The Shadow (Blood and Judgement) #4, August 1986
Comic book pundits in 1986 decided the Shadow mini-series by Howard Chaykin was “controversial.”
Translation: Some fans liked it, some didn’t.
The late Harlan Ellison famously hated it. And Harlan was not famous for being gentle about his opinions. So there’s that. (Comic book journalists, critics, fans and trolls didn’t need the Internet in those days. They had fanzines. But I digress.)
Setting the series in the contemporary era seems to be a primary trigger for fans of the classic pulp character. Fans, who, it should be noted, mostly had abandoned their commercial interest in the character long ago.
A decade earlier, a series by Denny O’Neil and initially drawn Mike Kaluta, brilliantly faithful to The Shadow’s pulp origins and era, didn’t last past 12 issues.
So DC and Chaykin took a different approach with this series. And Chaykin’s world of The Shadow was definitely more “adult” (grittier, sexier, etc.) than earlier versions. Sign of the times, and Chaykin’s mature approach to comic book content specifically. (Chaykin’s Blackhawk and Black Kiss would follow shortly.)
For what it is worth, I gave it a shot, and liked it. The storytelling and art were — not surprisingly — top shelf. Did I care that the character was set in modern times?
I didn’t lose much sleep over it.
Controversial was an overly word then, and virtually worthless now. Dictionary definition is “giving rise or likely to give rise to public disagreement.”
So art is pretty much always “controversial.” Read some contemporaneous reviews of Citizen Kane or Star Wars. I’ll wait.
In 2020, of course, everything is controversial. I never thought I’d see the day when established facts were “controversial.”
Public disagreement indeed.
Sigh.
