In November, 1973, the third bimonthly issue of DC Comics’ The Shadow arrived on newsstands as scheduled, sporting yet another instantly-classic cover by regular series artist Michael W. Kaluta and colorist/washtone-process master Jack Adler. Turning to the opening splash page, a prospective buyer might have noted that the creative lineup for the book’s interior contents remained basically consistent with the title’s previous installments as well, its story having once again been scripted by writer/editor Denny O’Neil, and drawn by Kaluta and… Bernie Wrightson?
Bernie Wrightson’s name had been briefly attached to The Shadow when the series was still in development at DC; indeed, he’d been involved for long enough to produce a full-page house ad that had run in DC’s offerings for November, 1972, a full eight months before Shadow #1 went to press. But, since Wrightson had then had his hands pretty much full with drawing Swamp Thing, the Shadow assignment had ultimately gone to Wrightson’s good friend Kaluta, who’d provided both pencils and inks for the first two issues all on his own. So what was Wrightson doing here now?
Decades later, Kaluta offered the following account in an interview for Back Issue #10 (May, 2005):
Doing the first issue, there was no deadline, and I took as much time as I needed to do it and I got it in. [By the second issue], I had never really had a deadline [for an assignment] that was 20 penciled and inked pages in two months (or,more ideally, six weeks), and I stumbled badly. I got the book out late, and when the third one came up, I was in this quandary: How am I going to get this one done in the now very compressed time. For some reason, even though he was as busy as could be with Swamp Thing, Bernie came in and helped on the third Shadow issue… Every once and awhile, just for kicks, we’ll sit around and try to figure out who did what on that issue #3. It wasn’t a “penciled by” or “inked by” credit. I would be penciling pages, and he would be penciling pages, and then we would hand them to each other and would start inking.
I’m not sure how much thought my sixteen-year-old self gave the “Michael Wm. Kaluta — Berni Wrightson – Artists” credit when I first read this story back in 1973. But if I considered the matter at all, I probably made the assumption that Kaluta had done all (or at least most) of the pencilling, while Wrightson had handled the inking. According to Kaluta, however, that’s not at all how it went down. And when I look at these pages today, in 2023, and try to guess who pencilled/inked what… I give up almost immediately. All I can tell you is, every panel looks great, as far as I’m concerned.
“– and to the best of my knowledge, Grady should be serving a twenty year stretch at Ainsley Prison!”
Returning to “a place which does not officially exist” — i.e., the Shadow’s secret base of operations — our protagonist charges his communications expert, Burbank, with getting Ainsley Prison’s warden on the phone; and presently…
The Shadow’s next moves are to tell Burbank to contact another of his operatives, Harry Vincent, and put him “on standby”; to request that his personal cabbie, Shrevvy, prepare his car for a long trip; and to inform Margo that he has “a special task” for her — though we readers don’t learn just what that is until the next scene:
You know, I really hate to second-guess the Shadow… but maybe before the next time he sends the socially-prominent Margo Lane undercover, he should give her some advanced instruction in the art of disguise? Just a thought (and, of course, that’s assuming there will be a next time)…
I’m honestly not sure what the point is of the Shadow posing as a Central Park carriage driver, but, hey, whatever. The man looks good in that top hat, if nothing else…
If there was any doubt in a reader’s mind as to the identity of the “customer” delivered by Harry to Ainsley Prison, that shadowed profile in the final panel should surely give the game away…
King Cobra explains to the surprised “inmates” that he just checked with his contact in the city, and confirmed that they hadn’t sent anybody new — so whoever this guy is, he’s not a candidate for their program. “Lock him with the others!” orders Cobra. “When he awakens, I’ll question him!”
Seeing the Shadow operate without his cloak makes for a cool change of pace, although I personally still prefer the character’s usual look.
In a mockery of the traditional “last mile”, Cobra and his two faux guards march the Shadow and Margo to the prison’s execution chamber…
The next to last panel above is perhaps my favorite in the entire Shadow series; I love the mid-range framing of the two characters, the way that the Shadow’s laughter spills across the right-hand panel border, and — most of all — that small but confident smile on Margo’s face.
With the advent of a new version of the Spectre over in Adventure Comics just a couple of weeks before this, the Shadow now had competition for the distinction of being the most lethal crime-buster in American comic books (at least, in those approved by the Comics Code Authority).* But I’m pretty sure that he was never matched for the realistic grisliness of his executions during this particular era.
How could the Shadow have possibly survived that explosion? Denny O’Neil’s script doesn’t offer even the barest hint of a rational explanation… and I wouldn’t have it any other way, either in 1973 or today. I rather suspect that most other readers feel the same.
As his comments from 2005 indicate, Michael Kaluta was hopeful that Bernie Wrightson’s assistance on issue #3 would help him get far enough ahead of schedule that he’d be able to handle The Shadow‘s bimonthly deadlines on his own, going forward.
It didn’t quite work out that way, however. When The Shadow #4 arrived in January, only Kaluta’s name was listed as artist in the credits; nevertheless, he’d been assisted at various points in the story by not only Wrightson, but also Steven Hickman and Howard Chaykin. In fairness, we should note here that, according to that 2005 Back Issue interview, this appears to be more a matter of Kaluta’s colleagues stopping by his place and casually asking to contribute, rather than his running behind schedule and needing the help; nevertheless, it might be taken for a portent of what would happen two months after that, when Shadow #5 came out with no artistic contribution from Kaluta at all; rather, both cover and interiors featured the art of Frank Robbins, whose style was about as different from Kaluta’s (or Wrightson’s) as one could imagine… but that’s a discussion probably best left to another post, on another day.
*Marvel Comics’ Punisher, whose debut in Amazing Spider-Man #129 reached spinner racks the very same day as Adventure #431, hadn’t been shown actually killing anyone in his first outing, and so wasn’t in the running yet.
Alas that Kaluta couldn’t keep up with the demands of a regular series, but he produced some magnificent artwork. Very nice collaboration between him and Wrightson on this issue — I certainly don’t have the expertise to be able to tell who did what on each panel or page. The art does have the feel of something from the 1930s or ’40s, as well as the flavor of a pulp novel. That the Shadow was lethal in his dispensation of justice was, I’d imagine, O’Neil writing in the pulp style of decades past and maybe just coincidentally echoing the newer take no prisoners style of war on crime novels like the Executioner series that inspired Conway’s Punisher. But also taken in context of Fleisher’s new Spectre series and Gerber’s upcoming Foolkiller story in Man-Thing, appears several comics writers were coming up similar albeit varied ideas at the same time. One aspect of this take on the Shadow is that although meant to be an ordinary human with incredible but entirely natural skills, the Shadow still comes off as a sort of supernatural force, magically immune to serious harm. Of course, that pretty much applies to nearly all popular fictional heroes and villains. No mere bomb can kill any of them.
a couple of the early Shadow novels such as The Death Tower show him as, apparently, a literal living shadow at times, though that idea faded as they went along.
Weirdly enough the way Wrightson would sometimes draw noses gave me an inkling of a few images where it looked liked Kaluta inking Wrightson.
Kaluta and Wrightson both had this problem. Cockrum had a bit of this problem, especially where he inked his own work. Pat Broadrick also seemed to have that issue, especially when he inked his own pencils (although his going over to Atlas was probably also an issue,) It is also why Adams became somewhat PNG at the “Big Two” after early 1972 (GL/GA #88) and The Kree Skrull War Avengers being late (or nearly so).
Some of Kaluta’s best work will probably never see the light of day again, as it is Burroughs’s stuff and never was completed (Carson of Venus).
It’s a shame, I liked his Batman and Detective Covers and his covers for things like Strange Adventures and From Beyond the Unknown (https://www.comics.org/issue/25332/cover/4/; .https://www.comics.org/issue/25504/cover/4/).
I wonder if a regular inker (maybe Al Milgrom or Terry Austin) would have solved the problem. When Julie Schwartz was talking about bringing back Adam Strange back in 1972-;73, one reader suggested Kaluta/Anderson as the art team. That would have been interesting, but both men were looking at leaving, Anderson for Eisner’s US Army Maintenance Bulletin, PS Magezine.
Prison Warden Gibson Walters is a play on Walter Gibson who, using the pen-name Maxwell Grant, penned more than 300 of The Shadow’s pulp adventures, creating most of his defining characteristics.
How did I miss that? Good catch, Baden!
I was gonna mention that, and possible the phone call pseudonym–O’Shaunessy–also being on of O’Neill’s pen names.
Another good catch, NeillE!
Rereading the series a few years ago I think I was a little disappointed in this issue. King Cobra’s relatively mundane (turning a prison into an underworld base happens a fair amount in comics) compared to the Harlequin from the previous issue (based on Gibson’s “The Freak Show Murders”). And I prefer Kaluta’s solo art on the Shadow, though this is certainly a good-looking issue.
I’m glad Kaluta got to draw “Night of the Ninja” before giving up — it’s probably my favorite of the run (maybe tied with the Avenger crossover later).
It says something — though I’m not sure what — that while many later takes on Doc Savage have questioned his practice of reforming criminals through brainwashing, nobody ever questions the Shadow outright killing them.
I would think that the reason it’s hard to tell who pencilled and who inked each page is intentional. Since it was Kaluta’s book, Wrightson probably kept his pencils light so that Kaluta could mostly ink it in his own style and Kaluta probably heavily pencilled his pages so Wrightson could largely just trace whatever Kaluta had pencilled on the page, so that it would also resemble Kaluta’s style.
I’ve noticed that a lot of the more modern and detail-oriented pencillers had trouble keeping up with DC and Marvel’s production schedule during this time period. Publishers at this time were still used to just cranking out stories with no real concerns about artistic integrity or collectibility and just wanted the work out on the street as quickly as possible to make them money. I’m not sure exactly when it began to change, but modern comics artists seem to have more time to work on their books and get them done they way they want them. I’m sure if we’re all still around to discuss 80’s and 90’s comics we’ll hear more stories about blown deadlines and artistic shortcuts, but it seems like they have more time anyway.
Regardless of who was pencilling and who was inking, I really like the art on The Shadow that was attributed to Kaluta. His style didn’t work for everything, but he was a perfect fit for The Shadow and the pulpy 1940’s world he inhabited. The Frank Robbins stuff, I’ll go ahead and tell you now, was trash and will always be trash and it’s a travesty that he was allowed anywhere near the book. Thanks, Alan.
Strangely, Robbins’ Shadow made me appreciate him for the first time, but the guy who really should get more love on this title is Cruz.
I also liked his work on the strip when he inked his own pencils. However, number 8 (inked by the talented Frank McLaughlin) just did not work in my opinion.
E.R. Cruz did some nice work in the 3 issues he drew (which had Kaluta covers).
I liked his Batman work. I liked the more superheroic stories he drew (generally featuring Man-Bat) as opposed to his more mundane stories as an artist.
However, as a writer, I think he generally did better with more realistic mystery-type Batman stories.
I did not like his Captain America/Invaders work as much. although I appreciated his Simon and Kirby Cap influence. He seemed to be ernastly evoking Captain America Comics #1.
Ah, the subjectivity of artistic taste. I actually prefer the Robbins Shadow to Kaluta’s. Issue 7 is one of my all time favourite comic books. Robbins was a wonderfully idiosyncratic artist. His Invaders issues were a delight and he drew several excellent stories for the DC mystery anthologies.
Agree to disagree. I think he’s one of the worst pencillers of all time. I won’t call him THE worst, because I doubt I’ve seen everyone, but I hated him on The Shadow, on The Invaders, on Batman and wherever else he showed up. Awful.
I agree, but – as I’ve shared in the past – if you want to see Frank Robbins in top form, check out his “Johnny Hazard” comic strips from the 1950s. Very much in the Milt Caniff school of cartooning.
Please bear in mind that Robbins was cited as an inspiration and influence by Alex Toth, a comics genius who would hardly have been impressed by ‘one of the worst pencillers of all time’.
But to offer balance, Toth was probably referring to Robbins’ work on “Johnny Hazard” and the like. His DC work of the ’70s looked like he had gone through quite a few changes (to be very polite). Toth was a genius, no dispute there.
As I said before, “agree to disagree” with both you and Mr. Toth. This IS the hill I die on.
Absolutely love it! Great comic. There is a page by page listing of who did what in Berni Wrightson: a Look Back, published in 1979.
Sadly, Berni became late on Swamp Thing #9 and after page 12 Jeff Jones did a lot of the inks. Jones was a great artist, but there was a lot that Berni did with the brush that wasn’t in the pencils, so those pages suffered a bit.
Kaluta may have also had help from someone other than Wrightson. If you look at the two thugs who are manhandling the woman on the cover the face of the one on the right looks suspiciously like the work of Joe Kubert. Kubert was DC’s “go to” cover artist for many years. The cadaverous face under the large cap looks like something Kubert would have rendered. Perhaps Kubert was asked to touch up the cover art?
I doubt it, but Joe K was so good at drawing crooks and thugs that Muhammad Ali complained about just that: he said Joe made the audience members on the wraparound cover for Superman vs. Muhammad Ali look like criminals. Neal Adams used Joe’s rejected cover as the basis for his own, turning the audience into a smorgasbord of celebrities and comic book creators.
The artwork, as everyone has said was marvelous but what really struck me about this issue was O’Neil’s scripting. Less is more, perfected. One of the great things about the Shadow’s DC run is what was left out.. There was never an origin story. There was never a breakdown of what exactly the Shadow can do. The Shadow never “breaks character” in the whole series, he’s just this obsessive creature with not a hint of subtlety. As near as I can tell his “super powers” are a haunting laugh and disappearing really well. Like here where he emerges from the explosion. No explanation, just simply mystique. Margo knowing the futility of telling him to be careful. The Cobra pondering what the Shadow’s last words will be only to be answered with the signature laugh. I also love the juxtaposition of the solemn Shadow calling out his signature phrase “…Crime does not pay… the Shadow knows” as the hapless gun moll races down the corridor yelling “Halp!” Pure gold, O’Neil.
O’Neil apparently LOVED old radio drama.
I recall he used lines from a Phillip Marlowe radio play in Green Lantern #72 (Phantomof the Space Opera!).
At least the Orson Welles Shadows never explained much about Cranston or The Shadow.
I’ve been really curious to read this issue, with the Kaluta & Wrightson art jam, since that interview with Kaluta in Back Issue #10 in 2005. So, I appreciated your retrospective, with plenty of examples of the artwork. Hopefully one of these days there will be a collected edition of the mid-1970s DC Comics run.
As with other commentors, I’m generally more accepting of the Shadow using lethal force than I am of characters like the Punisher, both because this series is a gritty, noir period piece rather than a contemporary superhero story, and because the Shadow comes across less as a human being than as a mysterious supernatural force.
The 1930s aspect does make me give the Shadow an exemption; I’m less comfortable with him being just as ruthless in the present day. Possibly O’Neil was too — IIRC in neither of his two Batman crossovers by O’Neil did the Master of Darkness kill anyone.
Also, O’Neil would not have written Batman as being okay with the Shadow, or anyone else, killing criminals.
True. Underscored in the second story by Batman’s refusal to use a gun.
Loved loved loved the combo of O’Neil and Kaluta (with or without Wrightson) on THE SHADOW. Wonderful sense of atmosphere.