SHOOTING WAR 569
the adventure series. Welles’s Shadow was less deadly than the version seen routinely
in the pulps. Although Welles left the show after only a year, the program remained
a radio favorite until its cancellation in 1954. In newspapers, Th e Shadow comic strip,
which ran from 1939 until 1942, was written by Walter Gibson and illustrated by Ver-
non Greene. Th e Shadow has also been seen many times in motion pictures. His fi rst
fi lm appearance came in 1937’s Th e Shadow Strikes, starring Rod LaRocque. A sequel,
International Crime, was released in 1938. Victor Jory played the hero in a 1940 serial.
Kane Richmond then took over the role in the low-budget Th e Shadow Returns in 1946.
It was followed by two forgettable sequels. In 1994, Alec Baldwin took on the role of
Th e Shadow/Lamont Cranston in Th e Shadow. Th is fi lm combined both the pulp novel
and radio versions of the character. In 2006, Hollywood director Sam Raimi expressed
interest in producing a new fi lm that would introduce Th e Shadow to another genera-
tion of fans.
Th e Shadow has routinely appeared in comic books over the decades. From 1940 to
1949, 101 issues of Shadow Comics were published. Beginning in 1964, Archie Comics
published an eight issue series titled Th e Shadow. Th is is the most bizarre interpreta-
tion of the pulp hero, in which Th e Shadow is seen as a muscular blonde man wearing
green and blue superhero costume. A more faithful and critically praised version of the
character came in a12-issue series produced by DC Comics from 1973 to 1975. Writ-
ten by Dennis O’Neil and drawn by Mike Kaluta, this series was highly infl uenced by
Gibson’s novels. Th e Caped Crusader even encounters Th e Shadow during this period
in Batman #253 and #259. DC revived Th e Shadow again in the 1980s, but placed
him in modern-day New York, a move that proved unsuccessful. Marvel Comics then
published Hitler’s Astrologer (1988), a Shadow graphic novel. From 1989 to 1992 DC
published Th e Shadow Strikes. Th is series was set in the 1930s and is notable for fea-
turing Th e Shadow’s fi rst team-up with Doc Savage, another pulp hero. Dark Horse
Comics next took on Th e Shadow in two miniseries, In the Coils of the Leviathan (1993)
and Hell’s Heat Wave (1995). Dark Horse also published Th e Shadow and Doc Savage
(1995), a miniseries that pitted the heroes against Nazi kidnappers. Th e Shadow is one
of the most notable pulp heroes. His menacing vigilantism inspired later comic book
heroes and taught generations of fans that “the weed of crime bears bitter fruit.”
Charles Coletta
SHOOTING WAR. A web-comic and graphic novel written by Anthony Lappé and
illustrated by Dan Goldman, Shooting War is a satire of contemporary journalism, war,
and politics. Th e book is unique in that it integrates contemporary people and places
with dramatic artistic styling and actual location photography. Shooting War is a mod-
ern fable about the power of media and celebrity, and what happens when one’s ethics
contradict one’s career.
Th e central character of Shooting War is Jimmy Burns, a 20-something indepen-
dent video blogger from Brooklyn who is determined to uncover corporate greed with
his live independent vod-casts. While he is uploading a program to his Web site in a
