The Shadow at Dynamite

Dynamite (the publisher of Zorro, Lone Ranger, Green Hornet, Black Terror) has announced that it has acquired the rights to Street & Smith's pulp hero the Shadow. Dynamite as a company has a history of announcing things before they are finalized (The Fighting American, the Phantom), so here's hoping this one doesn't come back and bite them in the next few days.

No announcement of a set creative team but here's hoping it doesn't include Alex Ross (Other than covers of course) or Kevin Smith. The good news is the announcement talks about the history of the character but nothing about re-designs or working to make the character more palatable to today's audiences that generally pop up in their announcements and talks about classic characters. Maybe they learned something from DC's crash and burn with the pulp and Red Circle heroes. It's telling that when they talked about the Kirby heroes of Kirby's Genesis they talked about how they were keeping faithful to the designs and looks of the characters. So there's hope that they have learned something.

The biggest fear should probably be decompressed storytelling, first issues that don't have the hero in action at all. This has been part of Dynamite's general storytelling, long drawn out origin stories, writing for the trade market and not the monthly comicbook market. There should be action and mystery in the first issue.

Dynamite does have a good pool of writers and artists to draw from, but are any up to writing the character. Wagner from Green Hornet: Year One seems to have a grasp of the time period, and Francovilla has a good feel of mood and style that the title should call for. Maybe they could lure Gerard Jones and Eduardo Barreto back to comics and a character they did so well years ago.

Some wonderful preview images though.