'The Shadow: Leviathan' by Simon Spurrier and Dan Watters with art by Daniel HDR is a graphic novel about a mysterious man the world hasn't seen for a while, and the caregiver who may have found him again.

Mary Jerez was saved years ago from a school shooting by The Shadow. Later as a resident in a hospital she is there when a horribly burned man comes in. As she treats him, she starts to suspect that her patient is the mysterious man who saved her.

I liked this story of The Shadow. It manages to tie in to more modern times and not feel contrived. The art is great and there were some nice surprises along the way.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Dynamite Entertainment, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

I am learning by now that Dynamite's The Shadow comics can be hit or miss. When they get it right, say with The Shadow/Green Hornet, Volume 1: Dark Nights (link to my review is included in the blog post), it can be great. When they miss, it is usually bad. The Shadow: Leviathan is a serious miss. It seems they are attempting to bring the character into the modern era, but it just does not work.

Mary Jerez was a schoolgirl saved by The Shadow during a school shooting. She grows up, life goes on, she becomes a medical doctor. She becomes convinced that a horribly burnt patient under her care is The Shadow. But is he? The Shadow has not been seen in years. Meanwhile, right wing extremists steal his image to create a xenophobic patriot movement.

That premise has potential, but the authors just run all over with it. At times, it seems the authors are more concerned with preaching politics than delivering a story. Then the story goes between flashbacks of The Shadow in action and the present day. In addition, the whole Leviathan stuff is never really clear.

The story feels messy and not always coherent. If they wanted to bring The Shadow into modern times, this was too overwrought to accomplish that. As I stated, I have liked some The Shadow comics, but I am not sure what to make of this mess. The art is good enough, but the story is just incoherent. This could have had potential, but instead it falls flat.

Plusy:
+ udane odrodzenie postaci Shadowa
+ ambitne próby mieszania gatunków
+ ciekawe „oszukiwanie” czytelnika (i bohaterów)

Minusy:
- ciężki rysunek
- zbyt gatunkowy, klasyczny komiks

I'm not all that familiar with The Shadow. I remember vague references to him from when I was a kid growing up in the '70s... Mainly the phrase "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" This is probably only the third or fourth time I've read anything about him and they were all in the form of modern comics/graphic novels.

While a mysterious man who may or may not be The Shadow lies in a hospital burn unit the story takes us back through the years to see how The Shadow's actions have impacted (both directly and indirectly) the lives of those left in his wake. The ultimate question, "What if The Shadow didn't know?"

The art is fantastic! The story is intriguing and makes you think. Even though it does get a little complicated eventually it all comes together pretty well. I enjoyed it.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The story starts off with a burn victim and the doctor who is taking care of him and then the author gets on a political soapbox and story veers all over the place. The story does not make much sense. The artwork is OK but the story should have been better. The artwork and story are violent and political so skip this one if you are easily offended.

A doctor tending a burn victim relates her experience being saved by the enigmatic vigilante known as 'The Shadow’. It is modern day, and the Shadow hasn't been seen in some time. This story jumps time frames, from the Shadow’s original era to present day. Most of it focuses on the Shadow saving a mother and child, and how that child, Worthy Delaney, grows up, and goes wrong.

I love the Shadow. One of the oldest books in my personal collection is an original Shadow pulp novel, tattered and well-loved. Finding those books, and that character, helped me through some tough times. I seem to be partial to anti-hero characters. Sometimes viciousness needs to be combated with viciousness. Sometimes, just sometimes, ends do justify means.

I found this graphic novel so sad though. Bringing the Shadow present day just seems wrong to me for some reason. Despite that, I enjoyed this story thread, and the artwork. It was a great commentary on present day society. I loved that the hospital is the 'Walter B Gibson Hospital’. Nice homage to the creator.

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Diamond Book Distributors for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The description of this graphic novel sounded intriguing. However it failed to live up to its premise. In essence this is a philosophical treatise using Thomas Hobbes’ social contract theory. It attempted to explain American history from the 1920s to present using this thought. Not convinced with this argument to explain societal ills. Or that the writers were able to successfully explain this theory either. The artwork is meant to be dark given the topic and tends to have graphic violence and lots of swearing. Overall, disappointing read.

The Shadow: Leviathan is a continuation in the world of the Shadow (naturally) and is brought to us by Si Spurrier (Judge Dredd, 2000 AD, X-Force, X-Men) and Daniel HDR (Cyborg,Lady Death, Superman). The Shadow is one of those fun characters; he’s not really a force of good, but he isn’t a force of evil either. More like he follows his own rules, and expects others to obey them as well.
For the sake of honesty I should probably mention that I haven’t read any of the other Shadow novels. Having read Leviathan I felt reasonably impressed, so I’ll likely go back and read through everything else. This may have kept me from raising my expectations for this graphic novel, and may be the reason I liked it more than some of the other reviews out there (what can I say; expectations are rough, especially when they’re not met).
There were a lot of great scenes in this book. The introduction was interesting, and admittedly took me a little bit to get into (a doctor taking care of patient in an almost gruff manner) but once I did it felt like things really got rolling. I love the mystery and assumptions that were made during this part, by all parties involved. It was clever, intriguing, and immediately capable of pulling its audience in.
I love the idea of the old watch lingering and trying to maintain itself in a new world, which really is exactly what is going on here. The Shadow and his people are a dying breed – not meant for a modern world like ours. Maybe a new one can come about someday, one that’ll be capable of dealing with these times. That’s an interesting concept.
In particular I found myself loving the artwork; it was dark and while it was never quite macabre it danced around the idea of it. You could see the older comic influences in it, and there were little bits of the Shadow’s history that bled into the art style itself.

The first issue started off strong with a burn victim in the hospital listening to an attending physician talk about how The Shadow saved her during a school shooting. But as the story goes on, it devolves into a series of scenes that are all over the place, never coalescing into a coherent story. There are fragments of stories from different time periods going back from the thirties til now, allusions that his helpers live longer lives, something about a Trump presidency that doesn't fit into the story at all, white nationalists dressing up as The Shadow, government conspiracies, mobsters who become presidential advisers. It just becomes a swirling pot of nonsense that some will say is social commentary on American society, but if so that commentary doesn't come across except maybe, racism is bad. This was a disappointment to be sure.

Some books can get so twisted that you are not sure what is going on or which way is up. One of those is The Shadow: Leviathan which postulates The Shadow returning today after a long rest only to find that his past actions have borne a bitter fruit. The evil that he tries to undo is twisted so that his instrument does more evil until it eats itself in the end. But will this be The Shadow's last foray? Only time will tell.

Thanks Netgalley for the opportunity to read this Lovecraftian tinged volume.

I’m not a big fan of graphic novels, tho I’m a big Shadow fan and powered thru this one. I like the notion to bring the Shadow into the modern era, but I wish the story had been novelized instead. I liked the original modern characters. The artwork was breath-taking.

Wow. I've normally disliked any Shadow book I've picked up, for the inherent naffness of the character and his treatment. Which clearly makes this volume the best Shadow book I know of. It's almost got an X-Files element to it, with the deeper malaise in society, shady websites, and wannabe vigilantes galore all featured. It does get rather Pseud's Corner at times, with the title theme especially, but it's a fine book all the same - great artwork and colouring, and strong characters. I wasn't taken by the more up-to-date political references and allusions, but on the whole I'd certainly recommend this - even if, like me, you thought The Shadow kind of blew.

I love The Shadow, and have since i began reading the pulp novels in the 1970's. Soon after I transferred to the comics which were just as enjoyable. Lately, however, I find something lacking and the same goes for this story.

It is good enough as a Shadow tale and has all the required elements, but there is something of style missing, or perhaps better put the artists style did not resonate with me (and many fine artists have done Shadow comics so that is part of the reason).

Still...I will take any Shadow over "no" Shadow so though I have seen and read better, I am happy that this is coming out for others to enjoy and hopefully discover this wonderfully mysterious character.

I'm really liking the angle authors are taking with The Shadow. There is a fair amount of current era political commentary in this volume, which I think is interesting to explore with Lamont and the world he has been thrown into. A great read, but don't expect the same Shadow from the radio plays.

This is certainly an interesting comic, but a bit confusing in places. Nevertheless this story about the Shadow draws on contemporary US politics which I think is a clever way of providing a political perspective on contemporary issues. If you are not really interested in the political aspect of the story, it is still a good graphic novel with a lot of twists and turns.

Lots of fights and action too. The Shadow always strikes me as somewhat of an anti-hero who walks a very thin line between justice and criminality. The bad guys are taken out whether or not the method of doing so is lawful. I am not really a great follower of graphic novels featuring the Shadow but I still enjoyed reading this. The artwork was a bit dark but the Shadow is a character who operates in the darkness and so the darkness of the artwork is in some way to be expected.

All in all I thought this was a good comic to read and fans of the Shadow will probably enjoy this new story.

Copy probided by publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

It's been awhile since I more than disliked a book; with The Shadow: Leviathan I actively hated this book. I got half way through before I had had enough - this is just the author soapboxing his political and social views rather than a story that reinvents the Shadow in modern times. School shootings, immigration xenophobia, mass murder, Trump whitehouse, crooked politicians, and a medical system where your nurse nicknames you "crispy" because you are burned all over and refers to your privates as your "burnt weiner". This was godawful.

Story: A severely burnt man shows up at a hospital. He is burnt all over but his nurse recognizes his laugh: when she was a high schooler, there was a school shooting and she was saved by the Shadow. But is he the Shadow? They will both try to find out.

First and foremost, from the start I had issues. The first pages feature a nurse bandaging him while babbling incoherently about being a 'namesless scrany latina' at a high school where there was a shooting. She's insulting the patient the whole time while she remembers the Shadow coming in and talking about the shooters being spoiled middle class kids who, through an eroding class system, didn't like that they were losing their specialness and so turned to mass murder at their school to compensate. It was such a facile and stupid explanation for the rash of school shootings today that I was completely flabbergasted. The Shadow is supposed to be able to see into the heart of men - and all he could see was that school shooters are all over privileged middle class entitled idiots? Really? Let's not get into the details that the "scrawny Latina nurse" is Caucasian skinned and blonde. And that the Shadow has no problem gunning down the minors after he stopped them from shooting people.

Don't even get me started about the name dropping of philosopher Thomas Hobbes and his Leviathan book. There are LITERAL pictures of leviathans in the story - except they looked like centipedes and were 'infesting' people. Literal pictures for a metaphorical philosophy from the 18th century. Yeah, that bad.

It gets worse from there - more babbling about crooked politicians in the white house and fear of immigrants. These are important topics but the handling of them is so ridiculously oversimplified and lacking in sophistication that it becomes obvious the author is using the Shadow as a medium to push his own poorly informed opinions. This isn't about the Shadow operating in the modern world; this is about the author's opinions and using the Shadow to justify them - because the Shadow can see into the hearts of men, natch. It's drivel and one has to laugh at an author who thinks using a superhero as a mouthpiece will provide substance and verity to his drivel.

There are so many good titles out there, especially for The Shadow. And they are actually all about the Shadow and not using the character as a mouthpiece. Go find one of those to read and save yourself from this really sad waste of artistic talent. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

In an amazing example of artistic and storytelling mastery, this classic character has been updated for the modern world bridging the gap between the classic character and the modern world - making this a must read for fans of comics, mysteries, noir, and a masterfully crafted story.

This was a thought-provoking, if somewhat disjointed graphic novel. I found the characterization of the Shadow (a favorite character of mine) in the twenty-first century interesting. I don't know if it translates all that well, but I enjoyed the story.

A gritty graphic novel. Lots of interesting ideas in this one.

Apparently, "The Shadow" Knows His 17th Century Political Philosophy

I really like Lamont Cranston and The Shadow of the 1930's and 40's. We battled gangsters, and crooks, and pirates, and black marketeers, and spies, and all other manner of evil hearted men. But as time passed that wasn't enough. The Shadow had to become a conflicted and tormented hero with a dark side. O.K., there's no stopping progress.

Interestingly, as late as 1994 The Shadow was still fighting evil and creatures. In that year, in "The Shadow: In the Coils of Leviathan", we fought a huge, underground, sewer based ravenous creature aptly named Leviathan. Well, that name has popped up again, but this time in an entirely different context. "Leviathan" was the book by Thomas Hobbes, published in 1651, in which Hobbes proposed the idea of the Social Contract. To Hobbes, facing the English Civil War, man's natural state was one of conflict, despair, violence, and fear of death. Life was described, in the most famous phrase from the book, as "poor, nasty, brutish, and short". As a remedy, Hobbes proposed the establishment of a commonwealth through a social contract by which all men gave up some of their freedom in order to be governed by a sovereign, (monarch, or aristocracy, or democratic leader). The figurative symbol of this commonwealth was a gigantic human form made up the bodies of all members, with the sovereign as the head. This image or metaphor was named "Leviathan". That's the Leviathan this graphic novel is referring to.

All of this is the long way around to describing this book. I'm not making this up. At one point half-way through Thomas Hobbes is name checked, and later a character does some monologuing while holding a recognizable original edition of the "Leviathan" book. At that point what is going on becomes clear. "The Shadow" rails about how he was in a sort of retirement because all was well with America's social contract, but now he has come out of the shadows to start again because things have gone wrong, the fabric is fraying, and peace is threatened by the opposition of man against man, and "leviathan", or the body politic, is tortured and restless.

Needless to say this is way beyond fighting 1940's gangsters. The drawing looks like old school Shadow. Some of the full page one-shots are awesome. There is a lot of action and gunplay. Lots of bad guys get shot, but now some of the bad guys are tied to the White House, and lots of the bad guys are stand ins for current political issues and for a general sense of injustice. I'm not sure if despair over our fraying fabric is a good fit for The Shadow, or if the evil in men's hearts can be updated to include unyielding partisanship, ideological blindness, and high level corruption, but that's more or less where I thought this novel ended up. It's all rather ambitious and risky, and I finally decided that if heroes like The Shadow have to be updated, this was probably a pretty worthwhile direction to try.

So, while you might need to brush up a bit on your political theory, this is still The Shadow, and he's still trying to fight evil. It's just that evil has become a lot harder to identify, and justice has become a victim of alternative facts. I don't think I could handle a steady diet of this, and there are points at which I was a little tired of the soapboxing, but in the end I admired the project and retained my high regard for The Shadow.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)