DETECTIVE COMICS, Vol. 1, No. 579 (Barr / Breyfogle; DC, 1987)

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Every Wednesday morning, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 20 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection, (re-) read it, write about it, and publish the resultant review/memory/whatever. Earlier installments live here.

(Box08): Simple and solid bit of done-in-one entertainment heavy on the "chum"s – "chum" and Jason Todd just don't mix – and foreshadowing of a larger Two-Face plot rendered in early Breyfogle which is always a delight: there's something about a good done-in-one that triggers – in a good way – a sort of nostalgia for the narrative craftsmanship of a tight, well-done adventure that makes one crave the next issue without resorting to "to be continued" (a la the best episodes of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES – though it had its share of "TBC," but NEVER out of anything other than the needs of the story being told) or interminable crossovers and year-long "this changes everything / biggest thing ever" cataclysms.

FWIW, the "simple bit of done-in-one" was and remains, to me, the biggest missed opportunity in digital comics: entertaining toss-asides that, in their physical manifestation at least – and in the right hands, become treasures passed through time but that's a rant for another time. For now, I'll keep this one short and as entertaining as I can make it, in homage to.

THE SHADOW, No. 1 (Bernstein / Rosenberger; Archie, 1964)

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That was... something – and we haven't even gotten to the superhero costume iteration of The Shadow, who has, in Archie Comics' telling – of which I'm going to write about each of the eight issues here because such is my capacity for self-flagellation – become a blond-haired, blue-eyed commie-smashing, karate-chopping, Secret Service-I-guess Cold War super-spy, Lamont Cranston as The Man From UNCLE which has me crying the same as he faces off with a turtle-necked Shiwan Khan and his sunglass-ed and similarly clothed minions.

Here's the rub, though: excepting the blond/blue superhero change, in the hands of better writers, The Shadow as Cold War spy-smasher – Chakyin (along with Helfer, being the only ones to have successfully brought The Shadow to present-day) started going there in MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW – could have worked; The Shadow was the (proactive) head of a spy ring to begin with, the perfect melding of detective and spy genres in the ink-black streets of a pulp/Depression-era NYC.

But this... this is something else: at best, a haphazard, soulless exploitation of a license that one would expect from a protein-deprived child playing with the same two action figures, each with a snapped-off limb.

Seven more issues and the superhero costume iteration await.