Nights Of The Shadow Nine!

DC's The Shadow was a bi-monthly comic and in between issues he appears next in Batman #259, another crossover. The story titled "The Night of the Shadow" is written again by O'Neil with excellent Bat-art by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano. All of that is under a complicated but still handsome Nick Cardy cover. 

The Shadow appears in the prologue to this story, set twenty-five years previously in Bruce Wayne's boyhood and we find the Waynes stuck in the middle of a jewel heist and young Bruce is traumatized by the use of the guns. Cut to the current day and Batman is dealing with the hood from that heist who is just out of jail and looking for revenge on the folks who sent him up. There is some confusion about the tiara in question and it turns out there was more to the crime than first suspected. But the culprits are dealt with, and the Shadow does show up in the end to congratulate Batman-Bruce Wayne (The Shadow knows!) on his overcoming his fear of guns.

This one was a well-crafted tale visually, but I've grown weary of stories that ceaselessly complicate Batman's backstory. This one seemed pointless. It's one thing when they occur in the "Haneyverse" of the Brave and Bold, but presumably this story is canon. I imagine like everything else though this Bat-Shadow connection was washed away by the original Crisis. It is interesting though that DC saw the obvious connection between the heroes, the influences of the Shadow on Batman. This connection is even stronger than has been long believed according to the research of Will Murray. Neither Bob Kane nor Bill Finger were afraid to lift things from the pulps to use in their comics, making for some compelling parallels.

More to come.

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