There's leveling the playing field, then there are bulldozers...

...and Garth Ennis's Shadow is a bulldozer, driven by a cackling sociopath with a pair of .45's.

I got the first issue of Dynamite's new Shadow series a bit ago (art by Aaron Campbell) and was both impressed and slightly dismayed I hadn't been buying it on the regular. It may be a bit similar to another current book from Ennis, Fury MAX (a book that is just killing it for my tastes) but I'm OK with that. (CBR's recent preview of #6 has Cranston, the Shadow, working with American intelligence, like Fury; in the role of "bastard getting things done.")

But the Shadow seems to be at the top of his game from the first page: he's got his network of operatives, including Margo Lane. He's got the mysterious Eastern techniques like hypnosis, clouding the minds of the weak, speaking with the newly dead, and catching glimpses of the future. The only apparent reason that this Shadow hasn't wiped crime out of New York, is that bullets are expensive...

...of course, if you don't put four in every thug, you can stretch your budget accordingly.