The Shadow Returns

The Shadow is returning. Per Deadline:

James Patterson and Condé Nast are teaming to revive vintage crime fighter The Shadow in a series of books that will also aim to be adapted for the screen. 

Hachette Book Group imprint Little, Brown will publish the original series, whose first installment is due out in the fall of 2021. Condé Nast has long controlled licensing for the character via its Street & Smith subsidiary. 

The Shadow, a signature New York vigilante, originated in the 1930s as a series of pulp novels by Walter B. Gibson. A popular radio drama based on the books featured the voice of Orson Welles. In 1994, Universal released a feature film adaptation starring Alec Baldwin. 

“Who can forget The Shadow’s historic tagline, ‘Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?’”, Patterson said in the official announcement. “Well, The Shadow knows. And soon readers will, too. I’ve long been a fan of The Shadow and am looking forward to bringing his legendary character to life in the modern age.”

Razorfist was right, reading the tea leaves of rights revocations to predict a new push behind the character, conveniently timed when The Shadow starts to enter the public domain. I remain cautious--the history of relaunches lately has been underwhelming at best and disastrous at the worst. Patterson's involvement is not a salve to those concerns either. Perhaps, though, I might be too cynical of the master wordsmith manager.

However, for those who cannot wait, the Sanctum reprints are still available, and the first two new Shadow novels are as well, Doc Savage: The Sinister Shadow and Doc Savage: Empire of Doom. And if the sudden flood of Canadian public domain Doc Savage books are anything to go by, we'll soon see cheap ebook reprints of The Living Shadow.