Friday, December 31, 2021

"The End" Week: the Shadow #25!

This may or may not count as a last issue; I kind of wish it didn't, since I could've used "Shadow of the Living Dead" for the post title. From 2014, the Shadow #25, written by Chris Roberson, art by Giovanni Timpano.
All of the set-up was probably done the previous issue, as we open with the Shadow's communications agent, Burbank, trying to puzzle out the horror: starting in Chinatown and spreading across the rest of New York, the unburied dead were rising to feed upon the living. The ghouls are even giving the Shadow trouble, partly because he doesn't seem to just be shooting them in the head, but is still putting like ten bullets in each one. He's forced to escape via autogyro, to try and come up with a plan.
The previous issue apparently began with the investigation of stolen laundry soap, which was the first step in the Tong's plan, to then use an "adulterated" soap filled with pufferfish poison to "kill" victims, who would return in a suggestible, controlled state. So, the Shadow probably gunned down some innocent victims, but he's an eggs/omelet kind of guy. Mobilizing an army of his operatives, the Shadow has the Tong's soap deliveries stopped, and the zombified victims treated and cured. A slug in the head of the Tong boss lady, and that's that. 

There was a #0 issue after this, but one of the covers of #25 has "Final Issue!" on it, so here we go. Next up from Dynamite would be the six-issue Midnight in Moscow, Howard Chaykin's return to the Shadow.

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