THE SHADOW #1

Review by: 5150

What did the
iFanboy
community think?

220
Pulls
Avg Rating: 4.0
 
Users who pulled this comic:
Users who reviewed this comic:
Story by Garth Ennis
Art by Aaron Campbell
Cover by Alex Ross, Howard Chaykin, John Cassaday, & Jae Lee

Size: 0 pages
Price: 3.99

Of all the books that came out this week, this one was the one I was most excited about. WIth the very good work done on both The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet series, Dynamite acts like they know what they are doing when it comes to those greatcharacters from yesteryear.
And having Garth Ennis write the series is also a plus.
When I picked up my stack of books at my shop and saw the four covers I knew this book would not disappoint. When Howard Chaykin’s incredible cover may be the weakest of the four and it looks that damn good, you know they are going to deliver!

And boy did they deliver!

Ennis does a good job of setting the tone for the book with his depiction of atrocities done b the Japaneese during WW2. The dialog and banter between the characters was also nice and flowed nicely. The Shadow’s ability to see people’s fate and his opinion on it was intresting too. I liked the interplay between Cranston and Margo Lane at the end of the issue in particular.
The art by Aaron Campbell was nice to look at and flowed very well. He handled the violence on the waterfront as easily as he handled the serene moment on the balcony. I find myself wanting to go back and dig out all my old shadow comics again and relive the wonder this character has always brought out in me.
This is one series I am on board with!

Story: 5 - Excellent
Art: 5 - Excellent
 

Comments

  1. dannyboy says:
    April 23, 2012 at 2:23 am

    Great covers aren’t necessarily wrapped around great comics. Aaron Campbell’s art in Shadow #1 isn’t much different than his work in Green Hornet: Year One. It only looks slightly better because of better color. As for Garth Ennis’ writing, there was hardly enough story to make me want to buy the next issue. This is a good example of a guy whose eye is on the trade paperback instead of delivering a compelling monthly installment. Will Eisner could tell a complete Spirit story in 7 pages. Jack Cole could tell a Plastic Man story in 15. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby could tell a great Fantastic Four story in 3 issues. Now we have to suffer through 6 or 12 or 24 issues to get to the end of something, which means the first issue of most comics these days is very boring. The Shadow is no exception to the Very Little Happens Rule. Other good examples of this are Swamp Thing and Terry Moore’s Rachel Rising.
    As for the character himself, I have been reading Shadow comics for years and I’ve never seen The Shadow display any degree of precognition. Is this some obscure detail from the pulps that everyone else has ignored or has Garth Ennis invented this on his own?
    I’ll check out the second issue to see if the story starts getting any traction, but this first issue was disappointing.

Leave a Comment