The next DC Shadow appearance is the January 1974 The Shadow #2. The comic sports one of my favorite covers from the run, a really dramatic image by Mike Kaluta. Denny O'Neil is on hand for the scripting again and Kaluta handles the art throughout.
"Freak Show Murders" amps up the weird factor in these tales quite a bit. There's a strange new metal called "Alumite" and its inventor is dead, so the one sample (a life-sized art deco statue of a woman) is the only sample. A "Harlequin" in green shows up to steal it from its owner and involves a guy named Steven Kilroy who wanted to buy it legitimately. The Shadow shows up a bit late but does apprehend some of the gang. Next thing we know he's telling Margot to join a carnival, which she does becoming "Spidora" a freak with the head of a woman and the fake body of a spider (special effects). There's also in this sideshow Benzare a knife expert, Damon and Pythias -- siamese twins, Alhambra a snake-charmer, Panchini a tatooed man, Nicco the a cigarette fiend, and Ajax the wild man. They are all under a guy named Pop Sorber who runs the carnival.
The action unfolds in vintage pulp fashion as Margot seeks the secrets, but eventually we find out that Kilroy was Ajax hiding to save his life and find the statue, and that Nicco was The Shadow himself. They uncover the fact that the twins aren't what they seem but two spies pretending to be conjoined (done with mirrors no less). The pacing in this issue is furious but in the end the statue and the villains are dispatched by falling into a river. Whether the metal is recovered is left for another day. All in all a heady little tale, full of the pulpish zest I've come to expect in a Shadow tale.
More to come.
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