The Shadow

The Shadow (Eng. The Shadow ) is an American detective radio drama series from the 1930s. The main character of the same name was developed by Walter Brown Gibson, under the pseudonym Maxwell Grant. She was later adopted for comics and pulp fiction.

Description

Shadow is considered the forerunner of the modern superhero. Many later heroes like Batman, are inspired by him. Characteristic of the dark anti-hero are his large dark slouch hat, his red, always the lower half of the face obscuring forming scarf and his two large-caliber guns.

Shadow has the ability learned in Asia, through mental manipulation ( similar to hypnosis) to manipulate the minds of people so that he can control them and influence. Among other things, he can believe he would make invisible. Only his shadow is in this state for the mere mortals still visible. Thus the name The Shadow justified.

One big difference between the Shadow of dime novels and the figure of Shadow from the radio broadcasts is his real identity.

In the dime novels behind the hero of the downed pilot in Asia Kent Allard (known as "The Black Eagle" ), which at times takes on the identity of its agents Lamont Cranston, while it is traveling abroad. In the later novels is hardly mentioned that there is a " real" Lamont Cranston. In the radio adventures of the rich playboy and bon vivant Cranston is in fact the true identity of the Shadow. In the later novels is even hinted that Allard's body was found in the wreckage of the aircraft and therefore neither Shadow Cranston is still Allard.

In the course of the stories Shadow builds an entire network of agents on - usually people who owe him a favor or owe their lives to him.

Background

Gibson himself said that the figure of The Shadow is based on the real existing magician and mentalist Joseph Dunninger. Dunninger was a close friend and Gibson had in the 1940s, even a popular radio program in which he live read the thoughts of his guests. 1943 appeared Dunninger, one of the few real characters in the Shadow adventures in the story House of Ghosts. In this story Dunninger and Shadow fighting side by side against ghosts in a haunted house.

Shadow on the radio

The first Shadow thriller episode was sent on 31 July 1930 in the United States. First Shadow was only the non- active acting narrator of Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine stories. Later, The Shadow was one of the most popular serials of the United States. In the years 1937 and 1938, the role of the Shadow by Orson Welles was spoken. In 1954, the series was discontinued.

Worth mentioning

• Each episode of the radio show began with the sentences " Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows! " ( " Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows! ")
• The Shadow was a predecessor of the same name. 1929 emerged invented by George C. Jenks character in the magazine Fame and Fortune. In the story The Shadow of The Wall Street Compton Moore was the protector of Wall Street and chased under the pseudonym Shadow dishonest businessmen.
• In the story published in 1966, The Night of The Shadow of Dennis Lynds, Shadow makes in Gotham City, a group of gangsters arrest and thus saves the life of Thomas Wayne and his son Bruce, who later becomes Batman.
• End of 2006, Columbia Pictures acquired the film rights to Gibson's Shadow and planned partly with the aid of Sam Raimi as producer, a remake of the substance in 2008.

Films

1 Based on the story The Shadow Ghost of the Manoy

2 Based on Shadow - history Foxhound

3 Shadow himself appears not to and is represented by his agent.

4 planned as the first part of a three-part television that was never aired

• Radio drama series ( English )
• Literary Figure
• Cartoon character