Two week's notice

Today I set out for Freetown, Sierra Leone to begin a two-week mission there, hopefully helping to build a school. Blogging will probably be nil during this time. Stay out of trouble while I'm gone!

Bitter Fruit#6: "The Princess of Death"

As I head out the door, let's check in on the Shadow again; I left off during Archie's the Shadow#3. The back-up feature is "the Princess of Death." Look, an old friend is back:

Yes, behind that mask is Princess Lua, whom you'll recall from "Shiwan Khan's Murderous Master Plan! As you know, she's an Asian mercenary who was helping the CIA stop Shiwan Khan from activating a doomsday bomb. For some reason, the Shadow thought he had to belittle her, hit on her and brainwash her.

As you can see in the above, Lua has been masquerading as Margo Lane and even typed up a letter for Lamont before discarding her mask. Her, uh, mask which appears to be a flat piece of cardboard depicting Margo's face. And I suppose Lamont didn't notice her melanin is different from Margo's either?

Three of Lua's men enter the office and join their boss as she points a gun at Lamont. She reveals she's sent Margo and Shrevy away so they could have some privacy; she wants information on the Shadow. Lamont claims he knows nothing about the Shadow, but Lua observes the Shadow is always turning up in plots which involve Lamont. Lua's henchman Iko karate chops Margo's desk in half as a warning to Lamont.

Lua's other two men, Karl & Ali, set a time bomb for ten minutes after they leave the office. Lamont wonders "how can anyone as lovely as you be so evil?" Lua replies she's being paid by a "foreign power" to liquidate the Shadow and everything must go! She fires an anaesthetic needle into Lamont's back then orders her men to carry Lamont out of the building before the bomb explodes.

As they head down the staircase of Lamont's townhouse, suddenly Lamont springs into action, kicking the man ahead of him down the stairs. It turns out Lamont was wearing a bulletproof vest, so the needle had no effect. Lamont judo throws a second henchman, then switches off the lights. As Lua and her last henchman (Iko) look for Lamont, Lua remarks "He is as wily as the Shadow himself!" How can anyone as lovely as her be so dense?

Somehow, Lamont switches into his spandex Shadow costume between panels and climbs up in the banister in his "specially-treated rubber-soled shoes." Fancy dancy! Those super heroes and their improbable gadgets... The Shadow kicks Lua's gun from her hand then defeats Iko in hand-to-hand combat, declaring "What Iko knows about karate, I forgot!"

The Shadow leads Lua back into Lamont's office and demands to know who hired her; she refuses at first, but when he ties her up and places her own time bomb in her hands, she relents: it was the Boldavian Embassy. The Shadow calls up the FBI and a half hour later Lua is lead away to prison. As she departs, Lua remarks to Lamont she was right about thinking the Shadow keeps an eye on Lamont; he tells her she has years in prison to try and figure it out, but "only the Shadow really knows!"

As with the main feature, the Grand Comics Database attributes the story to writer Robert Bernstein and artist Paul Reinman. I do prefer Reinman's artwork over issues #1-2's art, but Bernstein's scripting remains unremarkable. After using Lua as an ally in her previous appearance, it seems wasteful to reduce her to another Cold War menace and considering what a terrible job Lamont does at separating he and the Shadow's activities, it's preposterous to think no one's guessed his secret. The Shadow's powers aren't employed at all in this story; Lamont could have defeated the villains without even changing his clothes.

The text feature "the Adventures of the Shadow" continues in this issue with chapter three, carrying on the story of how Lamont became the Shadow. It relates how after Lamont discovered he had the power to control minds he wondered what to do with it; while taking a boat from Egypt to Greece, he saw two men beating a third man on the deck of the ship; cutting up a tarp into a poncho, Lamont defended the victim and defeated his assailants; when asked who he was, he answered: "Only THE SHADOW knows!"

Review: Lackadaisy volume 1

For all my interest in comic books and comic strips, I have to confess the webcomic revolution has mainly passed me by; occasionally I find a series which seems interesting, but I find it hard to develop a keenness to check the site for the next installment and gaps between the arrival of new pages erode the momentum of the story for me.

However! Fairly recently an article at Comics Alliance alerted me to the existence of Tracy J. Butler's Lackadaisy, comparing the series to Blacksad. As an avid Blacksad, I was intrigued. After an afternoon spent reading the webcomic archive, I was hooked.

Set in 1927 St. Louis, Missouri, Lackadaisy is a speakeasy operated by Mitzi May, who inherited the establishment after her husband's death. However, the business has seen better days. Fast-talking and just barely competent, Rocky Rickaby is trying to help keep Lackadaisy's lights on, assuming the job of obtaining their illegal stash of alcohol. This places Rocky in the forefront of violence with rival establishments, which is a problem since Rocky is not a gunman - he's a violinist. Fortunately, Rocky's soft-spoken loyal cousin Calvin has an explosive dark side. Is that all you need to know?

Oh, right. They're all cats.

So far there's just one print volume of Lackadaisy; despite bearing a copyright notice dating back to 2006, there's only so much content in existence. The story being told within Lackadaisy moves at an interesting pace; lackadaisical, you might say (ha, ha! don't hurt me). By the end of volume one, about 48 hours have transpired for the cast; since then, the website has added perhaps 24 more?

Lackadaisy has a vast cast of characters and takes its time establishing them and their relationships to each other; as noted, the Lackadaisy establishment has a history, one which is gradually developed: there's just barely a few pages in which one character, the assassin Mordecai Heller appears, but he's established as a quirky, violent yet cultured man; Lackadaisy employee Ivy Pepper is presented as a fun, vivacious character... but there are hints to her troubled history with boyfriends who wind up in the hospital; band leader Zib just barely tolerates working with Rocky; Slovakian bartender Viktor Vasko is the one Lackadaisy character suited to the violent world they live in, but the years are catching up with him.

Although the comparison to Blacksad caught my eye, it was ultimately the series' dialogue which kept my attention; it would have been too easy to let myself glaze over the pages of material and just the strip's sequential storytelling chops first, but the clever wordplay demanded close attention; attempts at period dialogue run throughout the series, but Rocky receives special attention for his harried jabbering, occasionally pausing to wax poetic. Further, the voices of the many characters come through as distinct as their grammar reflects their class, upbringing or ethnicity.

While Blacksad populates its detective noir world with many types of animals, comparisons to Lackadaisy are no doubt encouraged because John Blacksad is himself a cat. Both series' use the funny animal characters in a period setting to help diffuse what could be much more bleak material. However, Blacksad is still a noir and an air of futility and failure infuses everything in Blacksad's world. While Lackadaisy does feature violence and its repercussions (repercussions are unavoidable thanks to the aforementioned gradual pace), primarily it's written for comedy. You know, for laughs, son. If I must compare Lackadaisy to another funny animal comic, I would prefer Usagi Yojimbo: both tell stories of drama and comedy side by side.

Considering Butler has revealed she didn't attend art school, I'm very impressed with the end result: she's no Rob Liefeld (although she has made the comparison). I'm fascinated by how she uses the unique body types provided by her cat people to reveal character. In the above image, note how Calvin's head and ears tilt back while he attempts to hide his face from Ivy. The postures characters adopt while speaking, the way they manipulate objects and how their faces contort all help to establish character, as much or moreso than the dialogue.

If Butler does have a failing, it's in the art of speech balloon placement. Although she has some interesting ideas about overlapping speech balloons to indicate voices being drowned out:

...She struggles with balloon placement in back & forth conversations such as this:

The balloons need to be closer to each other on the page or the reader will simply read all of Zib's balloons on the left before starting Rocky's balloons on the right.

This collected edition of Lackadaisy includes various bonus sketches and gag cartoons. The strips themselves are presented in sepia and run for 68 pages, usually featuring three rows of panels per page. Strangely, three rows per page is not the standard format in the website version - in fact, there is no standard format as many pages go beyond three rows. Consequently, some of the "beats" between pages play out differently in the collection than they did on the website, but it's something only a person who's read both would notice.

Lackadaisy. It cures what ails ya.

I Walked With a Xombi, Part 2 (of 2)

"...Please remember that being deeply weird is supposed to be FUN. You seem to think that weirdness makes a comic IMPORTANT. There's already a Vertigo out there; last time I saw him, there was already a Grant Morrison, too." - John Rozum, letters page of Xombi#2

Although Milestone was barely one year old by the time Xombi launched, already its fans had certain expectations about the super heroes who inhabited its shared universe. As the letters page of Xombi bears witness, many thought the adventures of David Kim did not belong on the Milestone label, repeatedly wondering why it hadn't been published with Vertigo. Frequent comparisons were drawn to Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, as you can see in the quote above.

What I have to say about shared universes might be the last thing you'd expect from a former Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe contributor. I feel within shared universes, even when the caretakers of said universes attempt to maintain consistency, the wonderful moments where multiple creators compliment each other's efforts are balanced by the frequent contradictory statements they make. But there is nothing offensive about this; when you consider the sheer number of extraterrestrial races, superhumans, hidden civilizations and advanced technology in every shared super hero universe, you realize no real universe could function this way. It's a good thing, then, that comic books are fictional, not real! The worst thing about the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe - before and during my involvement with it - is how it codifies what supposedly exists, robbing its world(s) of a sense of mystery.

After the careful and gradual universe building seen in other Milestone titles (many of the Milestone superhumans shared a common origin), some readers seemed unable to comprehend how quickly Xombi suggested a much larger universe living side-by-side with Icon, Static, Hardware and their friends. Not only does the foreground of "Silent Cathedrals" feature Sheer Shears, Rustling Husks, Lesion Dogs, the Garden of Spires, Carnivore Clouds, the Lord of Fumes, Nomatoads and Meat Man, but we only learn in passing of other weird characters inhabiting this world such as Trapeze, the "secret society of blind aerialists."

Those of you who came to super hero comic books since the rise of the super hero action movie phenomenon may be surprised to learn there was a time when heroes and villains need not shared common origins, nor even obey the same scientific principles. In fact, there was a time when super hero comic books had no particular structure in how they were maintained, it being left up to the talent of the creative people involved. Jack Kirby's one-time assistant Mark Evanier tells a story about how Kirby created the Black Racer for the New Gods and Evanier thought he convinced his boss to hold the character back for at least another issue and spend some time on the newly-introduced Metron instead. But after just two pages of drawing Metron, Kirby shrugged his shoulders and introduced the Black Racer.

It's this same love of creating for the sake of creating which permeates John Rozum & J.J. Birch's Xombi. Much as Bob Hope would tell his jokes quickly then move on to the next one to avoid dwelling on jokes which didn't work, Rozum & Birch's "Silent Cathdrals" introduces one bit of weirdness, then moves on to the next one. The caretakers have told us this isn't how you build a shared universe - there have to be rules and classifications within classifications. Rozum & Birch were under no illusions: they knew they were crafting a work of fiction. I believe their efforts produced heartfelt and genuine moments (some discussed in the previous blog entry), but primarily they were seeking to create, to have fun and to entertain others. There may be no "importance" behind the Carnivore Clouds, nor a need for the Sheer Shears to be the villains masterminding the latest super hero crossover; Xombi was a pure comic book, a throwback to the days before rules and expectations were institutionalized. Defy your sense of order and seek it out for yourself.

I Walked With a Xombi, Part 1 (of 2)

In 1994, John Rozum and J.J. Birch served up the comic book series Xombi, which survived for 22 issues (issue #0 + 1-21). It was briefly revived last year by Rozum with artist Frazer Irving for a mere six issues, which is where I first discovered it. Eager to learn more about the series' backstory and to learn whether the initial series was as fascinating as the latter, I recently purchased the original Xombi#0-6.

Xombi#0 actually doesn't belong with the other six issues - it was the first published issue of Xombi and explained the character's premise, but it was set chronologically at a point after issue #6. It served primarily to establish the hero, David Kim, and set him up within the Milestone Media comics universe (I didn't recognize any Milestone characters in issues #1-6). Arriving in stores six months before issue #1, the #0 issue was really just a teaser and featured Milestone founder Denys Cowan on art, rather than Birch.

This out of the way, let's look into "Silent Cathedrals," the six-part story which opens Xombi.

We meet middle-aged scientist David Kim as he welcomes his one-time student and protege Kelly Sanborne to work at Organitek; because Kelly is a woman and David is presently engaged to someone else, David's co-workers delight in teasing him about being involved with Kelly. The truth is, David and Kelly are immensely close friends, not lovers, but platonic friends in the truest sense.

Kim is developing "the Cabinet Beast," a nanotechnology device which can reshape organic materials into other substances (ie, paper can become chocolate). David doesn't think his work is particularly impressive, not compared to his collegue Gerald, who trains ants to perform in a miniature circus.

As you may have gathered, the world of Xombi is not quite ours and I haven't spoken of the man made from sausages or the ghosts of dead insects. In the course of issue #1, David is fatally wounded by creatures who are after his nanotechnology; Kelly saves his life by using the nanomachines to repair his cells. It works: not only are David's wounds healed, he becomes physically younger and his nearsighted vision is fixed. Unfortunately, the process requires raw materials and because Kelly was hugging David during the ordeal, trying to comfort him, the machines used her body for spare parts. David awakens to find Kelly's partially decomposed body next to him, in the story's most horrific visual.

In what follows, David sets after the creatures responsible for Kelly's death, soon discovering because of his rebuilt body, his nanomachines have rendered him unkillable. He soon finds allies, such as Catholic Girl (a Catholic schoolgirl who can fly by crossing herself, create a force field by chanting the Hail Mary and shoots energy beams through her rosary), Nun of the Above (Catholic Girl's superior, who can view people within a 30 mile radius), occultist Julian Parker and Rabbi Sinnowitz and his two Golems.

The latter characters are worth highlighting because I had met each of them in the 2011 Xombi series. There, I noticed not much effort was made to reintroduce the characters to newcomers, but looking back to "Silent Cathedrals," I see little was done to introduce them in the first place - like so many of the elements which emerge during the storyline, people like Catholic Girl simply are; from their dialogue, you quickly grasp they've been dealing with strangeness for some time (and thus readily accept David as their new ally), but you learn more about them from their following actions, rather than any exposition. In Xombi, weirdness seems to have always existed, it didn't originate with David and it certainly doesn't end with him.

Amidst the weirdness, Xombi reveals itself as a super hero story, a horror story and a comedy. You really must appreciate all three genres to have any hope of enjoying Xombi, but the fast-tracking narrative mostly encourages good-humour. For instance, there's the sequence in Xombi#3 where Julian and David are attacked in a library by "Sheer Shears," creatures with scissors instead of heads. Julian explains them thusly:

"The Sheer Shears. The best agents to send into a library. That book won't do you any good. You can't use books, or the ideas contained within, against them. Which is why magical spells are useless. Anything you've learned from reading is ineffective. Only the oral tradition is effective, because as everyone learns as a kid... scissors cut paper. But... rock smashes scissors."

Julian delivers this speech solemnly, but the entire concept is so absurd - and yet logical! - that his eventual solution was a laugh-out-loud moment for me. Perhaps your mileage varies?

Xombi's strengths do not entirely revolve around the weirdness. Probably the book's greatest asset - because of the quick pace, gigantic cast and aforementioned weirdness - is how Rozum develops his characters. Everyone, even the series' villain Dr. Sugarman possesses at least a quirk of some sort which makes them stand out. In issue #1, a security guard is introduced and killed in a single page, but Rozum spends the page developing the guard's personality and his love of composing poems while working; when the guard dies, we feel the tragedy of a human life snuffed out; he was not a faceless extra, we glimpsed something of the uniqueness in every human being.

One of David's earliest quirks is his fear of pain. Before he gains his powers, David is mocked by his co-workers about wincing when his blood is drawn. Even after become unkillable, David flinches at pain. It's no small thing for David to break his arm because he reacts like a human being whose arm has just been broken. Compare this to comicdom's most famous unkillable hero, Wolverine, who shrugs off fatal wounds with "clever" one-liners. When a giant monster steps on David he can only gripe with his allies who want him to get back into action: "I think every bone is my body is broken, and you want me to move?"

By the end of "Silent Cathedrals," David has saved the world, but failed to capture Sugarman, the man who orchestrated the death of Kelly. But it wasn't just Kelly who died that night at Organitek, with security guards and a cleaning woman amongst the victims. One of David's co-workers remarks "I heard about what they did to the cleaning woman." David answers: "Her name was Cecilia." It's an insight into David; not only is he sensitive to pain, he's sensitive to others. Throughout issue #6, David recalls his friendship with Kelly, recalling the party games they would play, strange things about her diet, her favourite jokes... not only do these memories seem to keep Kelly alive, he hopes his nanomachines will be able to restore her body, just as they did for him. Unfortunately, Kelly's body has already been cremated, scuttling David's plans. David is forced to make his peace with Kelly's memory, deciding he doesn't even want vengeance on Sugarman, knowing it wouldn't bring Kelly back to life. Since his body was rebuilt using Kelly's, he decides part of her is alive within him and he will live as she would've wanted to.

Comic book culture commonly derides the 1990s and the glut of over-produced material was certainly a nadir for the industry; however, quality work existed then and it's worth unearthing it now and granting it the recognition it deserves; if you think you've read all the 90s had to offer, think again: you need to reckon with Xombi. I hope to visit the other 15 issues in time, but I'm now certain "Silent Cathedrals" is one of the best super hero tales of the 90s.

More on Xombi #1-6 tomorrow.

Review: The Original Johnson, Book 2

Having looked at the Original Johnson volume one earlier, I knew I'd get around to the second half of this biography eventually. However, I have to say: I'm not impressed by some of the creative decisions.

In the continuation of Trevor Von Eeden's adaptation of the life of boxer Jack Johnson, the story resumes as Johnson's career soars, leading to a run of successful bouts and eventually to Johnson's victory over Tommy Burns for the title of heavyweight champion, then defending his title against Jim Jeffries, but years later he lost his title to Jess Willard. Along the way Johnson's relationships with various women are recounted with erotic detail.

I felt the first volume spent too little time on Johnson's boxing career so I'm pleased to see the second half gets into the sport itself, even providing a quick history of boxing, properly framing Johnson's ascension through the ranks. Further, the Burns and Jeffries bouts are depicted in great detail.

However, Von Eeeden's depiction of Johnson's love life continues to be an unwelcome distraction for this reader; pages and pages are devoted to Johnson's lovemaking. I still feel Jack Johnson's biography belongs in high schools, but Von Eeden's graphic sex scenes will ruin this particular version's chances. The most glaring bit of business is Johnson's relationship with Dominique St. John, a wealthy white female painter. I don't know if St. John was a real person or not, but the entire sequence (48 pages long!) reads like the first chapter of "the Erotic Adventures of Jack Johnson," not the continued narrative of Johnson's life. Further, Dominique is dropped from the story when the 48-page sequence is over.

Many of the scenes involving Johnson and his partners devolve into lengthy speeches as Johnson opines how much better he is than other people; it begins to feel as though Von Eeden is using Johnson as his mouthpiece for his own view of the world, rather than summarizing Johnson's own life. As to Johnson's life, Von Eeden's version is ultimately a very idealized interpretation. Johnson's achievements are lauded, but his negative aspects - like his deteoriating relationships, his reckless driving and his eventual defeat by Willard - are glossed over. In fact, when the defeat by Willard enters the story, Von Eeden doesn't relate the story as it happened (as he did earlier with Burns & Jeffries), but instead tries to "set the record straight." He tells the audience about "the famous photograph." What "famous photograph?" This is clearly your version of Johnson's life, Mr. Von Eeeden - all along, you've been our guide. Why the sudden assumptions that we came into this book with certain facts or prejudices about the Johnson-Willard fight? His writing here becomes hopelessly hyberbolic: "No one ever noticed this -- ever."

The Johnson-Willard fight is still a point of controversy - that is, did Johnson throw the fight (as he later claimed), or did he honestly lose the match. It's up for debate, which is to say, there's no clear answer. I'm reminded of a piece of dialogue from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, concerning how Davy Crockett died: "The only real question is whether you believe in the legend of Davy Crockett or not. If you do, then there should be no doubt in your mind that he died a hero's death. If you do not believe in the legend, then he was just a man, and it does not matter how he died." Thus, your informed perspective on the Johnson-Willard fight has more to do with your belief in Johnson's legend than anything; Von Eeden is firmly in the grasp of the legend.

I wish Von Eeden had delved more closely to the events of Johnson's life - in chronological order and with weight given to both his highs and lows - and that he'd let Johnson speak to us rather than Von Eeden speak through Johnson. But as this is the only graphic novel of Jack Johnson's life I know of, it is, by default, the best.

Review: Fish Police Vol.1

I'm rather curious about the independent comic book scene and how it's evolved over time. Some 1980s titles like Scott McCloud's Zot! and Dave Sim's Cerebus have reputations which continue to create new fans, but so many others have been lost to the dustbin of history. Thus, I decided to give IDW's new Fish Police Vol.1 collection a try, seizing the opportunity to review one of the minor hits of the 80s.

What we have here is a collection of what seem to be the first four Fish Police stories by Steve Moncuse, a tale called "Hairballs." It involves police inspector Gill (seen above on the cover), a fish man in a world of fish people, but he seems to be the only person who finds his reality fairly unplausible. As Gill delves into an investigation pitting him against the crime cartel S.Q.U.I.D., it becomes clear Gill is singularly different from the other characters (and strongly hinted he used to be a human being).

Much of this volume is spent introducing the world of Fish Police, albeit in media res. The more the series reveals about its world, the more questions arise as virtually every character has a secret and these secrets are mostly hinted at. Further, "Hairballs" has no conclusion - the book ends with very little resolved and S.Q.U.I.D.'s plots still in motion.

Fish Police succeeds thanks to Moncuse's sense of humour. Gill's repeated observations of how unlikely their world is are constantly amusing (such as wondering how beer remains in a glass in a water world). There's also a winning series of brief scenes focusing on the prawns who provide S.Q.U.I.D.'s security. Although visually the prawns are built like armoured football players, they're actually very emotionally sensitive to insults and worried about being forced into fights.

The biggest problem with this book is that I have no idea why it exists in the form it does. There is no introduction explaining the history of Fish Police to the curious, nor the story of how IDW came to be reprinting it now (the closest information to be found is what's printed on the back cover). Further, there's no description of what exactly this book is reprinting. It seems to be Fish Police#1-4, but I sure couldn't tell you - not even the indica reveals where these stories first appeared. Finally, being such a slim volume and Fish Police having been wrapped up decades ago, one wonders why IDW didn't simply publish the Complete Fish Police, which seems to be about 24 issues in total. The art of the introduction is lost on most comic book collections these days and the business is poorer for it.

Nick Spencer, Comicdom's Answer to Ingmar Bergman, Part Five

This one has been making the rounds lately, so I felt compelled to include it. From Thief of Thieves#2 (some words by Robert Kirkman, all art by Shawn Martinborough):

As noted in the links above, this page demonstrates storyboarding for a film/television project, but little in the way of comic book storytelling. Sure enough, it's already been optioned for television, so I suppose whatever you might think of it, you can't say this comic failed to do its job.

Sure, it's a page of exposition, but at least nothing visually interesting happens. It's fit for TV.

Bitter Fruit#5: "Shiwan Khan's House of Horrors!"

The premise behind "Bitter Fruit" is to examine Archie's version of the Shadow, who was infamously dressed up as a super hero. Thus far, I've been quite surprised to see the Shadow#1-2 were not super hero comics, but rather super-spy books. Have we finally reached the super hero iteration? The cover is promising. My copy of the Shadow#3 is missing its cover, so I've brought this from the Grand Comics Database:

Once again we see the Shadow battling Shiwan Khan; perhaps he could use a second adversary, eh? Once more, he'd depicted in his super hero costume, although this time with black hair (he's been blond in the interiors of issues #1-2 and red-headed on the cover of #2). This is the best look we've had at the Shadow's super hero costume thus far, as it only appeared on the cover #2, not in the interiors. What we have here is a desperately average super hero suit. It has the spandex-trunks-cape-mask-gloves-boots found in so many outfits with nothing remarkable to set it apart. The Shadow doesn't belong in spandex to begin with, but they might as well have given him a chest insignia while they were about it. One blurb promises: "Special Bonus Book Length Novel... 'Shiwan Khan's House of Horrors!'" Where to begin? Last issue the cover promised a "book length" story but it was just a regular-sized main feature. Even if this does turn out to be a "book length" tale, how it that a "bonus?" It's not as though it's in addition to the regular content - it is the content!

Ah, well. Let's deal in with "Shiwan Khan's House of Horrors!" We open on a splash page depicting... well, you have to concentrate to make it out because shadows in the foreground and incompetent perspectives are conspiring to make this image illegible. The Shadow appears to be falling through a skylight surrounded by shattered glass. Below him is a water pit filled with sharks, while two tanks approach from north and south, a lion pit lies on the west, a tiger pit to the east and Shiwan Khan watches from above aboard a crane. I don't want to sound like I'm taking this rubbish seriously, but is it ever smart for friendly tanks to line up opposite each other? Wouldn't this trap work as well if it were a shark pit surrounded with barbed wire?

It's difficult to soldier on to page 2, I'm not going to lie. The Shadow is such an inept comic after just the cover and splash that I dread the story itself. Just knowing I'll be returning to the splash page image at some point is punishing.

We open the story at Lamont Cranston's town house. Lamont is still wearing glasses in his secret identity, but now his hair is black instead of blond. I suspect this is the first of many between-issue alterations. I wonder if he's still a secret agent? At least black hair is a better visual for a man called the Shadow. Lamont is getting ready for a date when his lady friend, Dina, appears at his door. She was afraid Lamont would brush her off, so he came to his home rather than wait to be picked up. Lamont phones downstairs to check in with his secretary Margo Lane before leaving for the day, when Margo suddenly screams. Margo, by the by, is now brunette. Perhaps she gave her old hair dye to Lamont?

Lamont tells Dina not to follow him downstairs "unless you want to die young!" Jogging to the office, he finds five men with guns are carrying Margo out the window. Lamont defeats most of them in a fist fight, but one gets away with Margo. Dina has phoned the police while Lamont takes stock of the situation; Margo Lane and his chauffeur Shrevy have both been kidnapped. How does he know Shrevy was kidnapped? "Shrevy would've come charging up from the garage when he heard the shots!" Oh, so it couldn't be that Shrevy was simply knocked unconscious? I don't know what became of Shrevy, but I suspect more off-panel excitement, the Shadow way!

On Margo's desk, Lamont sees an "X" crossed on a picture of Governor Moore, which he surmises is a message left by Margo, indicating the governor is in danger. Wait, so in the 60 seconds it took for Lamont to dash downstairs, the kidnappers told Margo who their eventual target would be? Thoughtful crooks! Lamont would be up a creek without them! Lamont tells Dina to file a report with the arriving police and he dashes to his "basement radio room," calling up Weston to let him know about the implied danger to Governor Moore. I assume Weston is still Lamont's CIA contact, but there's been no mention of Lamont's super-spy status thus far. Leaving the radio room, Lamont finds Shrevy in the garage. Lamont's surprised, but Shrevy explains he stepped out to buy a newspaper. Pan over Lamont's face, cue sad trombone.

Lamont ushers Shrevy into his Rolls Royce, telling him they're headed to Chinatown to rescue Margo Lane. Shrevy surmises Lamont thinks Shiwan Khan is the kidnapper and that Lamont hopes to obtain intelligence from his Chinatown sources (actually, Shrevy seems to claim they're his Chinatown sources). However, at another location, Shiwan Khan watches Lamont & Shrevy's Rolls Royce over a video screen. I suppose he has hidden cameras hidden throughout the city? Margo watches over Khan's shoulder, evidently unguarded and at liberty. Why doesn't she bash Khan over the head while his back is turned? Khan explains he caught Shrevy earlier and brainwashed him. Right on cue, Shrevy locks Lamont in the back seat of the Rolls Royce.

At this, Khan decides to switch off his magical camera, assured of Lamont's imminent death. He thinks with Lamont & Shrevy dead, the Shadow will come to Margo's rescue. So, we have just another Shiwan Khan story on our hands, but check out the above panel: it's easily the best image so far, granting Shiwan Khan a sense of shadowy menace he's lacked up to now.

Shrevy drives the Rolls Royce off an incomplete bridge, but en route Lamont switches into his Shadow costume... oh good, I'm sure different clothes will help. Because Shrevy is brainwashed, he won't retain knowledge of who the Shadow is, maintaining this series' inexplicable decision to have Lamont living a life of dangerous adventure and yet still pretend he has a secret identity. Lamont notes there's "a duplicate panel controlling the car's emergency escape mechanisms near the steering wheel." If you recall the first story of the Shadow#1, you'll recall how Lamont escaped from the Rolls Royce thanks to all his emergency gadgets. I credit the writer for being smart enough to explain the continuity, but doesn't this "duplicate panel" render Lamont's mechanisms pointless? Couldn't the hijacker in issue #1 have simply shut the mechanisms off?

Just as the Rolls Royce falls into the water, the Shadow hypnotizes Shrevy by glaring into the rear view mirror, catching Shrevy's eyes. The Shadow compels Shrevy to release control of the emergency mechanisms to him, enabling the Shadow to open the windows and swim to safety with Shrevy.

At Shiwan Khan's base, one of Khan's men turns the monitor back on and sees the Rolls Royce has fallen into the river. Now Khan is ready for the Shadow to come and rescue Margo, then he'll continue with his plan to kill Governor Moore before the governor can become his party's presidential candidate. Comparing himself to Genghis Khan, Shiwan declares, "Where Genghis failed to subdue the universe, Shiwan will succeed!" The universe? Uh, buddy, even Genghis didn't aim that high!

The Shadow brings Shrevy to a nearby wharf, which inexplicably isn't noticed by Khan, even though the camera is presumably still focused on the scenes of the crash. The Shadow decides he'll continue to fight Shiwan Khan in his costumed identity, taking advantage of Lamont Cranston's supposed death. At this point, it's clear we won't be receiving an explanation for why the Shadow is wearing a super hero costume all of a sudden. The Shadow hides Shrevy's body where no one will find him, evidently wanting Shrevy to remain unconscious until Khan is defeated. Seriously? Between being brainwashed by Khan and knocked out by the Shadow, I think Shrevy needs to exit this series - the author has it in for him!

Heading to Chinatown, the Shadow decides he needs a disguise, so he takes a mask from a Chinese souvenir shop. Seriously? The Shadow needs a disguise? What is the blinking point of his cape and mask if not to provide a disguise? Or how about his power to "be-cloud" men's minds so they cannot see him? The Shadow wanders through "carnival" and visits the home of Hi Sing Wan, who previously worked for Khan. Two men refuse to let the Shadow enter, so he attacks them using karate, losing his mask in the process.

The Shadow breaks into Hi Sing Wan's office and demands to know where Shiwan Khan is, menacing Wan with a gun. At first, Hi Sing Wan claims he's ready to die, but after the Shadow fires a shot near his head, he reconsiders. Say, doesn't our hero have the power to force information from men's minds? I mean, wouldn't he obtain more reliable data if he used his powers?

Hi Sing Wan tells the Shadow Shiwan Khan is at the World's Fair, building a pavilion on the site. Once the Shadow leaves, Hi Sing Wan phones Shiwan Khan to happily report the Shadow is headed into his trap. Too bad the Shadow didn't know it was a trap; it's not as though he reads minds, eh? Or he could've remained in the room, hidden from Hi Sing Wan's sight by "be-clouding" his mind so he could eavesdrop on him.

As the Shadow journeys through the World's Fair, he muses Hi Sing Wan is an untrustworthy source and might have been lying. Again, that's where your powers are supposed to help you! However, "strangely enough," Governor Moore will be dedicating a pavilion at the World's Fair and the Shadow is certain Weston will be guarding the location.

Entering a pavilion which is supposed to open the following week, the Shadow ventures into a room surrounded by statues with strange cracks on the floor. Suddenly, Shiwan Khan appears above, operating a strange egg-shaped crane. Margo Lane is being held by Khan's men nearby in a glass domed room. With the press of a button, the floor beneath the Shadow cracks open, exposing a shark tank! And two lions emerge from a nearby lion cage! And a tank with an armored car rolls into the room! Overkill, or just enough kill? Comparing this to the splash page, it's worth noting on the splash, the Shadow seemed to be falling through the air on pieces of glass. Now I see the Shadow was actually falling through the floor. The artist seriously failed to make this action clear on the splash, all because of how the pieces of the floor were floating in space, with no conception of how they related to the environment.

The Shadow pulls out his gun (don't ask me where he kept it all this time) and empties it into the sharks, killing four of the six sharks; he knows the remaining two will be overcome with frenzy and thus leave him alone. To stop the lions, the Shadow hypnotizes the men operating the guns on the tank and armored car so they turn their guns on the lions. Seriously? The Shadow could make eye-to-eye contact with someone inside a tank? Not bloody likely... not without being shot first.

Now the Shadow directs the tank gunner to aim at Shiwan Khan; the shell blasts Khan's egg-shaped thing, injuring him. Shiwan Khan flees as the room bursts into flames, endangering Margo's life. Good job, hero. Don't worry though, the Shadow knows what to do! He sends the armored car and tank to kill the men who were going to kill Governor Moore. We don't get a clear look at the assassins... they seem to be two men hulking in the shadows. Killed by a tank! The Shadow's certainly not taking prisoners. Weston sees this and wonders why they killed their own men and how they knew which of the people in the crowd were the assassins. Yes, good questions; only the former is explained by the story. We close on Lamont Cranston and Margo Lane meeting with Weston, with Lamont revealing he's still alive. And so it ends.

What became of poor Shrevy, unconscious on a wharf, suffering from Shiwan Khan's brainwashing? What became of Shiwan Khan, injured but seen running from the fire started in his pavilion? Was Hi Sing Wan ever rounded up for his crimes?

The Grand Comics Database attributes this issue's credits to the usual suspects - writer Robert Bernstein and artist Paul Reinman. Regarding his work at Archie's super hero line ("Mighty Comics"), blogger Steven Thompson recently called Reinman, "the Jack Kirby of the Mighty Comics Group." This is as much an indictment of Archie's super hero books as you'll find - Reinman was not up to being anyone's Jack Kirby. Kirby at his most frentic still gave the audience a clear understanding of what had happened from panel to panel.

So, we've finally reached the costumed adventures of the Shadow, the aspect about this series which has earned it much of its contempt from audiences. Certainly, making the Shadow over into a super hero is needless. As it is, the Shadow predates super heroes and yet inspired many of them with his multiple identities, sidekicks, special powers, recurring adversaries and mixture of horror-fantasy-science fiction-detective genre details. If there'd been no Shadow, there might not have been a Batman.

What we have here is simply a paycheck comic. It was turned out quickly and without presumption anyone would care to revisit it a year later, much less 48 years later. Then again, the Shadow's radio program from the 30s-50s was knocked out quickly and with no sense of future audiences, yet its stories had a much better sense of internal logic. Paul Reinman is a good artist, but I have to imagine he didn't have much to work with here - the story jerks about with no particular intelligence, just a mix of standard action genre tropes. If the Shadow actually used his powers cleverly, as I often observe, it would require a standard of creativity which - at the time - was found in DC & Marvel's super hero books, but not at Archie, where the staff were out of practice with the genre.

Once again, "book length" is a meaningless term. The Shadow#3 contained two stories, just like every issue thus far. We'll check out the second story in the next installment of Bitter Fruit.