you get my point. Maybe Gibson was telling us that all gangsters are the same. Or maybe he was just running through an off-the-cuff list of bad-guy nicknames.
The surprises for Bat-fans come in the second novel, PARTNERS OF PERIL, which is about a series of murders as partners in a chemical syndicate are bumped off one by one. Sound familiar? Yeah, I can hear the yelping from Bat-maniacs who thought that plot was original when it was called “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate” and appeared as Batman’s first adventure in DETECTIVE COMICS #27 in May 1939. Sorry, guys. The Shadow yarn is from November 1937.
Roy Thomas gives a blurb to the reprint’s back cover: “We always knew that Batman was inspired by The Shadow — we just didn’t know how much he was inspired by The Shadow.”
Look, there must be hundreds of borrowings from the pulps in early hero comics. Superman got the Fortress of Solitude from Doc Savage, and Batman got the idea for the Bat-signal from The Phantom Detective. Cross-pollination in pop culture is as normal as a hangover on Jan. 1. “My first script,” Batman writer Bill Finger once freely admitted, “was a take-off of a Shadow story.” It just took a long time for someone to come along who knew enough about both characters to figure out at which story Finger was pointing.
And this might be the biggest shock for Shadow fans: PARTNERS OF PERIL, fine inspiration that it was for Finger and artist Bob Kane, wasn’t written by Gibson. It was actually the first of several pinch-hits for Theodore Tinsley, who also wrote that extra short story in this volume. It’s called “The Grim Joker” and is about a clown-faced killer. Jerry Robinson, who created Batman’s Joker, says in his essay that he had no idea that Tinsley’s Joker existed, and there’s no reason not to believe him. The idea of an evil clown has to be about 60 seconds newer than the idea of a funny one.
So, if you missed this volume in the ongoing series of SHADOW reprints and you’re a Batman fan, you’ve got to buy it this time around. If you like The Shadow’s version of the chemical syndicate murders, you’ll be pleased that Finger and Kane were inspired by the best. If you don’t like it, you’ll be even more pleased that they improved on it so well. —Doug Bentin
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• THE SHADOW: CRIME, INSURED / THE GOLDEN VULTURE by Walter B. Gibson
• THE SHADOW: THE CHINESE DISKS / MALMORDO by Maxwell Grant
• THE SHADOW: THE DEATH GIVER by Maxwell Grant
• THE SHADOW: HIDDEN DEATH by Maxwell Grant
Related posts:
- The Shadow: The Chinese Disks / Malmordo
- The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril
- BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS >> Direct from the Death Cloud Peril
- The Shadow: Crime, Insured / The Golden Vulture
- Q&A with CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL’s Paul Malmont
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I was never really a fan of the Joker, but always loved The Shadow stories. I think Gibson tried to confuse the readers with so many names at times. Or maybe it was some of his slight of hand magic.
When I tell people that at one time I collected Old Time Radio Shows, they invariably ask, “Oh, do you have The Shadow?” It’s one of those classic series that still leaves its adventurous mark on people’s minds. I’m glad to see a renewed interest in pulp characters.
The first radio play I ever heard was “The Shadow,” in a fifth-grade class in 1981. I still remember that intro.