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oldschoolcrimefighters(Originally posted November 7th, 2015)
I got The Black Falcon/The Salamanders reprint for the first story, because Lamont interacting with The Shadow in The Hydra was super cute and a storyline with Lamont getting kidnapped appealed to me. As it turns out, The Black Falcon was not all I hoped for.
On the other hand, The Salamanders is almost a perfect example of what made me fall in love with the novels in the first place: The Shadow is a hypercompetent badass, yes, but he is also human, and fallible, and caring.
Also, Harry Vincent is both badass and frequently in peril (AND OH THE RESCUES IN THIS ONE)
I daresay The Salamanders should be required reading for anyone attempting future adaptations. I defy anyone to read this story and still envision The Shadow as any kind of detached ruthless antihero.
Spoilers under the cut because there are things I need to squee about.
- The story opens with Harry Vincent keeping his cool (pardon the pun) and carrying out his mission despite his hotel being on fire.
- He then proceeds to be in peril from the first friggin chapter. Like, I was legitimately concerned for my fave and may have exclaimed 'WHERE IS HARRY' at the pages somewhere around chapter 5 or so.
- The Shadow's mental processes about seeing Harry Vincent on the 'probably dead' list are not gone into at all and that only added to my anxiety. I'm hovering somewhere between 'was pretty sure Harry wasn't actually dead' and 'was throwing himself into his work so as to not confront that possibility'.
- The Shadow is badass but there's so many humanizing details in this one. He has several runs of bad luck or entirely understandable miscalculations, suffers ill effects from heat and from breathing in smoke and fumes, and he stumbles and staggers and generally just is never shown as disaffected, invulnerable, or infallible
- Harry Vincent manages to be a snarky little shit to the bad guys without saying a single word to them in the entire book and then he's just so proud that if he's about to die he'll have gone down fighting. precious bby
- THE SHADOW LITERALLY WALKS ACROSS HOT COALS TO RESCUE HARRY. HE WALKS INTO A BLAST FURNACE ACROSS FIFTEEN FEET OF FLAMING COALS AND CARRIES HIM BACK OUT AGAIN. AND THERE'S AN ILLUSTRATION. ASDF I AM NOT OKAY.
- The first friggin thing he does is bandage Harry's blistered hands, and he makes Harry rest and speaks to him encouragingly and only gets insistent about Harry's report when he learns that around a hundred civilian lives are in danger.
- Once the civilians are rescued and Harry gets into trouble again the narration outright states that protecting Harry is more important than taking out the criminals, even though they are targeting The Shadow.
- I don't know if it's possible to read this novel and not come out of it total Shadow/Harry trash but I started as total Shadow/Harry trash so
- LITERAL FIREWALK THO!!!?!
I got The Black Falcon/The Salamanders reprint for the first story, because Lamont interacting with The Shadow in The Hydra was super cute and a storyline with Lamont getting kidnapped appealed to me. As it turns out, The Black Falcon was not all I hoped for.
On the other hand, The Salamanders is almost a perfect example of what made me fall in love with the novels in the first place: The Shadow is a hypercompetent badass, yes, but he is also human, and fallible, and caring.
Also, Harry Vincent is both badass and frequently in peril (
I daresay The Salamanders should be required reading for anyone attempting future adaptations. I defy anyone to read this story and still envision The Shadow as any kind of detached ruthless antihero.
Spoilers under the cut because there are things I need to squee about.
- The story opens with Harry Vincent keeping his cool (pardon the pun) and carrying out his mission despite his hotel being on fire.
- He then proceeds to be in peril from the first friggin chapter. Like, I was legitimately concerned for my fave and may have exclaimed 'WHERE IS HARRY' at the pages somewhere around chapter 5 or so.
- The Shadow's mental processes about seeing Harry Vincent on the 'probably dead' list are not gone into at all and that only added to my anxiety. I'm hovering somewhere between 'was pretty sure Harry wasn't actually dead' and 'was throwing himself into his work so as to not confront that possibility'.
- The Shadow is badass but there's so many humanizing details in this one. He has several runs of bad luck or entirely understandable miscalculations, suffers ill effects from heat and from breathing in smoke and fumes, and he stumbles and staggers and generally just is never shown as disaffected, invulnerable, or infallible
- Harry Vincent manages to be a snarky little shit to the bad guys without saying a single word to them in the entire book and then he's just so proud that if he's about to die he'll have gone down fighting. precious bby
- THE SHADOW LITERALLY WALKS ACROSS HOT COALS TO RESCUE HARRY. HE WALKS INTO A BLAST FURNACE ACROSS FIFTEEN FEET OF FLAMING COALS AND CARRIES HIM BACK OUT AGAIN. AND THERE'S AN ILLUSTRATION. ASDF I AM NOT OKAY.
- The first friggin thing he does is bandage Harry's blistered hands, and he makes Harry rest and speaks to him encouragingly and only gets insistent about Harry's report when he learns that around a hundred civilian lives are in danger.
- Once the civilians are rescued and Harry gets into trouble again the narration outright states that protecting Harry is more important than taking out the criminals, even though they are targeting The Shadow.
- I don't know if it's possible to read this novel and not come out of it total Shadow/Harry trash but I started as total Shadow/Harry trash so
- LITERAL FIREWALK THO!!!?!
