THE SHADOW: THE COBRA & THE THIRD SHADOW

I finished reading THE SHADOW VOLUME 7 (Nostalgia Ventures, 2007) last night and as always, the two stories contained within were great Shadow adventures. This time, the stories are thematically linked in that The Shadow battles foes that have adopted his own crime fighting methods to their evil ends.

First up is THE COBRA (from April 1, 1934). In this thriller, a masked vigilante who calls himself The Cobra, is killing various New York crime bosses. He guns them down in cold blood and, since the men he's killing are all criminals, the hooded avenger becomes a bit of a hero to the police and the citizens of Manhattan. But The Shadow knows otherwise. The Cobra is, of course, merely killing off his competition while at the same time casting doubt upon The Shadow's modus operandi. Author Walter Gibson raises some interesting questions about the nature of vigilante justice but this being a thrill-a-page pulp novel, there's little room for more development and exploration of this moral conundrum. When The Cobra kills a bad guy, he's a bad guy. When The Shadow kills a bad guy, he's a good guy. It's that simple.

By the way, The Cobra's costume, which is shown in original spot illustrations, is pretty nifty and reminded me of two later creations by Jack Kirby of like-named villain. First up is this guy (who started off as a recurring Thor villain)



Next, is Kobra, the head of a secret worldwide criminal organization who had his own short lived DC comics series in the 1970s




Knowing that Jack Kirby was an avid reader of the pulps when he was young, I can't help but wonder if he read this Shadow novel and used the idea of a hooded villain with a cobra motif years later.

The second story, THE THIRD SHADOW (March 15, 1936) finds The Shadow doing battle with not one but two Shadow imposters who raid various Manhattan night clubs and gambling dens and pin the crimes on the real Dark Knight. One of the imposters meets his end about halfway through the novel but the idea of a fake Shadow is quickly picked up and carried on by another smarter, bigger criminal. The case comes to a thunderous climax in a bloody shootout that takes place in a hidden gambling den.

Both of these stories are first rate Shadow adventures. The packaging is superb, as always and veteran comic book artist Dick Ayers contributes a nice foreword about his career drawing The Ghost Rider (and other characters). All in all, this is another winner from Nostalgia Ventures.

 Thumbs up.