Reading Room: THE SHADOW vs the RXG SpyMaster Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Hero...

Things look tight for He Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Heart of Shiwan Khan, doesn't it?
And, where the hell is his slouch hat...or his nose?
Read thru to the end and find out, kiddo!

As you can see, there were quite a few changes between The Shadow's last comic appearance in his own Street & Smith book in 1949, and this premiere presentation in 1964.
In effect, they rebooted the character and "updated" him to the swinging spy-oriented '60s.
The Batman tv series had not yet debuted, so the "creators" were using the James Bond films and Marvel Comics as their template.
The script was by Robert Bernstein, a writer who had penned stories for almost every publisher including DC, Atlas, and EC. The Shadow was his last comics work.
Pencils and inks were by John Rosenberger, who had started out doing horror at American Comics Group, then moved to Archie where he did The Fly, The Jaguar, and Young Doctor Masters, a clone of the then-popular Dr Kildare tv series. (In fact, Lamont Cranston, without glasses, is a dead ringer for Dr Masters!). Eventutally, he ended up at DC, where he did romance comics as well as Supergirl, Lois Lane, and Wonder Woman (usually inked by Vince Colletta).

How did Archie end up doing The Shadow?
They acquired the comic rights thru a sister company, Belmont Books, which was doing a series of new Shadow novels.
The first one, Return of The Shadow, written by the pulp Shadow's creator Walter Gibson, kept to the concept and style of the original pulp run.
It was meant to be a lead-in to a line of pulp reprints.
However, it sold well enough that the publisher decided to go with all-new stories, but "updated" with "modern" story elements.
Gibson wasn't interested in going that route, so Dennis Lynds assumed the Maxwell Grant byline for an additional eight novels which combined the pulp and radio versions along with superspies.
The paperbacks did retain the cloaked and slouch-hatted imagery on the covers, which can be found on our brother blog, Atomic Kommie Comics.
(Ironically, both Lynds and Gibson later contributed stories to the same spy series: The Man from U.N.C.L.E.!  Lynds wrote a number of novelettes for the tv show's digest magazine, and Gibson wrote a juvenile novel, "The Coin of El Diablo Affair".)
The first two issues of Archie's Shadow follow, somewhat, the revamped Belmont Books version.

Curiously, The Shadow does appear in full cloak and hat (and nose) on the cover to #1...

...but that version never appears again during the series eight-issue run.
In fact, as of #2, there are further alterations afoot!
But that's a story for another time...

Check out the

 Comics Collectibles Shop 

for goodies featuring other Silver Age heroes, besides The Shadow!

And check out the Shadow goodies from Amazon below...

Reading Room: THE SHADOW vs the RXG SpyMaster Part 1

Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men...and where the hell is he?
Oh, wait, it's the...blond guy...in the short cape...without a slouch hat...with a normal-sized nose???

WTF???

Not a hoax!  Not a dream!  Not an imaginary story!
Read on, kiddo! The weirdest is yet to come...

Well, at least he has a .45!
The explanations will have to wait until the conclusion of this tale, effendi.
But there's action aplenty to tide you over when you tune in tomorrow for...Part 2: The Shadow's Doom!

Check out the

 Comics Collectibles Shop 

for goodies featuring other Silver Age heroes, besides The Shadow!

And check out the Shadow goodies from Amazon below...

DOC SAVAGE: The 1960s Movie That ALMOST Was

Comic cover cropped from the paperback art by James Bama

In 1966, with both Bond and Bat-manias at their peak, producers Mark Goodson & Bill Toddman intended to begin a film franchise based on the hot-selling Doc Savage pulp novels being reprinted by Bantam, starting with The Thousand-Headed Man.

1966 Newsweek article about Doc Savage and the movie. Click to enlarge.

They contracted Chuck Connors, who had recently finished a successful run on the RifleMan tv series to play Doc, and began pre-production.

Then, things stopped dead in their tracks.

It seemed that Conde Nast, who now owned the Street and Smith library, including Doc Savage, The Shadow, and The Avenger, didn't own the ancillary media rights to the Man of Bronze!

Those rights had been retained by co-creator Lester Dent, who had written most of the novels (including Thousand-Headed Man) under the "Kenneth Robeson" house name.

(Dent, had previously licensed a short-lived radio version of the character, but had been unable to develop a movie or tv version.
When he passed away, his widow retained the rights.)

Mrs. Dent was more than willing to negotiate, but time was not on the producers' side.
They had already scheduled the production, and had to start shooting something or lose their investment and the cast, most of whom had commitments scheduled after the Thousand-Headed Man shoot!

To recoup, the producers switched to an already-existing Western script called Night of the Tiger, and shot it as Ride Beyond Vengeance.  (Westerns at that point were still an "easy sell" to theatres and tv.)

Looking at the Ride Beyond Vengeance cast, it's fairly easy to guess who would've played whom...

Claude Akins as Monk

Michael Rennie as Ham

William Bryant as Renny

Jamie Farr as Johnny

Bill Bixby as Long Tom

Gary Merrill or Paul Fix as Calvin Copeland

Kathryn Hays as Lucille Copeland

Not sure who would've played Sen Gat

The cast also included Frank Gorshin and James MacArthur.

In the early 1970s, the character's rights were sold to legendary movie producer George Pal, who produced Doc Savage: the Man of Bronze, starring Ron Ely, in 1974.

The Thousand-Headed Man was eventually dramatized...as a radio mini-series for NPR, who had scored great ratings with radio versions of the original Star Wars Trilogy.

Bronze Bonuses

Here's the original pulp cover...

 ...the rarely-seen British paperback, published at the same time as the 1975 Ron Ely feature film, and, oddly enough, based on the James Bama art for #14, The Fantastic Island...

...and the official cd release of the radio show adaptation!

Video Fridays: THE GREEN HORNET STRIKES AGAIN "Flaming Havoc!"

Continuing our weekly feature "Video Fridays"...

After the events of the first serial, Britt Reid and Kato head to Hawaii for a well-deserved vacation.

Unfortunately, Crime never takes a holiday.

In Reid's absence, a racketeer has managed to place one of his men as Managing Editor, killing any attempt by The Daily Sentinel to publish racket-busting exposés!

Lenore Case sees what's going on, but is powerless to stop it, since she's "only a secretary".

She telegraphs Reid, but the gangsters discover the publisher's on the way back and intercept him...

The Green Hornet serial did so well that Universal rushed a sequel into production within six months.

(It usually took a little longer than that, even for popular chapterplays.
There were two-year gaps between each of the Flash Gordon serials.)

Warren Hull, who had recently played both Mandrake the Magician and The Spider in other serials replaced Gordon Jones as Britt Reid / The Green Hornet. In addition, the use of the voice of radio Green Hornet Al Hodge, when Reid was masked, was dropped.

Most of the first serial's cast returned, including Keye Luke as Kato, Anne Nagel as Lenore Case, and Wade Boteler as Mike Axford. However, Managing Editor Gunnigan is said to be incapacitated by a broken leg.

Following the same format as the first serial, The Hornet and Kato chip away at various rackets run by Crogan, played by Pierre Watkin (Perry White in the Superman serials), until the climactic confrontation in the final episode.

Want to see what happens next?

YouTube provider MedigoCobra has posted the entire serial HERE.
Or you can download it in a variety of formats HERE.

And don't forget to check out...

The Classic Green Hornet Store

Reading Room Annex: DOC SAVAGE "Thousand-Headed Man" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

James Bama cover for the paperback of the pulp novel. It was cropped and reused as the Gold Key comic's cover.

Doc Savage and his men are drawn to Cambodia to find a missing explorer and investigate a fabulous lost city and rumors of a "Thousand-Headed Man" who rules it.
Upon arriving, they are strafed by an aircraft owned by Sen Gat, who also seeks the lost city, and it's treasures...

The End of The Thousand-Headed Man.

But Doc Savage Will Return...

At least, that was the intent of the movie producers, who wanted to create a James Bond-level franchise, beginning with this novel.

Tune in Monday for that tale!