The Shadow (1986) 4

Blood & Judgment Conclusion
By Howard Chaykin
Aug 1986

- the Shadow's operatives (including Harry and Margo) go to work digging up information, wonderfully disjointed; 4 pages of operatives doing their thing and then reporting back to Lorelei
- page 5, finally get a glimpse of Lorelei, and her monkeys, didn't realize she had them until now; her word balloons are heart-shaped which implies something about the way she talks to The Shadow
- Preston Mayrock reveals to Mercy that they have AIDS, which came a bit out of left field and wasn't really followed up on, or maybe it was in the way she dealt with him later
- the Shadow locates Mayrock who reveals himself to be Lamont Cranston, he didn't die after getting thrown off the mountain in 1922 (64 years ago) but he has aged, unlike Allard
- flashback as Mayrock reveals what happened to him, how he survived and ultimately thrived after being left for dead
- Cranston thinks that he holds all the cards but then everything goes sideways for him, his wife, and his son
- first his wife shoots him, killing him, them his son kills his wife, and then the Shadow sends Cranston and his son through a window and plunging to their deaths from the top floor of his casino
- in the end Allard decides to not to return to Shambala, his sons opt to stay with him
- Mercy - she was originally game show hostess, that's where Cranston spotted her; love the way Chaykin draws her especially her hair; she is in love with the Shadow
- Mavis Lockhart - only has a cameo appearance, what happened to her, has she really changed her tune, is she seriously calling him master un ironically or is the reader supposed to read sarcasm into her use of the word master?
- Chaykin is focused on telling a story, not on explaining everything, if you want all the loose ends tied up you are going to be disappointed
- as I suspected it is revealed that the missile with the nuclear warhead is a SAM, unclear how that could carry enough to destroy NYC, was this a mistake on Chaykin's part or Mayrock's or is it true and I'm the one who is wrong? I can see such a missile having an impact, killing a lot of people, causing a lot of damage but not wiping out NYC

Chaykin & the Shadow

- there are a couple Shadow series that were published by DC in the next few years but other than the cover to one issue Chaykin didn't work on them at all, he didn't return to writing and drawing the Shadow until 2014
- 1st work on TS: inked a couple pages of Shadow 4 (Apr/May 1974)
- this mini-series was his second piece of work on TS
- next work cover to TS (1987) Annual 1 (1987)
- after that nothing until 2012