Well, the guys behind 'The Shadowed Circle' are spoiling me. I've just reviewed issues #3 and #4 in quick succession, being Spring 2022 and Fall/Winter 2022 respectively, so I was playing catch-up. I'm now caught up, because #5 is Spring 2023 and brand new. It features a host of recognisable names from earlier issues, plus some new ones, and continues a few multi-part pieces too. All of a sudden, it feels like I'm keeping up as part of a community.

If there's a negative here, it's that all the continuing pieces here are in their second instalment, a scenario that means that new readers are coming in partway through three of them but aren't in at the ground floor on any. What's more, none of those three wrap up here, so the issue feels a bit like the middle episode of a trilogy, which is always best watched right after the first and with the third ready to go. But hey, c'est la vie. They're all good pieces.

My favourites here are one-offs. Coming into this as a Doc Savage fan, I was spoiled by #4 and was looking forward to the second part of Daryl Morrisey's article on the team-ups between Doc and the Shadow in comic books, but it wasn't here. Fortunately, there is a comparison by M. J. Moran between the two principal characters on Street & Smith's pulp roster that's very well-written. I'm not an outsider to the ways of the Shadow, but I'm not really an insider yet, even though I feel like I belong reading these issues. Using other pulp heroes as gateways is a great idea to trawl people like me in.

After that, there are a couple of pieces more closely focused on the Shadow and its creator, Walter Gibson, who wrote the majority of his stories. Sam Oatley tackles the 1954 television adaptation of the Shadow, in the form of a twenty-five minute pilot episode for a series that never happened. I'd never heard of this version and will happily now seek it out, even though Oatley's review seems to be fair about its merits, or rather the lack of them. Better still is Lloyd Auerbach's look at Walter Gibson's interests in parapsychology and his work in the field, written both from the author's own experience and further research. Both of these were right up my alley.

I learned about B. Jonas, the name on the Shadow's mysterious dead drop office, in an article last time out from Tim King, who attempted to figure out what Gibson's inspiration for that name had been and whether it had any ties to his involvement in the world of magic. King's back in this issue to look at where that office might have been and, given his conclusions last time, similarly attempt to connect it to a real life location that might have tied to magic. It does sprawl a little more than it should, but it's a worthy follow-up.

Pulp historian Will Murray tackles a very specific subject, the mysterious writing break that Gibson took in 1938. I wasn't drawn in quickly to this piece, wondering why I should care, but Murray got to the point well. Spoiler: in many ways, Gibson's sabbatical isn't likely to be about Gibson at all, but a bigger picture that affected him. Again, it sprawls a little more than perhaps it should, but Murray ends up underlining this as a much more important article than it initially seems.

And so to the continuing stories, two of which I started reading in #4. Oddly, the one that I found to be most interesting is one that's new to me, so presumably the first part was way back in either #1 or #2. It's by Malcolm Deeley and it looks at how the Shadow found himself dealing with figures we know from actual real world history. I don't know what part one tackled, but part two looks at the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, trawling in Rasputin and the various Anastasia claimants. It would be an article I'd leap at even if it didn't have a tie to fiction, but learning the Shadow's part in this was fascinating. I'm looking forward to part three, whenever that will show up.

The two that I started in #4 are the ones that suffer from middle episode syndrome. One is the old previously unpublished piece by Dick Myers on the Shadow that was pulled out of the archives for a first publication in 'The Shadowed Circle'. The humour that grew during the first part is evident in this part immediately and I read his accounting (ha) of the financial requirements of the Shadow's organisation with a wry smile on my face. Spoiler: it cost a lot of money and, unlike the Mayan gold that Doc Savage could use to replenish his coffers, there's no explanation in the series as to where it came from.

The other is Todd Severin's look at the Shadow in comic books, which reaches an awkward moment in pop culture, the sixties and the popularisation of camp. This era of the Shadow in comic books is not generally remembered well, sometimes listed amongst the worst comic books of all time, but Severin's provision of context helps put it in a fresh light and it may well be worth a reevaluation. Maybe it was just a short while ahead of its time and so seemed notably out of place when it may have fit in much better a year or two later.

And so this is another solid edition of 'The Shadowed Circle' from editor Steve Donoso, who seems to have built a strong publication to sit alongside the pulp zines of yore. Issue #6 looks interesting, because it's going to be focused on one of the Shadow's many agents, Myra Reldon, aka Ming Dwan, about whom I know nothing but am now eager to learn, being fascinated by the west's fascination with the east in the late Victorian era and the early decades of the twentieth century. I don't know when it's due but, given that the submission deadline has already passed, maybe it'll be Summer. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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