To modern audiences, The Shadow is either a one-shot movie that starred Alec Baldwin, or possibly a Bronze Age comic book drawn by Mike Kaluta, or, to the majority, a dusty old adventure hero from their grandparent’s generation.

But to think any of that is to do a disservice to a character that might possibly have been the first superhero, who was once considered by many as the greatest crime-fighter of all time, and who at the very least is a fascinating and mysterious adventure hero deserving of a second look.

Because The Shadow is so much more than a just dusty relic of the pulp age. He was a best-selling phenomenon of pulp adventure, a character that was popular for decades, made forays into every entertainment medium, and had sayings that became part of the national lexicon.

His beginnings, however, are humble enough. It all started, more or less, with Street and Smith, a pulp magazine publisher that had veritably created the detective story genre when they converted their old Nick Carter magazine to Detective Story. However, as 1929 came around, McFadden, one of their competitors, began to use the new medium of radio to help boost the ratings of their own pulp detective magazine.

Street and Smith needed to come up with a radio program to counter McFadden. They created Detective Hour, and to make the show stand out they introduced the idea of a mysterious announcer who eerily spoke through a filter microphone. The show debuted on July 31, 1930, on CBS and “The Shadow,” as they named the announcer, at the end of each episode intoned phrases like

“The weed of crime bears bitter fruit.”

“Crime does not pay.”

“The Shadow knows.”

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.”

The gimmick caught on and soon, The Shadow with his harsh laugh and whispered slogans, was more popular than the actual program he was hosting. Street and Smith were surprised when, instead of asking for Detective Story magazine, people were demanding “that Shadow magazine” — a product that didn’t exist!

Quickly, Street and Smith went out and hired Walter Gibson, a newspaper reporter and amateur magician (and an editor with their competitor, McFadden), to create The Shadow character. In April of 1931, the first issue of The Shadow magazine hit the newsstands with a full-length novel of The Shadow titled The Living Shadow.

15 January 1933 The Shadow Magazine

No longer just a voice, now The Shadow starred in his own adventures. Once again, Street and Smith were caught off-guard by their character’s popularity. They originally planned on having the magazine come out quarterly, but after the first issue sold out, and then the second also sold out even after a double press run, they had to change their plans and by the third issue, The Shadow magazine went monthly. But even that wasn’t enough to satisfy the public’s thirst for this new adventure hero, and after eleven months, The Shadow was being published twice a month.

Walter Gibson, writing under the pen name of Maxwell Grant, wrote 282 of the total 325 full-length novels of The Shadow. He wrote two 60,000 word novels a month, often writing 10-15,000 words a day, sometimes on three different typewriters.

The Shadow magazine ran from 1931 to 1949. It was so popular that the first of six two-reel films starring the character was released in the summer of 1931, just a few short months after the magazine’s debut.

In 1932, The Shadow got his own radio show, but he was still just a host. It wasn’t until 1937 that The Shadow finally appeared as the star of his own adventure show. The radio program, however, didn’t exactly follow the novels. In print, The Shadow’s true identity was a mystery, but on radio he was always Lamont Cranston, who, with his lovely companion Margo Lane, was a wealthy playboy and amateur sleuth who helped the police solve crimes.

It was a coup of sorts when The Shadow radio program acquired Orson Welles to play the part of Lamont Cranston. Welles was a hot property at the time, having achieved fame as the youngest and most successful producer on Broadway. Margo Lane was played by the talented Agnes Moorehead.

The public ate it up, making the show the hit of the year, and leaving Street and Smith wishing they had done it years earlier. The program ran from 1937 through 1954, producing well over 700 episodes of which, sadly, only about 200 survive today.

But who was The Shadow? The character differed in approach depending on the medium. In the novels he was a mystery solving crime-fighter, a master of disguise, who wore a black slouch hat and coat. He had the ability to hide in the shadows and strike out at crime virtually unseen, often paralyzing the criminals with fear as his mocking laugh seemed to come from everywhere. Gibson used his background in magic to give The Shadow a realistic element of mystery. In print The Shadow relied more on his pair of .45 automatics, disguises, and his cadre of agents who took orders from him.

The radio Shadow, however, had a different persona. Although he was still the mysterious crime-fighter with the chilling laugh, here he had a backstory of having learned in the Orient the ability to cloud the minds of others, thus explaining his invisibility. Aside from the novels, The Shadow was especially suited for radio where the audience used their own imaginations. When Welles (and later Bill Johnstone and Bret Morrison) talked normally, he was Lamont Cranston. But the audience knew instantly when the actor’s voice became raspy through the use of a filter microphone that The Shadow had appeared! And on radio he only had Margo Lane (a character created solely for radio and who wasn’t introduced until 1941 in the novels, ten years after the first novel was released) and a sometime driver named Shrivey as his aides and companions.

But whatever incarnation The Shadow took — print, radio, movies, television, comic strips, comic books — he was always popular and in demand. And his influence was felt throughout the ’30s and ’40s. As a host, he influenced other Old Time Radio shows to come up with interesting, often creepy, hosts, such as Raymond on The Inner Sanctum and The Man in Black on Suspense. As an adventure hero, in print he spawned all sorts of pulp imitators including The Phantom Detective, Doc Savage, The Spider, and The Green Lama. And he was the influence for one of DC’s greatest heroes, Batman. In fact, the very first Batman story is a direct lift from an earlier The Shadow novel.

It’s been 70 years since The Shadow first appeared in print. Though Street and Smith stopped publishing in 1949 and was bought out in 1959 by Condé Nast, today they continue to hold the rights to many pulp characters such as The Shadow and Doc Savage. There have been recurring resurgences of interest in his novels throughout the years with several significant reprint runs, including in the ’60s and ’70s by Bantam and Pyramid, and currently by Sanctum Books. Rumors of a new The Shadow movie have been swirling for years, first with Sam Raimi (Spiderman) and now with Quentin Tarantino at the helm.

The Shadow is still considered by many to be the greatest crime-fighter of all time. He certainly deserves to be remembered as more than a footnote in the history of heroes.