Random Happenstance

The day before I picked up a ton of recent Shadow comics, somebody on Twitter pointed out Batman: Year One is all about Batman (and Gordon) trying to get their footing and figure out how things are going to work, while in the Shadow's Year One book, he pretty much has his game plan set by issue #2. The only notes were "maybe a cloak?" But, we'll be checking out a Shadow well further along in his career today: from 2014, the Shadow: Midnight in Moscow #4, story and art by Howard Chaykin.

Spoiler: the Shadow doesn't even get to Moscow until the tailend of this issue! This was set in December, 1959; and after almost two decades the Shadow was starting to lose some ground in his war on crime. But, after he stops a crime boss's gold heist, he finds mysteriously shrunken bars of gold, then the boss turns up alive later, but a few inches shorter? And while the Shadow himself is still inscrutable, his longtime companion Margo Lane wonders how long they could keep up the life: neither of them were getting any younger. Surprisingly, the Shadow may agree with her, and announces his retirement; which is more of an excuse for a trip than anything.

Chaykin has always had an eye for the past, but in a rather sullen way here: sure, the suits were nice, but New York sucks, London sucks, Paris sucks, Berlin sucks, and Moscow extra sucks. Rampant corruption, willful blindness, and bad food almost all the way down. The Shadown and Margo are one step behind a British agent and his Texan honeypot, who are blackmailing a nuclear scientist, but there may be more to them. Still, after the plot was wrapped up, the last two pages of the series surprised me, as cold even for the Shadow; although maybe fitting into what passes for 'continuity' for him.