The story opens with a voice-over, narrating the Rape of Nanking, China by Imperial Japanese forces and leads into the classic Shadow monologue, “I know what evil lurks in the hearts of men.”  From there, the book follows the Shadow as he butchers gangsters and sets up what I assume will be the first story arc.  The art by Aaron Campbell was high quality, consistent with other Dynamite titles, and the writing was surprisingly crisp and unpretentious.

Dynamite Entertainment is the king of modernizing old properties for comics.  They’ve had tremendous success with The Lone Ranger, Zorro and Voltron among others, and I have high hopes that this series will be of similar quality.  As I mentioned above, Ennis is one of those writers that I tend to avoid, but I am planning on staying on THE SHADOW for at least the first story arc and hopefully longer.

If you haven’t already, check it out next week.  There are multiple covers by John Cassaday, Alex Ross, Howard Chaykin and Jae Lee.  I opted for the Ross cover, but all of the above were spectacular.  Good reading.