<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

This article is about the pulp fiction hero. For other uses see Shadow.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!

These chilling lines, originally delivered as a lead in to a 1931 radio show called Detective Story Hour, became the inspiration for an iconic figure of pulp radio and fiction for 18 years. When listeners of the Detective Story Hour began to clamor for stories about the mysterious Shadow, the show's producers, Street and Smith, turned to a newspaperman and magician named Walter P. Gibson to chronicle the adventures of the Shadow in a pulp magazine they were about to publish. Writing under the pen name Maxwell Grant, Gibson created the Shadow, a man of amazing skills, infallible deductive abilities, hypnosis, the ability to become nearly invisible in near darkness, and command a network of agents that seemed always a step ahead of even the most masterful criminal. The Shadow was a master of disguise, and took on many different identities, though his most famous role was millionaire Lamont Cranston.

The pulp magazine, one of the first titled for a single character, sold off the stands. It wasn't long before The Shadow Magazine was being published twice a month. The success of the pulp magazine inspired the popular radio show that ran until 1954. As the pulp novels came to define his particular brand of pulp fiction, so did the Shadow radio show become one of the most popular and long lasting such series in radio history. In the radio series, Lamont Cranston was depicted as the character's true identity, and his sole advantage was his ability to "cloud men's minds so they could not see him". "His friend and companion, the lovely Margo Lane" was his sidekick, and the only one who knew "to whom the voice of the invisible Shadow belonged".

Alternately, in the pulp novel series, the Cranston was just one of the the many identities the Shadow took on, and his true origin remained mysterious for years. During his many adventures the Shadow relied on a network of trusted agents, including an ex-gambler named Harry Vincent, Cliff Marsland, underworld figure, Stanley, a former race car driver who served as Cranston's chauffeur and bodyguard, Moe Shrevnitz, taxi car driver, watcher Hawkeye and more. These agents would never contact the Shadow personally, but would do so through intermediary contact agents like Rutledge Man, and Burbank. Eventually, socialite Margo Lane, the character from the radio series, would also join the pulp novel cast of dedicated agents. Other recurring supporting characters were sometimes ally Police Inspector Joe Cardona and the unwitting Police Commissioner Weston. Weston was a personal friend of Lamont Cranston, though never suspected his connection to the mysterious crime fighter. Since they were both members of the exclusive Cobalt Club, The Shadow would use Cranston's relationship with Weston to gain valuable information on the criminal world. The relationship between Cranston with Cardona and Weston would be echoed later in the Batman comic book series, with both Bruce Wayne's and Batman's relationship with Police Commissioner James Gordon. Many feel that Batman was a literary descendant of the Shadow, and that his creators were inspired by the original pulp hero.

Finally, in the story "The Shadow Unmasked", Gibson revealed what is thought to be the true identity and origin of the Shadow. He introduced the readership to the character of Kent Allard, a World War I aviator and spy. After the war Allard became a world traveler, eventually finding his way into the mountains of Tibet. There he encountered the master monk Chien T’a Tze and became his sole apprentice. For seven years Allard studied such diverse disciplines as the martial arts, Oriental medicine, yoga – and finally, the ability to cloud men’s minds with a potent form of hypnotism. Armed with these amazing abilities (and a pair of trusty .45 automatics), Allard returned to New York and became the mysterious vigilante known as the Shadow. Early in his crime-fighting career Allard met a dissolute young tycoon named Lamont Cranston, and entered into a mutually beneficent arrangement. Cranston turned over management of his fortune to Allard and left the country, allowing Allard to assume Cranston’s identity and finance his operations while the real Cranston benefited from Allard’s financial skill. In later years, even the Shadow's Allard identity would come into question.

The Shadow from the first full length color movie featuring the famous pulp character, starring Alec Baldwin.

The Shadow's enemies were bizarre criminal geniuses, who usually did not recur as they were often killed by the Shadow in the heat of battle at the conclusion of the novel. Jim Steranko, famed comic book and paperback cover illustrator, once wrote that the Shadow did not bring criminals to justice, but that he "was justice". One of the few villains that would survive to fight another day was Shiwan Khan, a Fu Manchu type master villain (supposedly descended from Ghengis Khan) who achieved the status of the Shadow's arch nemesis.

In total, there were 325 novels written about the Shadow, of which a staggering 282 were written by Gibson himself. It is hard to imagine today, but Gibson wrote as many as a novel per week, grinding out story after story for the popular Shadow Magazine. The Shadow pulp novels and radio show would inspire a number of feature films, serials, and comic book series as well. The most recent Shadow theatrical movie in 1994 starred Alec Baldwin as the ninja-like master of hypnotism, pitting him against his nemesis Shiwan Kahn.

The Shadow pulp novel series was the most popular and famous of all (with the possible exception of Doc Savage) pulp series. Some of the Gibson series was published in paperback by Pyramid, and then by Ballantine Books around 1970. A few small publishing companies would occasionally reprint the pulps from time to time. Recently, a company called Nostalgia Ventures Inc has been reprinting the pulp novels in a large softcover format resembling the original format with excellent articles and introductory pieces by Shadow historian Anthony Tollin and others. Each contains 2 pulp novels and much of the original art and are priced at about $12.95.