Other than feeling like the ending was incredibly rushed, I was happy overall. It was a nice way to bring the series to an end without confusing anyone, without giving any false hopes, or most importantly, boring anyone with a ton of dialogue, especially when endings should be less talking and more doing. It was a nice round way of bringing The Shadow to a close. Dynamite has really impressed me in the last year, and I’m happy to say that it looks like they’ll keep on chugging away with the same gusto that they’ve recently acquired. Forgive me if I sound ill-informed, but I don’t see this being the complete end for the character, however. There is way too much history there, and there is way too much talent out there to neglect bringing The Shadow back to print. I doubt that this “final issue” really marks the end of the legacy that this character has brought to the comic book industry. The Zombie Queen and her followers have finally taken the city. And it doesn’t look like they are going to go down without a fight. Unfortunately, this fight will have to be fought with a little more firepower than the Shadow possesses on his own. The Shadow is going to have to call on his entire army to gather enough strength to take this evil down for good. The city must be saved, and the Shadow has a plan.
I’ve always felt like the Shadow’s dialogue has been extremely corny. You tend to get that, though with anything from the pulp genre. I’m not a huge fan of it, but I still kind of stick around just because of the quality of the series as a whole. If that’s not a positive review, I don’t know what is. The good thing about this script specifically is that it isn’t a wordy one. I mentioned in the intro that there should be less talking and more doing during finale type stories like this one, and I believe that wholeheartedly. So this is a good thing.
Now the art is the real superstar in this book. Giovanni Timpano definitely should have been the regular artist on this entire series. Seeing what he’s been able to do on this book makes me wonder why it took so long to get him here in the first place. I don’t understand how the comic book industry works as much as I’d like to, but I’d at least like to think that I know talent when I see it.
Although I am happy with the end, I’m not really happy, or ecstatic. It was pretty good. The whole rushed feeling is really hard for me to get over. I get the impression that more care could have gone into the finale of the book. I don’t know if that was talent just slacking off (I doubt it), or if there was pressure from somewhere else to get this book done and in the archive. Who knows? But I will admit that I would have liked to see another issue or two here at the end. At least one.
Score: 3/5
Writer: Chris Roberson Artist: Giovanni Timpano Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment Price: $3.99 Release Date: 5/14/14 Format: Ongoing, Print/Digital