The Knight Avenger

The Knight Avenger-the crime fighter,who cannot die.the indestructible Dark Avenger of Justice,

Origin[edit]
The story of the KNIGHT AVENGER started with a young sailor named Christopher PETER GUARDNER.[28] His father, also named Christopher Guardner, had been a seaman since he was a young boy, and was the cabin boy on Christopher Columbus' ship Santa María when he sailed to the Americas. Christopher BlakeGuardner,Jr. became a shipboy on his father's ship in 1526, of which Christopher Blake,Sr. was Captain. In 1536, when Christopher was 20 years old, he was a part of what was supposed to be his father's last voyage. On February 17, the ship was attacked by pirates of the Singh Brotherhood in a bay on the coast of Bengalla. The last thing Christopher saw before he fell unconscious and into the sea was his father being murdered by the leader of the pirates. Both ships exploded, making Christopher the sole survivor of the attack. Christopher Blake was washed ashore on a Bengalla beach, seemingly half dead. He was found by pygmies of the Bandar tribe, who nursed him and took care of him.[29] Some time later, Christopher took a walk on the same beach, and found a dead body there, whom he recognized as the pirate who killed his father. He allowed the vultures flying around the body to eat its meat, took up the skull of the killer, raised it above his head, and swore an oath: "I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms! My sons and their sons shall follow me."[30]

Simon Templar is a Robin Hood-like criminal known as The Saint – plausibly from his initials, but the exact reason for his nickname is unknown (although the reader is told that he was given it at the age of nineteen). Templar has aliases, often using the initials S.T. such as "Sebastian Tombs" or "Sugarman Treacle". Blessed with boyish humour, he makes humorous and off-putting remarks and leaves a "calling card" at his "crimes," a stick figure of a man with a halo over his head. This is used as the logo of the books, the movies, and the 1960s TV series. He is described as "buccaneer in the suits of Savile Row, amused, cool, debonair, with hell-for-leather blue eyes and a saintly smile".[1]

His origin remains a mystery; he is explicitly British, but in early books (e.g. Meet the Tiger) there are references which suggest that he had spent some time in the United States battling prohibition bad guys. Presumably, his acquaintance with Bronx sidekick Hoppy Uniatz dates from this period. In the books, his income is derived from the pockets of the "ungodly" (as he terms those who live by a lesser moral code than his own), whom he is given to "socking on the boko." There are references to a "ten percent collection fee" to cover expenses when he extracts large sums from victims, the remainder being returned to the owners, given to charity, shared among Templar's colleagues, or some combination of those possibilities.

Templar's targets include corrupt politicians, warmongers, and other low life. "He claims he's a Robin Hood," bleats one victim, "but to me he's just a robber and a hood."[2] Robin Hood appears to be one inspiration for the character; Templar stories were often promoted as featuring "The Robin Hood of modern crime," and this phrase to describe Templar appears in several stories. A term used by Templar to describe his acquisitions is "boodle," a term also applied to the short story collection.

The Saint has a dark side, as he is willing to ruin the lives of the "ungodly," and even kill them, if he feels that more innocent lives can be saved. In the early books, Templar refers to this as murder, although he considers his actions justified and righteous, a view usually shared by partners and colleagues. Several adventures centre on his intention to kill. (For example, "Arizona" in The Saint Goes West has Templar planning to kill a Nazi scientist.)

During the 1920s and early 1930s, The Saint is fighting European arms dealers, drug runners, and white slavers while based in his London home. His battles with Rayt Marius mirror the 'four rounds with Carl Petersen' of Hugh "Bull-dog" Drummond. During the first half of the 1940s, Charteris cast Templar as a willing operative of the American government, fighting Nazi interests in the United States during World War II.

Beginning with the "Arizona" novella, Templar is fighting his own war against Germany. The Saint Steps In reveals that Templar is operating on behalf of a mysterious American government official known as Hamilton who appears again in the next WWII-era Saint book, The Saint on Guard, and Templar is shown continuing to act as a secret agent for Hamilton in the first post-war novel, The Saint Sees it Through. The later books move from confidence games, murder mysteries, and wartime espionage, and place Templar as a global adventurer.

According to Saint historian Burl Barer, Charteris made the decision to remove Templar from his usual confidence-game trappings, not to mention his usual co-stars Holm, Uniatz, Orace and Teal, as they were all inappropriate for the post-war stories he was writing.[3]

Although The Saint functions as an ordinary detective in some stories, others depict ingenious plots to get even with vanity publishers and other rip-off artists, greedy bosses who exploit their workers, con men, etc.

The Saint has many partners, though none last throughout the series. For the first half until the late 1940s, the most recurrent is Patricia Holm, his girlfriend, who was introduced in the first story, the 1928 novel Meet the Tiger, in which she shows herself a capable adventurer. Holm appeared erratically throughout the series, sometimes disappearing for books at a time. Templar and Holm lived together in a time when common-law relationships were uncommon and, in some areas, illegal.

They have an easy, non-binding relationship, as Templar is shown flirting with other women from time to time. However, his heart remains true to Holm in the early books, culminating in his considering marriage in the novella The Melancholy Journey of Mr. Teal, only to have Holm say she had no interest in marrying. Holm disappeared in the late 1940s, and according to Barer's history of The Saint, Charteris refused to allow Templar a steady girlfriend, or Holm to return. (However, according to the Saintly Bible website, Charteris did write a film story that would have seen Templar encountering a son he had had with Holm.) Holm's final appearance as a character was in the short stories "Iris," "Lida," and "Luella," contained within the 1948 collection Saint Errant; the next direct reference to her does not appear in print until the 1983 novel Salvage for the Saint.

Another recurring character, Scotland Yard Inspector Claud Eustace Teal, could be found attempting to put The Saint behind bars, although in some books they work in partnership. In The Saint in New York, Teal's American counterpart, NYPD Inspector John Henry Fernack, was introduced, and he would become, like Teal, an Inspector Lestrade-like foil and pseudo-nemesis in a number of books, notably the American-based World War II novels of the 1940s.

Many Saint novels were reprinted in new editions in the 1960s to capitalise on the popular television series, starring Roger Moore. The Saint had a band of compatriots, including Roger Conway, Norman Kent, Archie Sheridan, Richard "Dicky" Tremayne (a name that appeared in the 1990s TV series, Twin Peaks), Peter Quentin, Monty Hayward, and his ex-military valet, Orace.

In later stories, the dim-witted and constantly soused but reliable American thug Hoppy Uniatz was at Templar's side. Of The Saint's companions, only Norman Kent was killed during an adventure (he sacrifices himself to save Templar in the novel The Last Hero); the other males are presumed to have settled down and married (two to former female criminals: Dicky Tremayne to "Straight Audrey" Perowne and Peter Quentin to Kathleen "The Mug" Allfield; Archie Sheridan is mentioned to have married in "The Lawless Lady" in Enter the Saint, presumably to Lilla McAndrew after the events of the story "The Wonderful War" in Featuring the Saint).

Charteris gave Templar interests and quirks as the series went on. Early talents as an amateur poet and songwriter were displayed, often to taunt villains, though the novella The Inland Revenue established that poetry was also a hobby. That story revealed that Templar wrote an adventure novel featuring a South American hero not far removed from The Saint himself.

Templar also on occasion would break the fourth wall in an almost metafictional sense, making references to being part of a story and mentioning in one early story how he cannot be killed so early on; the 1960s television series would also have Templar address viewers. Charteris in his narrative also frequently breaks the fourth wall by making references to the "chronicler" of The Saint's adventures and directly addressing the reader and in one instance (the story "The Sizzling Saboteur" in The Saint on Guard) inserts his own name. Furthermore, in the 1955 story "The Unkind Philanthropist," published in the collection The Saint on the Spanish Main, Templar states outright that (in his fictional universe) his adventures are indeed written about by a man named Leslie Charteris.

After learning the language of the Bandar tribe, Christopher Guardner learned that the majority of their people were slaves of the Wasaka, a tribe consisting of what the Bandars called "Iron giants". Immediately, Christopher Guardnerwalked into the village of the Wasaka, and asked them to set the Bandars free. He was taken prisoner and laid before the Night Avenger, Demon God of the Wasaka, Uzuki,[31] who was supposed to decide his destiny. Christopher Blake Guardner was tied up and laid on an altar made of stone, where vultures surrounded him. Christopher was quickly saved by a group of Bandar before the vultures or the Wasaka could do him any real harm. They managed to escape from the village of the Wasaka unharmed.

Christopher Blake Guardner later learned of a Bandar prophecy that featured a man coming from the ocean to save them from their slavery. The Bandars showed Christopher to a cave, which resembled a human skull in appearance.Inside,Blake discovered a hidden tomb,known as a Time Vault,that contained a variety of futuristic devices.Included was the remnants of an Imperial Delkhon Cybernaute and four Zatikhon Enforces.The Legend tells that a great metal giant had chased for evil phatoms called Zhatikhon Enforcers across the heavons,only crashland here.He discovered an ancient Atlantean Time Vault and began to use this as his secret base of Operations.

Guardner He made a costume inspired by the look of the Night Avenger, Demon God of the Wasaka and went to the Wasaka village again, this time with a small army of Bandar armed with their newly discovered poisoned arrows, which were capable of killing a man in a few seconds. The Wasaka, shocked at seeing what many of them thought was their Demon God come alive, were fought down, and the Bandars were finally set free after centuries in slavery. This resulted in a dedicated friendship between Christopher and the Bandars, which would be continued in the generations to come after them. Christopher Guardnerlater carved the features out to enhance this. This Skull Cave became his home. Wearing the costume based on the Demon God, Christopher Blake became the first of what would later be known as the Knight Avenger. When he died, his son took over for him; when the second Knight Avenger died, his son Percy Blake took over. So it would go on through the centuries, causing people to believe that the Knight Avenger was immortal. These people gave him nicknames including "The Ghost Who Walks" and "The Man Who Cannot Die".

The Second Knight Avenger
[Sir Percy Blake Guardner was a Regency 1792  fop and baronet who during the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution, successfully operated a clandestine network smuggling those condemned to die out of France. His nom de guerre for this operation gave the title to the play that chronicles his adventures, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. Among other things he was a master of disguise, and a devoted husband to Marguerite St. Just, a Frenchwoman (although for a time they were estranged).

Philip José Farmer, in his book Tarzan Alive, identified Sir Percy as one of the witnesses of the Wold Newton Meteorite. However, he considered that all the sequels to the original novel by Baroness Orczy were fictional, and that Sir Percy was married to an actress named Alice Clarke Raffles at the time of the Wold Newton event. Evidence of Alice being the Knight Avengers's wife lead Farmer to assume that Marguerite St. Just had died following the events of the first Orczy novel, but Win Scott Eckert, in his article "They Seek Him Here...":

The  Blake Family Tree, argues that in fact the Knight Avenger was a bigamist who had families by both women simultaneously, and that the sequel novels were therefore all genuine. Eckert's short story "Is He In Hell?" indicates that the Blakes' marriage was in fact an equitable ménage à trois. There is also a biography, The Knight Avenger (almost immediately retitled The Life and Exploits of the Knight Avenger) by John Blake.

The children of Sir Percy Guardner by Marguerite St. Just were twin sons Jack and George Guardner, and daughter Violet Yvonne; his children by Allice Clarke Raffles were Percy Armand Blake, twins Serena Blake and Suzanne Blake, and twins Marguerite and Mavice.Byron King-Noel, 12th Baron Richard Blake (1836-1862), normally styled Viscount Ockham, was the son of the 1st Earl of Lovelace and his wife Ada Lovelace. He inherited the Barony of Blackworthe from his maternal grandmother, but predeceased his father, and his titles and claim to his father's titles passed to his younger brother. Although Viscount Ockham was unmarried and had no legitimate issue, Tarzan Alive reveals that he had an affair with Joane Clayton, daughter of the 4th Duke of Greystoke which resulted in an illegitimate son, John Byron Wentworth, better known as Lord John Roxton. Joane went on to marry the 14th Duke of Denver, who adopted her son.

The Third Knight Avenger (West Coaste)
The story involves him romancing Lolita Pulido, an impoverished noblewoman. While Lolita is unimpressed with Diego, who pretends to be a passionless fop, she is attracted to the dashing Zorro. His rival is Captain Ramon. Other characters include Sgt. Pedro Gonzales, Zorro's enemy but Diego's friend; Zorro's deaf and mute servant Bernardo; his ally Fray (Friar) Felipe; his father Don Alejandro Vega; and a group of noblemen (caballeros) who at first hunt him but are won over to his cause. While Diego pretends to be inept with a sword, the rest of his facade is actually exaggerating his real interests. Diego is actually well versed and interested in art, poetry, literature, and science. His facade is pretending to only be interested in these things and to have no interest in swordplay or action. Zorro also has a well-equipped laboratory in his hidden cave in this version of the story.

Character motifs
The character's visual motif is typically a black costume with a flowing Spanish cape, a flat-brimmed black sombrero cordobés, and a black cowl sackcloth Zhatikhon Enforcers mask that covers the top of the head from eye level upwards. In John Guardner his first appearance, he wears a cloak instead of a cape, and a black cloth veil mask covering his whole face with slits for eyes. Other features of the costume may vary; sometimes black riding boots or bell-bottom trousers, sometimes a vest, a waistsash or riding belt, and a moustache. His favored weapon is a rapier, which he often uses to leave his distinctive mark, a Z cut with three quick strokes. He also uses a bullwhip  at times and  a pistol depending on the situation. The fox is never depicted as Zorro's emblem, but as a metaphor for the character's wiliness ("Zorro, 'the Fox', so cunning and free ..." from the Disney television show theme). In the 1990s series episode nine, The Legend Begins, part two, Felipe, the de la Vega family servant boy takes Diego to the hide-out cave to show him a lone fox hiding in there. The scene implies that is the point where Diego gets his inspiration from the fox.His heroic pose consists of rearing on his horse Toronado/Tornado, sword raised high. (The logo of Zorro Productions, Inc. uses this pose.)

Skills and resources
Zorro is an agile athlete and acrobat, using his bullwhip as a gymnastic accoutrement to swing through gaps between city roofs, and is very capable of landing from great heights and taking a fall. Although he is a master swordsman and marksman, he has more than once demonstrated his prowess in unarmed combat against multiple opponents. His calculating and precise dexterity as a tactician has enabled him to use his two main weapons, his sword and bullwhip, as an extension of his deft hand. He never uses brute strength, more his fox-like sly mind and well-practiced technique to outmatch an opponent. In some versions, Zorro keeps a medium-sized dagger tucked in his left boot for emergencies. He has used his cape as a blind, a trip-mat and a disarming tool. Zorro's boots are also sometimes weighted, as is his hat, which he has thrown, Frisbee-style, as an efficiently substantial warning to enemies. But more often than not, he uses psychological mockery to make his opponents too angry to be coordinated in combat. Zorro is a skilled horseman. The name of his jet-black horse has varied through the years. In "The Curse of Capistrano", it was unnamed. Later versions named the horse Toronado/Tornado or Tempest. In other versions, Zorro rides a white horse named Phantom. McCulley's concept of a band of men helping Zorro is often absent from other versions of the character. An exception is Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939), starring Reed Hadley as Diego. In Douglas Fairbanks' version, he also has a band of masked men helping him. In McCulley's stories, Zorro was aided by a deaf-mute named Bernardo. In Disney's Zorro television series, Bernardo is not deaf but pretends to be, and serves as Zorro's spy. He is a capable and invaluable helper for Zorro, sometimes wearing the mask to reinforce his master's charade.

The Knight Avenger 1930's
The Shadow

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The Shadow

The Knight Avenger (character).jpg Art by John Cassaday

Publication information

Publisher Street & Smith Condé Nast

First appearance Detective Story Hour (July 31, 1930)[1] (radio) "The Living Shadow" (April 1, 1931)[1] (print)

Created by Walter B. Gibson

In-story information

Alter ego Kent Allard (print) Lamont Cranston (radio, film and television)

Notable aliases Lamont Cranston (print) Henry Arnaud (print) Isaac Twambley (print) Fritz the Janitor (print)

Abilities

In print, radio, and film: Expert detective Skilled marksman and hand-to-hand combatant Master of disguise and stealth

In radio and film only: Ability to make himself nearly invisible to others Hypnotic mental-clouding abilities altering a person's thoughts and perceptions

The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media, and it is also used to refer to the character featured in The Shadow media.[2] One of the most famous adventure heroes of the 20th century United States, the Shadow has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles.

Originally simply a mysterious radio narrator who hosted a program designed to promote magazine sales for Street and Smith Publications, The Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character, later to become a pop culture icon, by writer Walter B. Gibson in 1931. The character has been cited as a major influence on the subsequent evolution of comic book superheroes, particularly Batman.[3]

The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the Street and Smith radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed in an effort to boost sales of Detective Story Magazine.[4] When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "That Shadow detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based around The Shadow and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series.

On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." As in the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible.

The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!", spoken by actor Frank Readick Jr, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel", composed in 1872). At the end of each episode The Shadow reminded listeners that, "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay...The Shadow knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay...The Shadow knows!")

Contents [hide] 1 Publication history 1.1 Origin of the character's name 1.2 Creation as a distinctive literary character

2 Character development 2.1 Background 2.2 Supporting characters 2.3 Enemies

3 Radio program 3.1 Early years 3.2 Radio drama 3.3 Margo Lane 3.4 Radio drama LPs

4 Comics 5 Films 5.1 Shadow film shorts (1931–1932) 5.2 The Shadow Strikes (1937) 5.3 International Crime (1938) 5.4 The Shadow (1940) 5.5 The Shadow Returns, etc. (1946) 5.6 Invisible Avenger (1958) 5.7 The Shadow (1994) 5.8 Sam Raimi Shadow feature film

6 Video game 7 Television 8 Influence on superheroes and other media 9 See also 10 References 10.1 Notes 10.2 Bibliography

11 External links

Publication history[edit]

See also: List of The Shadow stories

Origin of the character's name[edit]

In order to boost the sales of their Detective Story Magazine, Street and Smith Publications hired David Chrisman of the Ruthrauff & Ryan advertising agency and writer-director William Sweets to adapt the magazine's stories into a radio series. Chrisman and Sweets felt the upcoming series should be narrated by a mysterious storyteller with a sinister voice, and began searching for a suitable name. One of their scriptwriters, Harry Engman Charlot, suggested various possibilities, such as "The Inspector" or "The Sleuth."[5] Charlot then proposed the ideal name for the phantom announcer: "... The Shadow."[5]

Thus, beginning on July 31, 1930,[1][6] "The Shadow" was the name given to the mysterious narrator of the Detective Story Hour. The narrator was initially voiced by James LaCurto,[6] who was replaced after four months by prolific character actor Frank Readick Jnr. The episodes were drawn from the Detective Story Magazine issued by Street and Smith, "the nation's oldest and largest publisher of pulp magazines."[6] Although the latter company had hoped the radio broadcasts would boost the declining sales of Detective Story Magazine, the result was quite different. Listeners found the sinister announcer much more compelling than the unrelated stories. They soon began asking newsdealers for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine", even though it did not exist.[6]

Creation as a distinctive literary character[edit]

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" The Shadow as depicted on the cover of the July 15, 1939, issue of The Shadow Magazine. The story, "Death from Nowhere", was one of the magazine plots adapted for the legendary radio drama. Recognizing the demand and responding promptly, circulation manager Henry William Ralston of Street & Smith commissioned Walter B. Gibson to begin writing stories about "The Shadow". Using the pen name of Maxwell Grant and claiming the stories were "from The Shadow's private annals as told to" him, Gibson wrote 282 out of 325 tales over the next 20 years: a novel-length story twice a month (1st and 15th). The first story produced was The Living Shadow, published April 1, 1931.[6]

Gibson's characterization of The Shadow laid the foundations for the archetype of the superhero, including stylized imagery and title, sidekicks, supervillains, and a secret identity. Clad in black, The Shadow operated mainly after dark as a vigilante in the name of justice, and terrifying criminals into vulnerability. Gibson himself claimed the literary inspirations upon which he had drawn were Bram Stoker's Dracula and Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "The House and the Brain".[5] Another possible inspiration for The Shadow is the French character Judex; the first episode of the original Judex film serial was released in the United States as The Mysterious Shadow, and Judex's costume is rather similar to The Shadow's. French comics historian Xavier Fournier notes other similarities with another silent serial, The Shielding Shadow, whose protagonist had a power of invisibility, and considers The Shadow to be a mix between the two characters. In the 1940s, some Shadow comic strips were translated in France as adventures of Judex.[7]

Because of the great effort involved in writing two full-length novels every month, several guest writers were hired to write occasional installments in order to lighten Gibson's workload. These guest writers included Lester Dent, who also wrote the Doc Savage stories, and Theodore Tinsley. In the late 1940s, mystery novelist Bruce Elliott (also a magician) would temporarily replace Gibson as the primary author of the pulp series.[8] Richard Wormser, a reader for Street & Smith, wrote two Shadow stories.[9]

The Shadow Magazine ceased publication with the Summer 1949 issue, but Walter B. Gibson wrote three new "official" stories between 1963 and 1980. The first began a new series of nine updated Shadow novels from Belmont Books, starting with Return of The Shadow under his own name. The remaining eight--The Shadow Strikes, Beware Shadow, Cry Shadow, The Shadow's Revenge, Mark of The Shadow, Shadow Go Mad, Night of The Shadow, and The Shadow, Destination: Moon--were written by Dennis Lynds, not Gibson, under the pseudonym Maxwell Grant. In these novels, The Shadow is given psychic powers, including the radio character's ability "to cloud men's minds", so that he effectively became invisible; he is more of a spymaster than crime fighter in these updated eight novels.

The Shadow returned in 2015 in the authorized novel The Sinister Shadow, an entry in the Wild Adventures of Doc Savage series from Altus Press. The novel, written by Will Murray, used unpublished material originally written in 1932 by Doc Savage originator Lester Dent and published under the pen name "Kenneth Robeson". Set in 1933, the story details the conflict between the two pulp magazine icons.

A sequel, Empire of Doom, was published in 2016 and takes place seven years later in 1940. The Shadow's old enemy, Shiwan Khan, attacks his hated adversary. Doc Savage joins forces with The Shadow to vanquish Khan in a Doc Savage novel written by Will Murray, from a concept by Lester Dent.

Character development[edit]

The character and look of The Shadow gradually evolved over his lengthy fictional existence:

As depicted in the pulps, The Shadow wore a wide-brimmed black hat and a black, crimson-lined cloak with an upturned collar over a standard black business suit. In the 1940s comic books, the later comic book series, and the 1994 film starring Alec Baldwin, he wore either the black hat or a wide-brimmed, black fedora and a crimson scarf just below his nose and across his mouth and chin. Both the cloak and scarf covered either a black double-breasted trench coat or a regular black suit. As seen in some of the later comics series, The Shadow would also wear his hat and scarf with either a black Inverness coat or Inverness cape.

In the radio drama, which debuted in 1937, The Shadow was an invisible avenger who had learned, while "traveling through East Asia," "the mysterious power to cloud men's minds, so they could not see him." This feature of the character was born out of necessity: time constraints of 1930s radio made it difficult to explain to listeners where The Shadow was hiding and how he was remaining concealed. Thus, the character was given the power to escape human sight. Voice effects were added to suggest The Shadow's seeming omnipresence. To explain this power, The Shadow was described as a master of hypnotism, as explicitly stated in several radio episodes.

Background[edit]

"The Living Shadow" from The Shadow #1 (April 7, 1931) In print, The Shadow's real name is Kent Allard, and he was a famed aviator who fought for the French during World War I. He became known by the alias the Black Eagle, according to The Shadow's Shadow (1933), although later stories revised this alias as the Dark Eagle, beginning with The Shadow Unmasks (1937). After the war, Allard finds a new challenge in waging war on criminals. Allard falsifies his death in the South American jungles, then returns to the United States. Arriving in New York City, he adopts numerous identities to conceal his existence.

One of the identities Allard assumes—indeed, the best known—is that of Lamont Cranston, a "wealthy young man-about-town." In the pulps, Cranston is a separate character; Allard frequently disguises himself as Cranston and adopts his identity (The Shadow Laughs, 1931). While Cranston travels the world, Allard assumes his identity in New York. In their first meeting, Allard, as The Shadow, threatens Cranston, saying he has arranged to switch signatures on various documents and other means that will allow him to take over the Lamont Cranston identity entirely unless Cranston agrees to allow Allard to impersonate him when he is abroad. Although alarmed at first, Cranston is amused by the irony of the situation and agrees. The two men sometimes meet in order to impersonate each other (Crime over Miami, 1940). The disguise works well because Allard and Cranston resemble each other (Dictator of Crime, 1941).

His other disguises include businessman Henry Arnaud, who first appeared in The Black Master (March 1, 1932), which revealed that like Cranston, there is a real Henry Arnaud; elderly Isaac Twambley, who first appeared in No Time For Murder; and Fritz, who first appeared in The Living Shadow (April 1931); in this last disguise, he sometimes takes the place of the doddering old slow-witted, uncommunicative janitor who works at Police Headquarters in order to listen in on conversations and to look at evidence.

For the first half of The Shadow's tenure in the pulps, his past and identity are ambiguous. In The Living Shadow, a thug claims to have seen the Shadow's face, and thought he saw "a piece of white that looked like a bandage." In The Black Master and The Shadow's Shadow, the villains both see The Shadow's true face and remark that The Shadow is a man of many faces with no face of his own. It was not until the August 1937 issue, The Shadow Unmasks, that The Shadow's real name is revealed.

In the radio drama, the Allard secret identity was dropped for simplicity's sake. On the radio, The Shadow was only Lamont Cranston; he had no other aliases or disguises.

Supporting characters[edit]

Margo Lane and The Shadow. Art by Alex Ross. The Shadow has a network of agents who assist him in his war on crime. These include: Harry Vincent, an operative whose life he saved when Vincent tried to commit suicide in the first Shadow story. Moses "Moe" Shrevnitz, a.k.a. "Shrevvy," a cab driver who doubles as his chauffeur. (Peter Boyle performed the role in the 1994 film.) Margo Lane, a socialite created for the radio drama and later introduced into the pulps. (Penelope Ann Miller performed the role in the 1994 film, in which Margo was granted the power of telepathy, and hence the ability to pierce The Shadow's hypnotic mental-clouding abilities.) Clyde Burke, a newspaper reporter who also is paid to collect news clippings for The Shadow. Burbank, a radio operator who maintains contact between The Shadow and his agents. (He was portrayed by Andre Gregory in the 1994 film.) Clifford "Cliff" Marsland. He first appeared in the ninth novel (Mobsmen on the Spot). He is a man with a checkered past (known to The Shadow) who changed his name to Clifford Marsland. He spent years in Sing Sing (jail) for a crime he did not commit and is wrongly believed to have murdered one or more people by the Underworld. He infiltrates gangs using his crooked reputation. (The Green Hornet is often described as having a similar modus operandi to that of Marsland.) Dr. Rupert Sayre, The Shadow's personal physician. Jericho Druke, a giant, immensely strong black man. Slade Farrow, who works with The Shadow to rehabilitate criminals. Miles Crofton, who sometimes pilots The Shadow's autogyro. Claude Fellows, the only agent of The Shadow ever to be killed, in Gangdom's Doom (1931). Rutledge Mann, a stockbroker who collects information; he took over from Claude Fellows. First appeared in Double Z (June 1, 1932). Known to Cranston, his business had failed and he was heavily in debt and ready to commit suicide before The Shadow recruited him. Hawkeye, a reformed underworld snoop who trails gangsters and other criminals. Myra Reldon, a female operative who uses the alias of Ming Dwan when in Chinatown. Dr. Roy Tam, The Shadow's contact man in New York's Chinatown. (Sab Shimono portrayed him in the 1994 film, in which he provided valuable information to Lamont Cranston, believing the latter to be an agent of The Shadow.)

Though initially wanted by the police, The Shadow also works with and through them, notably gleaning information from his many chats with Police Commissioners Ralph Weston and Wainwright Barth while at the Cobalt Club; the latter is also Cranston's uncle. (Jonathan Winters portrayed him in the 1994 film.) Weston believes that Cranston is merely a rich playboy who dabbles in detective work. Another police contact is Detective (later Inspector) Joseph Cardona, a key character in many Shadow novels.

In contrast to the pulps, The Shadow radio drama limited the cast of major characters to The Shadow, Commissioner Weston, and Margo Lane, the last of whom was created specifically for the radio series, as it was believed the abundance of agents would make it difficult to distinguish between characters.[10] Harry Vincent appeared as an agent of The Shadow in the first episode, "The Death House Rescue." Clyde Burke and Moe Shrevnitz (identified only as "Shrevvy") made occasional appearances, but not as agents of The Shadow. Lt. Cardona was a minor character in several episodes. Shrevvy was merely an acquaintance of Cranston and Lane, and occasionally Cranston's chauffeur.

Enemies[edit]

The Shadow also faces a wide variety of enemies, ranging from kingpins and mad scientists and international spies. Among The Shadow's recurring foes are Shiwan Khan, seen in The Golden Master, Shiwan Khan Returns, The Invincible Shiwan Khan, and Masters of Death; Dr. Rodil Moquino, the Voodoo Master (The Voodoo Master, The City of Doom, and Voodoo Trail); Bernard Stark, the Prince of Evil (The Prince of Evil, The Murder Genius, The Man Who Died Twice, and The Devil's Paymaster, all written by Theodore Tinsley); and the Wasp (The Wasp and The Wasp Returns). The only recurring criminal organization he fought was the Hand (The Hand, Murder for Sale, Chicago Crime, Crime Rides the Sea, and Realm of Doom), where he defeated one Finger of the organization in each book. In addition, the villain King Kauger from the Shadow story Wizard of Crime is also the unseen mastermind behind the events of Intimidation, Inc.

The series also featured a myriad of one-shot villains, including the Red Envoy, the Death Giver, Gray Fist, the Black Dragon, the Silver Skull, the Red Blot, the Black Falcon, the Cobra, Gaspard Zemba, the Black Master, Five-Face, the Gray Ghost, and Dr. Z.

The Shadow also battles collectives of criminals, such as the Silent Seven, the Salamanders, and the Hydra.

Radio program[edit]

See also: List of The Shadow episodes

Promotional photograph for The Detective Story Hour, with James La Curto as The Shadow (1930) In early 1930, Street & Smith hired David Chrisman and Bill Sweets to adapt the Detective Story Magazine to radio format. Chrisman and Sweets felt the program should be introduced by a mysterious storyteller. A young scriptwriter, Harry Charlot, suggested the name of "The Shadow."[5] Thus, "The Shadow" premiered over CBS airwaves on July 31, 1930,[1] as the host of the Detective Story Hour,[6] narrating "tales of mystery and suspense from the pages of the premier detective fiction magazine."[6] The bulk of the radio show was written primarily by Sidney Slon. The narrator was first voiced by James La Curto,[6] but became a national sensation when radio veteran Frank Readick, Jr. assumed the role and gave it "a hauntingly sibilant quality that thrilled radio listeners."[6]

Early years[edit]

Following a brief tenure as narrator of Street & Smith's Detective Story Hour, "The Shadow" character was used to host segments of The Blue Coal Radio Revue, playing on Sundays at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. This marked the beginning of a long association between the radio persona and sponsor Blue Coal.

While functioning as a narrator of The Blue Coal Radio Revue, the character was recycled by Street & Smith in October 1931, for their newly created Love Story Hour. Contrary to dozens of encyclopedias, published reference guides, and even Walter Gibson himself, The Shadow never served as narrator of Love Story Hour. He appeared only in advertisements for The Shadow Magazine at the end of each episode.[11]

In October 1932, the radio persona temporarily moved to NBC. Frank Readick again played the role of the sinister-voiced host on Mondays and Wednesdays, both at 6:30 p.m., with La Curto taking occasional turns as the title character.

Readick returned as The Shadow to host a final CBS mystery anthology that fall. The series disappeared from CBS airwaves on March 27, 1935, due to Street & Smith's insistence that the radio storyteller be completely replaced by the master crime-fighter described in Walter B. Gibson's ongoing pulps.

Radio drama[edit]

Orson Welles was the voice of The Shadow from September 1937 to October 1938

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Street & Smith entered into a new broadcasting agreement with Blue Coal in 1937, and that summer Gibson teamed with scriptwriter Edward Hale Bierstadt to develop the new series. The Shadow returned to network airwaves on September 26, 1937,[12] over the new Mutual Broadcasting System. Thus began the "official" radio drama, with 22-year-old Orson Welles starring as Lamont Cranston, a "wealthy young man about town." Once The Shadow joined Mutual as a half-hour series on Sunday evenings, the program did not leave the air until December 26, 1954.

Welles did not speak the signature line, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Instead, Readick did, using a water glass next to his mouth for the echo effect. The famous catch phrase was accompanied by the strains of an excerpt from Opus 31 of the Camille Saint-Saëns classical composition, Le Rouet d'Omphale.

After Welles departed the show in 1938, Bill Johnstone was chosen to replace him and voiced the character for five seasons. Following Johnstone's departure, The Shadow was portrayed by such actors as Bret Morrison (the longest tenure, with 10 years total in two separate runs), John Archer, and Steven Courtleigh (the actors were rarely credited).

The Shadow also inspired another radio hit, The Whistler, with a similarly mysterious narrator.

Margo Lane[edit]

Main article: Margo Lane

The radio drama also introduced female characters into The Shadow's realm, most notably Margo Lane (played by Agnes Moorehead, among others) as Cranston's love interest, crime-solving partner and the only person who knows his identity as The Shadow.[13] Four years later, the character was introduced into the pulp novels. Her sudden, unexplained appearance in the pulps annoyed readers and generated a flurry of hate mail printed in The Shadow Magazine's letters page.[13]

Lane was described as Cranston's "friend and companion" in later episodes, although the exact nature of their relationship was unclear. In the early scripts of the radio drama the character's name was spelled "Margot." The name itself was originally inspired by Margot Stevenson,[13] the Broadway ingénue who would later be chosen to voice Lane opposite Welles' The Shadow during "the 1938 Goodrich summer season of the radio drama."[14] In the 1994 film in which Penelope Ann Miller acted out the character, she is described as being telepathic and hence aware of, but specifically immune to, The Shadow's abilities.

Radio drama LPs[edit]

In 1968 Metro Record's "Leo the Lion" label released an LP titled The Official Adventures of The Shadow (CH-1048) with two original fifteen-minute radio-style productions written by John Fleming: "The Computer Calculates, but The Shadow Knows" and "Air Freight Fracas". Bret Morrison, Grace Matthews and Santos Ortega reprised their roles as "Lamont Cranston/The Shadow", "Margo Lane" and "Commissioner Weston". Ken Roberts also returned as the announcer.

Comics[edit]

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Walter Gibson's and Vernon Greene's The Shadow (August 12, 1940). The Shadow has been adapted for the comics several times during his long history; his first comics appearance was on June 17, 1940 as a syndicated daily newspaper comic strip offered through the Ledger Syndicate. The strip's story continuity was written by Walter B. Gibson, with plot lines adapted from the Shadow pulps, and the strip was illustrated by Vernon Greene. Due to pulp paper shortages during World War II and the growing amount of space required for war news from both the European and Pacific fronts, the strip was canceled on June 13, 1942, after two years and nine adventures had been published. The Shadow daily was collected decades later in two comic book series from two different publishers (see below), first in 1988 and then in 1999.

To both cross-promote The Shadow and attract a younger audience to their other pulp magazines, Street & Smith published 101 issues of the comic book Shadow Comics from Vol. 1, #1 – Vol. 9, #5 (March 1940 – Sept. 1949).[15] A Shadow story led off each issue, with the remainder of the stories being strips based on other Street & Smith pulp heroes.

In Mad #4 (April–May 1953), The Shadow was spoofed by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder. Their character was called "The Shadow'" (with an apostrophe), which is short for "Lamont Shadowskeedeeboomboom".[16] The Shadow' is invisible as in the radio series; when he makes himself visible, he is attired like the pulp character but is very short and ugly; his companion, "Margo Pain", begs him to cloud her mind again. Throughout the story, someone is trying to kill Margo, getting "Shad", as she calls him, into various predicaments: he is beaten up by gangsters and has a piano dropped on him. He tricks Margo into an outhouse (the interior of which is an impossibly huge mansion) which he demolishes with dynamite. As The Shadow' gleefully presses the detonator, he says, "NOBODY knows to whom the voice of the invisible Shadow' belongs!" This story was reprinted in The Brothers Mad (ibooks, New York, 2002, ISBN 0-7434-4482-5).

Lamont Shadowskeedeeboomboom returned in Mad #14 (August 1954) to guest-star in "Manduck the Magician", a spoof by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder of the Mandrake the Magician comic strip. In this story, Lamont Shadowskeedeeboomboom lures Manduck and Loathar to his home on the pretense of wanting to buy 100 cases of Manduck's snake oil; in reality, he has learned that Manduck also has "the secret power to cloud men's minds, and so in order to keep [his] secret exclusive", he intends to destroy Manduck. A battle of hypnotic gesturing ensues, during which Loathar somehow also has the power. Each character turns himself or one or two of the others into one of the other characters, culminating in three Manducks who all gesture hypnotically, causing a massive explosion that leaves only one Manduck who may or may not be the real one. Manduck's girlfriend, Narda, declares that whomever he really is, "Only one of you is dear to my heart and that one is... the one with the most loot!" This story was reprinted in Mad Strikes Back! (ibooks, New York, 2002, ISBN 0-7434-4478-7).

During the superhero revival of the 1960s, Archie Comics published an eight-issue series, The Shadow (Aug. 1964 – Sept. 1965), under the company's Mighty Comics imprint. In the first issue, The Shadow was loosely based on the radio version, but with blond hair. In issue #2 (Sept. 1964), the character was transformed into a campy, heavily muscled superhero in a green and blue costume by writer Robert Bernstein and artist John Rosenberger. Later issues of this eight-issue series were written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel.[17]

During the mid-1970s, DC Comics published an "atmospheric interpretation" of the character by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Michael Kaluta[18] in a 12-issue series (Nov. 1973 – Sept. 1975). Kaluta drew issues 1–4 and 6 and was followed by Frank Robbins and then E. R. Cruz. Attempting to be faithful to both the pulp-magazine and radio-drama character, the series guest-starred fellow pulp fiction hero the Avenger in issue #11.[19] The Shadow also appeared in DC's Batman #253 (Nov. 1973), in which Batman teams with an aging Shadow and calls the famous crime fighter his "biggest inspiration". In Batman #259 (Dec. 1974), Batman again meets The Shadow, and we learn The Shadow saved Bruce Wayne's life when the future Batman was a boy and that The Shadow knows Batman's secret identity (he assures Batman, however, that his secret is safe with him).

The Shadow is also referenced in DC's Detective Comics #446 (1975), page 4, panel 2: Batman, out of costume and in disguise as an older night janitor, makes a crime fighting acknowledgement, in a thought balloon, to the Shadow.

In 1986, another DC adaptation was developed by Howard Chaykin. This four issue miniseries, The Shadow: Blood and Judgement, brought The Shadow to modern-day New York. While initially successful,[20] this version proved unpopular with traditional Shadow fans[21] because it depicted The Shadow using two Uzi submachine guns, as well as featuring a strong strain of black comedy and extreme violence throughout.[22]

The Shadow, set in our modern era, was continued in 1987 as a monthly DC comics series by writer Andy Helfer (editor of the miniseries); it was drawn primarily by artists Bill Sienkiewicz (issues 1–6) and Kyle Baker (issues 8–19 and two Shadow Annuals).

In 1988 O'Neil and Kaluta, with inker Russ Heath, returned to The Shadow with the Marvel Comics graphic novel The Shadow: Hitler's Astrologer, set during World War II. This one-shot appeared in both hardcover and trade paperback editions.

The Vernon Greene/Walter Gibson Shadow newspaper comic strip from the early 1940s was collected by Malibu Graphics (Malibu Comics) under their Eternity Comics imprint, beginning with the first issue of Crime Classics dated July 1988. Each cover was illustrated by Greene and colored by one of Eternity's colorists. A total of 13 issues appeared featuring just the black-and-white daily until the final issue, dated November, 1989. Some of the Shadow storylines were contained in one issue, while others were continued over into the next. When a Shadow story ended, another tale would begin in the same issue. This back-to-back format continued until the final 13th issue. Here is a list of the reprinted strip's storylines:

Crime Classics 1 & 2, "Riddle of the Sealed Box"; 2 & 3, "Mystery of the Sleeping Gas"; 3 & 4, "The Shadow vs Hoang Hu"; 4, 5, & 6, "Danger on Shark Island"; 6, 7, & 8, "The Shadow vs The Bund"; 8, 9, & 10, "The Shadow vs Shiwan Khan"; 10, 11, & 12, "The Shadow vs The Swindlers"; 12 & 13, "The Shadow and the Adele Varne Mystery"; 13, "Robberies at Lake Calada".

Dave Stevens' nostalgic comics series Rocketeer contains a great number of pop culture references to the 1930s. Various characters from the Shadow pulps make appearances in the storyline published in the Rocketeer Adventure Magazine, including The Shadow's famous alter ego Lamont Cranston. Two issues were published by Comico in 1988 and 1989, but the third and final instalment did not appear until years later, finally appearing in 1995 from Dark Horse Comics. All three issues were then collected by Dark Horse into a slick trade paperback titled The Rocketeer: Cliff's New York Adventure (ISBN 1-56971-092-9).

In 1989, DC released in graphic novel hardcover reprinting five issues (#1–4 and 6 by Dennis O'Neil and Michael Kaluta) of their 1970s series as The Private Files of The Shadow. The volume also featured a new Shadow adventure drawn by Kaluta.

From 1989 to 1992, DC published a new Shadow series, The Shadow Strikes!, written by Gerard Jones and Eduardo Barreto. This series was set in the 1930s and returned The Shadow to his pulp origins. During its run, it featured The Shadow's first team-up with Doc Savage, another popular hero of the pulp magazine era. Both characters appeared together in a four-issue story that crossed back and forth between each character's DC comic series. The Shadow Strikes often led The Shadow into encounters with well-known celebrities of the 1930s, such as Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, union organizer John L. Lewis, and Chicago gangsters Frank Nitti and Jake Guzik. In issue #7, The Shadow meets a radio announcer named Grover Mills, a character based on the young Orson Welles, who has been impersonating The Shadow on the radio. The character's name is taken from Grover's Mill, New Jersey, the name of the small town where the Martians land in Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. When Shadow rights holder Condé Nast increased its licensing fee, DC concluded the series after 31 issues and one Annual; it became the longest-running Shadow comic series since Street and Smith's original 1940s series.

During the early-to-mid-1990s, Dark Horse Comics acquired the rights to The Shadow from Condé Nast. It published the Shadow miniseries The Shadow: In the Coils of Leviathan (four issues) in 1993, and The Shadow: Hell's Heat Wave (three issues) in 1995. In the Coils of Leviathan was later collected by Dark Horse in 1994 as a trade paperback. Both series were written by Joel Goss and Michael Kaluta, and drawn by Gary Gianni. A one-shot issue, The Shadow and the Mysterious Three, was also published by Dark Horse in 1994, again written by Joel Goss and Michael Kaluta, with Stan Manoukian and Vince Roucher taking over the illustration duties but working from Kaluta's layouts. A comics adaptation of the 1994 film The Shadow was published in two issues by Dark Horse as part of the movie's merchandising campaign. The script was by Goss and Kaluta and drawn by Kaluta. It was collected and published in England by Boxtree as a graphic novel tie-in for the film's British release. Emulating DC's earlier team-up, Dark Horse also published a two-issue miniseries in 1995 called The Shadow and Doc Savage: The Case of the Shrieking Skeletons. It was written by Steve Vance, and illustrated by Manoukian and Roucher. Both issues' covers were drawn by Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens. A final Dark Horse Shadow team-up was published in 1995: another one-shot issue, Ghost and the Shadow, written by Doug Moench, pencilled by H. M. Baker, and inked by Bernard Kolle. It was set in modern times.

The Shadow made an uncredited cameo appearance in issue #2 of DC's 1996 four issue miniseries Kingdom Come, re-released as a trade paperback in 1997. The Shadow appears in the nightclub scene standing in the background next to The Question and Rorschach.

The early 1940s Shadow newspaper daily strip was reprinted by Avalon Communications under their ACG Classix imprint. The Shadow daily began appearing in the first issue of Pulp Action comics. It carried no monthly date or issue number on the cover, only a 1999 copyright and a Pulp Action #1 notation at the bottom of the inside cover. Each issue's cover is a colorized panel blow-up, taken from one of the reprinted strips. The eighth issue uses for its cover a Shadow serial black-and-white film still, with several hand-drawn alterations. The first issue of Pulp Action is devoted entirely to reprinting the Shadow daily, but subsequent issues began offering back-up stories not involving The Shadow in every issue. These Shadow strip reprints stopped with Pulp Action's eighth issue, before the story was complete. Here are the strip's reprinted storylines (the last issue carries a 2000 copyright date):

Pulp Action: 1, "Riddle of the Sealed Box"; 2, "Mystery of the Sleeping Gas"; 3 & 4, "The Shadow vs. The Swindlers"; 5 & 6, "The Shadow and the Adele Varne Mystery"; 7 & 8, "The Shadow and the Darvin Fortune".

In August 2011, Dynamite licensed The Shadow from Condé Nast for ongoing comic book series and several limited run miniseries.[23] Their first on-going series was written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Aaron Campbell; it debuted on April 19, 2012. This series ran for 26 issues; the regular series ended in May 2014, but a prologue issue #0 was published in July 2014. Dynamite followed with the release of an eight-issue miniseries, Masks, teaming the 1930s Shadow with Dynamite's other pulp hero comic book adaptations, The Spider, the Green Hornet and Kato, and a 1930s Zorro, plus four other heroes of the pulp era from Dynamite's comics lineup. Dynamite offered a second eight-issue Shadow miniseries, The Shadow Year One, followed by the team-up miniseries The Shadow/Green Hornet: Dark Nights, and a Shadow miniseries set in the modern era, The Shadow Now. In August 2015, Dynamite Entertainment launched volume 2 of The Shadow, a new ongoing series that is written by Cullen Bunn and drawn by Giovanni Timpano. Additional Dynamite Entertainment Shadow comics adaptations and team-ups continue.

Films[edit]

The Shadow character has been adapted for film shorts and films.

Shadow film shorts (1931–1932)[edit]

In 1931 Universal Pictures created a series of six film shorts based on the popular Detective Story Hour radio program, narrated by The Shadow. The first short, A Burglar to the Rescue, was filmed in New York City and features the voice of The Shadow on radio, Frank Readick. Beginning with the second short, The House of Mystery, the series was produced in Hollywood without the voice of Readick as The Shadow; it was followed by The Circus Show-Up and three additional shorts the following year with other voice actors portraying The Shadow.

The Shadow Strikes (1937)[edit]

The film The Shadow Strikes was released in 1937, starring Rod La Rocque in the title role. Lamont Cranston assumes the secret identity of "The Shadow" in order to thwart an attempted robbery at an attorney's office. Both The Shadow Strikes (1937) and its sequel, International Crime (1938), were released by Grand National Pictures.

International Crime (1938)[edit]

La Rocque returned the following year in International Crime. In this version, reporter Lamont Cranston is an amateur criminologist and detective who uses the name of "The Shadow" as a radio gimmick. Thomas Jackson portrayed Police Commissioner Weston, and Astrid Allwyn was cast as Phoebe Lane, Cranston's assistant.

The Shadow (1940)[edit]

The Shadow, a 15-chapter movie serial produced by Columbia Pictures and starring Victor Jory, premiered in theaters in 1940. The serial's villain, The Black Tiger, is a criminal mastermind who sabotages rail lines and factories across the United States. Lamont Cranston must become his shadowy alter ego in order to unmask the criminal and halt his fiendish crime spree. As The Shadow, Jory wears an all-black suit and cape, as well as a black bandana that helps conceal his facial features.

The Shadow Returns, etc. (1946)[edit]

Low-budget motion picture studio Monogram Pictures produced a trio of quickie Shadow B-movie features in 1946 starring Kane Richmond: The Shadow Returns, Behind the Mask and The Missing Lady. Richmond's Shadow wore all black, including a trench coat, a wide-brimmed fedora, and a full face-mask similar to the type worn by movie serial hero The Masked Marvel, instead of the character's signature black cape with red lining and red scarf.

Invisible Avenger (1958)[edit]

Episodes of a television pilot shot in 1957 were edited into the 1958 theatrical feature Invisible Avenger, rereleased in 1962 as Bourbon Street Shadows.[24][25]

The Shadow (1994)[edit]

Main article: The Shadow (1994 film)

Alec Baldwin as the eponymous character in the 1994 film The Shadow. In 1994 the character was adapted once again into a feature film, The Shadow, starring Alec Baldwin as Lamont Cranston and Penelope Ann Miller as Margo Lane. As the film opens, Cranston has become the evil and corrupt Yin-Ko (literally "Dark Eagle"), a brutal warlord and opium smuggler in early 1930s Mongolia. Yin-Ko is kidnapped by agents of the mysterious Tulku, who begins to reform the warlord using the psychic power of his evolved mind to restore Cranston's humanity. The Tulku also teaches him the ability to "cloud men's minds" using psychic power in order to fight evil in the world. Cranston eventually returns to his native New York City and takes up the guise of the mysterious crime fighter "The Shadow", in payment to humanity for his past evil misdeeds: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows..."

His nemesis in the film is adapted from the pulp series' long-running Asian villain (and for the film, a fellow telepath), the evil Shiwan Khan (John Lone), a descendant of Genghis Khan. He seeks to finish his ancestor's legacy of conquering the world by first destroying New York City, using a newly developed atomic bomb, in a show of his power. Khan nearly succeeds in this, but he is thwarted by The Shadow in a final psychic duel of death: Cranston, as The Shadow, imposes his will on, and defeats, Khan during a psychokinetically enhanced battle in a mirrored room, which has exploded into thousands of flying mirror shards. Focusing his mind's psychokinetic power, The Shadow flips a flying piece of jagged mirror in mid-air and then hurls it directly at a spot on Khan's forehead; this does not kill him, it renders him unconscious. To save both the warlord and the world, The Shadow secretly arranges with one of his agents, an administrative doctor at an unidentified New York asylum for the criminally insane, to have Khan locked away permanently in a padded cell; Khan's badly-injured frontal lobe, which controlled his psychic powers, having been surgically removed.

The film combines elements from The Shadow pulp novels and comic books with the aforementioned ability to cloud minds described only on the radio show. In the film Alec Baldwin, as The Shadow, wears a red-lined black cloak and a long red scarf that covers his mouth and chin; he also wears a black, double-breasted trench coat and a wide-brimmed, black slouch hat; as in the pulp novels, he is armed with a pair of Browning .45-caliber semi-automatic pistols that for the film have longer barrels, are nickel-plated, and have ivory handles. The film also displays a first: Cranston's ability to conjure a false face whenever he is in his guise as The Shadow, in keeping with his physical portrayal in the pulps and the comics.

The film was financially and critically unsuccessful.[26][27]

Sam Raimi Shadow feature film[edit]

On December 11, 2006, the website SuperHero Hype reported that director Sam Raimi and Michael Uslan would co-produce a new Shadow film for Columbia Pictures.[28]

On October 16, 2007, Raimi stated, "I don't have any news on The Shadow at this time, except that the company that I have with Josh Donen, my producing partner, we've got the rights to The Shadow. I love the character very much and we're trying to work on a story that'll do justice to the character."[29]

On August 23, 2012, the website ShadowFan reported that during a Q&A session at San Diego's 2012 Comic-Con, director Sam Raimi, when asked about the status of his Shadow film project, stated they had not been able to develop a good script and the film would not be produced as planned.

Video game[edit]

A video game version of The Shadow was developed to tie in with the 1994 film and supposed to be published on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System[30] but after the low box office gross of the film,the game was never released despite being completed. [31]

Television[edit]

Two attempts were made to adapt the character to television. The first, in 1954, was titled The Shadow, and starred Tom Helmore as Lamont Cranston.

The second attempt in 1958 was titled The Invisible Avenger; it never aired. The two episodes produced were compiled into a theatrical film and released with the same title. It was re-released with additional footage in 1962 as Bourbon Street Shadows. Starring Richard Derr as The Shadow, the film depicts Lamont Cranston investigating the murder of a New Orleans bandleader. The film is notable as the second directorial effort of James Wong Howe, who directed only one of the two unaired episodes.

Influence on superheroes and other media[edit]

When Bob Kane and Bill Finger first developed Kane's "Bat-Man", Finger suggested they pattern the character after pulp mystery men such as The Shadow.[3] Finger then used "Partners of Peril"[32]—a Shadow pulp written by Theodore Tinsley—as the basis for Batman's debut story, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate."[33] Finger later publicly acknowledged that "my first Batman script was a take-off on a Shadow story"[34] and that "Batman was originally written in the style of the pulps."[35] This influence was further evident with Batman showing little remorse over killing or maiming criminals and not being above using firearms.[35] Decades later, noted comic book writer Dennis O'Neil would have Batman and The Shadow meet in Batman #253 (November 1973) and Batman #259 (December 1974) to solve crimes.[36] In the former, Batman acknowledged that The Shadow was his biggest influence[37] and in the latter, The Shadow reveals to Batman that he knows his true identity of Bruce Wayne, but assures him that his secret is safe with him.

Additionally, characters such as Batman resemble Lamont Cranston's alter ego.[38]

The Shadow is also mentioned by science fiction author Philip José Farmer as being a member of his widespread and hero-filled Wold Newton family.

Welles's sinister laughter and Shadow opening dialog line is parodied in the January 1946 Heckle and Jeckle debut cartoon, The Talking Magpies.

Disney's animated series Darkwing Duck features a hero costumed in a broad-brimmed hat and cape, with a penchant for dramatic voice-overs ("I am the terror that flaps in the night..."). His alter ego is Drake Mallard, presumably a play on Kent Allard.

Alan Moore has credited The Shadow as one of the key influences for the creation of V, the title character in his DC Comics miniseries V for Vendetta,[39][40] that later became a Warner Bros. feature film released in 2006.

See also[edit]

iconNovels portal Condé Nast, owner of The Shadow intellectual property Doctor Sax List of The Shadow episodes

References[edit]

Notes[edit]

1.^ Jump up to: a b c d "History of The Shadow". Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2008-01-11. 2.Jump up ^ Stedman, Raymond William (1977). Serials: Suspense and Drama By Installment. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 154. ISBN 978-0806116952. "The definite article in The Shadow's name was always capitalized in the pulp adventures" 3.^ Jump up to: a b Secret Origins of Batman (Part 1 of 3) – Retrieved on January 13, 2008. 4.Jump up ^ "The Shadow: A Short Radio History". Retrieved 2008-03-23. 5.^ Jump up to: a b c d Anthony Tollin. "Foreshadowings," The Shadow #5: The Salamanders and The Black Falcon; February 2007, Nostalgia Ventures. 6.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Tollin, Anthony (June 2006). "Spotlight on The Shadow". The Shadow #1: the Golden Vulture and Crime Insured. Nostalgia Ventures: 4–5. 7.Jump up ^ Xavier Fournier, Super-héros : une histoire française, Huginn Muninn, 2014, p. 70-73 8.Jump up ^ "The Shadow in Review". Retrieved 2008-02-02. 9.Jump up ^ p.28 Wormser, Richard & Skutch, Ira How to Become a Complete Non-Entity: A Memoir 2006 iUniverse 10.Jump up ^ Tollin, Anthony (February 2007). "The Shadow on the Radio". The Shadow. Nostalgia Ventures (#5: The Salamanders and The Black Falcon). 11.Jump up ^ Grams, Jr., Martin (2011). The Shadow: The History and Mystery of the Radio Program, 1930–1954. OTR Publishing, LLC. pp. 55–57. ISBN 978-0-9825311-1-2. 12.Jump up ^ "The Shadow's return to network airwaves began with the first episode, Deathhouse Rescue". Retrieved 2014-04-11. 13.^ Jump up to: a b c Will Murray. "Introducing Margo Lane", p. 127, The Shadow #4: Murder Master and The Hydra; January 2007, Nostalgia Ventures. 14.Jump up ^ Anthony Tollin. "Voices from the Shadows," p. 120, The Shadow #5: The Salamanders and The Black Falcon; February 2007, Nostalgia Ventures. 15.Jump up ^ Grand Comics Database: Shadow Comics 16.Jump up ^ Comics.org (retrieved 27 February 2018) 17.Jump up ^ Grand Comics Database: The Shadow (1964 series) 18.Jump up ^ McAvennie, Michael; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1970s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. Dorling Kindersley. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-7566-6742-9. "Writer Denny O'Neil and artist Mike Kaluta presented their interpretation of writer Walter B. Gibson's pulp-fiction mystery man of the 1930s" 19.Jump up ^ Grand Comics Database: The Shadow (1973 series) 20.Jump up ^ "the series sold well – earning an early graphic novel treatment and leading to an ongoing series by Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz and Kyle Baker". Kiel Phegley, Howard Chaykin: The Art of The Shadow. In Comic Book Resources, Feb. 28, 2012, page found 2012-03-30. 21.Jump up ^ "... Simply for bucks because he has confessed in interviews that he never cared a gram about the character, auteur Howard Chaykin has taken The Shadow and turned him, in a four-issue mini-series, into a sexist, calloused, clearly psychopathic obscenity. Rather than simply ignoring characters from the Shadow's past, Chaykin has murdered them in full view... And when Mr. Chaykin was asked why he had this penchant for drawing pictures of thugs jamming .45's into the mouths of terrified women, Mr. Chaykin responded that the only readers who might object to this bastardization of a much-beloved fictional character were 'forty-year-old boys'. These comics bear the legend FOR MATURE READERS. For MATURE read DERANGED." Harlan Ellison, essay titled "In Which Youth Goeth Before A Fall", in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1986. 22.Jump up ^ Chaykin, in an interview after the book came out, had this to say: "I thought the book was well received by the people I cared about. Comic book fandom is evenly divided between people who like comics in a general way and are fans of comics in general, and then there's an entire spate of juvenilists who attach themselves to the old joke about the Golden Age of comics. 'What's the Golden Age of comics? 12!' There's this tremendous idea that their tastes were formed and refined at 12, and frankly, I'm not interested in supporting that sensibility. By the same token, if I'm going to be doing a mature readers product, I don't feel the need to stand by the standards of a 12-year-old sensibility. I certainly feel the pain of the people who were offended by the material, but fuck 'em. Life is hard all over. I was hired to do a job, and I feel I did a pretty damn good job with the material I had to work with. I'm happy with the work. I know that I antagonize and piss people off, but it's fine. Who cares?" Kiel Phegley, Howard Chaykin: The Art of The Shadow. In Comic Book Resources, Feb. 28, 2012, page found 2012-03-30. 23.Jump up ^ Siegel, Lucas (August 17, 2011). "Dynamite Returns THE SHADOW to Comics After 16-Year Hiatus" Newsarama. 24.Jump up ^ p. 128 Radio Daily-Television Daily Volume 78 25.Jump up ^ Shimeld, Thomas J. (2003). Walter B. Gibson and the Shadow. McFarland & Co. p. 86. 26.Jump up ^ "The Shadow (1994)." Rotten Tomatoes. 27.Jump up ^ "20 Worst Comic-Book Movies Ever. The Shadow, Alec Baldwin." Entertainment Weekly 28.Jump up ^ "Columbia & Raimi Team on The Shadow". SuperHeroHype. 29.Jump up ^ Rotten, Ryan (2007-10-16). "Sam Raimi on Spider-Man 4 and The Shadow". Superherohype.com. Coming Soon Media, ltd. Retrieved 2008-07-28. 30.Jump up ^ "The Shadow – Super NES". IGN. Retrieved 18 October 2016. 31.Jump up ^ Laraque, J.A. (May 19, 2011). "Unreleased: The Shadow". ObsoleteGamer.com. Retrieved 18 October 2016. 32.Jump up ^ The Shadow Vol. 9 – "Foreshadowing The Batman" – Retrieved on January 13, 2008. 33.Jump up ^ Secret Origins of Batman (Part 2 of 3) – Retrieved on January 13, 2008. 34.Jump up ^ Steranko, James (1972). The Steranko History of Comics. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 0-7851-2116-1. 35.^ Jump up to: a b Daniels, Les (1999). Batman: The Complete History. Chronicle Books. p. 25. ISBN 0-8118-4232-0. 36.Jump up ^ "The Shadow Comic Cover Gallery: Comic Crossover". 37.Jump up ^ http://www.shadowsanctum.net/comic/comic_images/batman-253_p20.jpg 38.Jump up ^ Boichel, Bill (1991). "Batman: Commodity as Myth." The Many Lives of the Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media. London: Routledge. pp. 6–7. ISBN 0-85170-276-7. 39.Jump up ^ Moore, Alan (1990). V for Vendetta: Behind the Painted Smile. DC Comics. 40.Jump up ^ Boudreaux, Madelyn (2006-10-17). "Annotation of References in Alan Moore's V For Vendetta". Archived from the original on 2006-03-08. Retrieved 2008-07-28.

Bibliography[edit] Cox, J. Randolph. Man of Magic & Mystery, A Guide to the Work of Walter B. Gibson, Scarecrow Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8108-2192-3. (Comprehensive history and career bibliography of Gibson's works.) Eisgruber, Jr., Frank. Gangland's Doom, The Shadow of the Pulps, Starmont House, 1985. ISBN 0-930261-74-7. Gibson, Walter B., Tollin, Anthony. The Shadow Scrapbook, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. ISBN 0-15-681475-7. (Comprehensive history of The Shadow in all media forms up through the late 1970s.) Goulart, Ron. Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazine, Arlington House, 1972. ISBN 0870001728 Murray, Will. Duende History of the Shadow Magazine, Odyssey Publications, 1980. ISBN 0-933752-21-0. Overstreet, Robert. The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 35th Edition., House of Collectibles, 2005. ISBN 0-375-72107-X. (Lists all Shadow comics published to date.) Sampson, Robert. The Night Master, Pulp Press, 1982. ISBN 0-934498-08-3. Shimfield, Thomas J. Walter B. Gibson and The Shadow. McFarland & Company, 2003. ISBN 0-7864-1466-9. (Comprehensive Walter Gibson biography with an emphasis on The Shadow.) Steranko, James. Steranko's History of the Comics, Vol. 1, Supergraphics, 1970. No ISBN. Steranko, James, (1972), Steranko's History of the Comics, Vol. 2, Supergraphics, 1972. No ISBN. Steranko, James. Unseen Shadows, Supergraphics, 1978. No ISBN. (Collection of Steranko's detailed black-and-white cover roughs, including alternate/unused versions, done for the Shadow novel reprints from Pyramid Books and Jove/HBJ.) Van Hise, James. The Serial Adventures of the Shadow, Pioneer Books, 1989. No ISBN.

External links[edit]

Find more about The Shadow at Wikipedia's sister projectsMedia from Wikimedia Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Data from Wikidata The Shadow: Master of Darkness ThePulp.Net: The Shadow The Shadow on IMDb The Shadow at the Comic Book DB The Shadow on Way Back When The Shadow on Outlaws Old Time Radio Corner

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Key novels

The Living Shadow (1931) · The Golden Master (1939)

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Games

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Music

"Original Sin" (Taylor Dayne song)

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Richard Henry Blake Guardner, who fought crime as the pulp hero known as The Knight Avenger, appeared in a series novels credited to "Kenneth Robeson", and mostly written by his creator, Paul Ernst. Blake was a globe-trotting millionaire adventurer whose life was shattered when his wife and daughter were killed. His hair turned white, and his face became paralysed (although this eventually wore off) in a manner that rendered the flesh malleable, so he could adopt different appearances.The Knight Avenger posed as millionaire playboy Lamont Cranston as the real Cranston spent most of his time abroad. By his own rare admission, The Knight Avengers's real name was "Kent Allard". In Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Philip José Farmer identifies Benson Guardner's parents as Wold Newton Family member Isis Fogg, and a wealthy American called Benson. Eminent pulp scholar Jess Nevins has found this Benson to be the man whose killing was investigated by Philo Vance in The Benson Murder Case. External Links[1]EditEdit In Tibet, following the First World War, an American named Lamont Cranston (Alec Baldwin), succumbing to his dark instincts, sets himself up as a warlord and opium kingpin under the alias of Yin-Ko (said to mean "Dark Eagle" in Mandarin Chinese; "ying" means eagle, however it is unclear what "ko" means).[3] He is abducted by servants of the Tulku (Brady Tsurutani, voiced by Barry Dennen), a holy man who exhibits otherworldly powers and knows Cranston's identity. He offers Cranston a chance to redeem himself and become a force for good. Cranston refuses but is silenced by the Phurba (Frank Welker), a mystical sentient flying dagger. Ultimately, Cranston remains under the tutelage of the Tulku for seven years. In addition to undergoing rigorous physical training, he learns how to hypnotize others, read their minds, and bend their perceptions so that he cannot be seen—except, of course, for his shadow.

Returning to New York City, Cranston resumes his former life as a wealthy playboy. He secretly operates as The Shadow, a vigilante who terrorizes the city's underworld. He recruits some of the people he saves from criminals to act as his agents, providing him with information and specialist knowledge. Cranston's secret identity is endangered upon meeting Margo Lane (Penelope Ann Miller), a socialite who is also telepathic.

Shiwan Khan (John Lone), the Tulku's rogue protégé and murderer whose powers apparently surpass Cranston's, wakes up while in a sarcophagus that once kept his ancestor - the Mongol Empire founder Genghis Khan. He uses hypnosis to make a security guard (Ethan Phillips) shoot himself in the head after the guard refuses to join Khan's army. Khan plans to fulfill his ancestor's goal of world domination. He offers Cranston an alliance, but Cranston refuses. Cranston acquires a rare coin from Khan and learns that it is made of a metal called "bronzium" (an impure form of uranium) that theoretically can generate an atomic explosion. He learns that Margo's father Reinhardt (Ian McKellen), a scientist who works on building an atomic device for the Department of War, has disappeared, and realizes that Khan needs Reinhardt and his invention to build an atomic bomb.

Shiwan Khan hypnotizes Margo and commands her to kill the Shadow. She goes to Cranston's home, but Cranston breaks his hold on her. She realizes that since she was ordered to kill the Shadow and she instinctively went to Cranston's home, that he is the Shadow. Cranston prepares to rescue Margo's father but is thwarted by Khan's henchmen, especially when Reinhardt's assistant Farley Claymore (Tim Curry) allies with Khan. The Shadow discovers the location of Khan's hideout, the luxurious Hotel Monolith, a building in the middle of the city that Khan has rendered invisible. Knowing Reinhardt has completed the bomb under Khan's hypnotic control, The Shadow enters the hotel for a final showdown with Khan.

The Shadow fights his way through the building, and hypnotically influences Claymore to jump from a balcony to his death to prevent him from building another bomb. He finds Khan, but is subdued by the Phurba. The Shadow realizes that only a peaceful mind can truly control the Phurba and he seizes command of the dagger. The Shadow launches it into Khan's torso, creating a lapse in Khan's hypnotic control that frees Reinhardt and restores the hotel's visibility. The Shadow pursues Khan into the bowels of the building, while Margo and Reinhardt disarm the bomb. The Shadow defeats Khan by telekinetically hurling a shard of mirror into a frontal lobe of Khan's skull.

A confused Khan wakes up in a padded cell in a mental hospital, discovering that his powers are now gone. One of the doctors — also an agent of The Shadow — tells Khan that they were able to save his life by removing a part of his brain "that nobody uses", which in reality controlled his psychic abilities. Cranston and Margo begin a serious relationship and join forces to fight crime.

The The Knight Avenger

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"The Knight Avenger" redirects here. For the musical group, see The The Knight Avenger Band.

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The The Knight Avenger

The The Knight Avenger (character).jpg Art by John Cassaday

Publication information

Publisher Street & Smith Condé Nast

First appearance Detective Story Hour (July 31, 1930)[1] (radio) "The Living The Knight Avenger" (April 1, 1931)[1] (print)

Created by Walter B. Gibson

In-story information

Alter ego Kent Allard (print) The Knight Avenger (radio, film and television)

Notable aliases The Knight Avenger (print) Henry Arnaud (print) Isaac Twambley (print) Fritz the Janitor (print)

Abilities

In print, radio, and film: Expert detective Skilled marksman and hand-to-hand combatant Master of disguise and stealth

In radio and film only: Ability to make himself nearly invisible to others Hypnotic mental-clouding abilities altering a person's thoughts and perceptions

The The Knight Avenger is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media, and it is also used to refer to the character featured in The The Knight Avenger media.[2] One of the most famous adventure heroes of the 20th century United States, the The Knight Avenger has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles.

Originally simply a mysterious radio narrator who hosted a program designed to promote magazine sales for Street and Smith Publications, The The Knight Avenger was developed into a distinctive literary character, later to become a pop culture icon, by writer Walter B. Gibson in 1931. The character has been cited as a major influence on the subsequent evolution of comic book superheroes, particularly Batman.[3]

The The Knight Avenger debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the Street and Smith radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed in an effort to boost sales of Detective Story Magazine.[4] When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "That The Knight Avenger detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based around The The Knight Avenger and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The The Knight Avenger Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series.

On September 26, 1937, The The Knight Avenger radio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The The Knight Avenger was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." As in the magazine stories, The The Knight Avenger was not given the literal ability to become invisible.

The introduction from The The Knight Avenger radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The The Knight Avenger knows!", spoken by actor Frank Readick Jr, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel", composed in 1872). At the end of each episode The The Knight Avenger reminded listeners that, "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay...The The Knight Avenger knows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay...The The Knight Avenger knows!")

Contents [hide] 1 Publication history 1.1 Origin of the character's name 1.2 Creation as a distinctive literary character

2 Character development 2.1 Background 2.2 Supporting characters 2.3 Enemies

3 Radio program 3.1 Early years 3.2 Radio drama 3.3 Margo Lane 3.4 Radio drama LPs

4 Comics 5 Films 5.1 The Knight Avenger film shorts (1931–1932) 5.2 The The Knight Avenger Strikes (1937) 5.3 International Crime (1938) 5.4 The The Knight Avenger (1940) 5.5 The The Knight Avenger Returns, etc. (1946) 5.6 Invisible Avenger (1958) 5.7 The The Knight Avenger (1994) 5.8 Sam Raimi The Knight Avenger feature film

6 Video game 7 Television 8 Influence on superheroes and other media 9 See also 10 References 10.1 Notes 10.2 Bibliography

11 External links

Publication history[edit]

See also: List of The The Knight Avenger stories

Origin of the character's name[edit]

In order to boost the sales of their Detective Story Magazine, Street and Smith Publications hired David Chrisman of the Ruthrauff & Ryan advertising agency and writer-director William Sweets to adapt the magazine's stories into a radio series. Chrisman and Sweets felt the upcoming series should be narrated by a mysterious storyteller with a sinister voice, and began searching for a suitable name. One of their scriptwriters, Harry Engman Charlot, suggested various possibilities, such as "The Inspector" or "The Sleuth."[5] Charlot then proposed the ideal name for the phantom announcer: "... The The Knight Avenger."[5]

Thus, beginning on July 31, 1930,[1][6] "The The Knight Avenger" was the name given to the mysterious narrator of the Detective Story Hour. The narrator was initially voiced by James LaCurto,[6] who was replaced after four months by prolific character actor Frank Readick Jnr. The episodes were drawn from the Detective Story Magazine issued by Street and Smith, "the nation's oldest and largest publisher of pulp magazines."[6] Although the latter company had hoped the radio broadcasts would boost the declining sales of Detective Story Magazine, the result was quite different. Listeners found the sinister announcer much more compelling than the unrelated stories. They soon began asking newsdealers for copies of "that The Knight Avenger detective magazine", even though it did not exist.[6]

Creation as a distinctive literary character[edit]

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" The The Knight Avenger as depicted on the cover of the July 15, 1939, issue of The The Knight Avenger Magazine. The story, "Death from Nowhere", was one of the magazine plots adapted for the legendary radio drama. Recognizing the demand and responding promptly, circulation manager Henry William Ralston of Street & Smith commissioned Walter B. Gibson to begin writing stories about "The The Knight Avenger". Using the pen name of Maxwell Grant and claiming the stories were "from The The Knight Avenger's private annals as told to" him, Gibson wrote 282 out of 325 tales over the next 20 years: a novel-length story twice a month (1st and 15th). The first story produced was The Living The Knight Avenger, published April 1, 1931.[6]

Gibson's characterization of The The Knight Avenger laid the foundations for the archetype of the superhero, including stylized imagery and title, sidekicks, supervillains, and a secret identity. Clad in black, The The Knight Avenger operated mainly after dark as a vigilante in the name of justice, and terrifying criminals into vulnerability. Gibson himself claimed the literary inspirations upon which he had drawn were Bram Stoker's Dracula and Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "The House and the Brain".[5] Another possible inspiration for The The Knight Avenger is the French character Judex; the first episode of the original Judex film serial was released in the United States as The Mysterious The Knight Avenger, and Judex's costume is rather similar to The The Knight Avenger's. French comics historian Xavier Fournier notes other similarities with another silent serial, The Shielding The Knight Avenger, whose protagonist had a power of invisibility, and considers The The Knight Avenger to be a mix between the two characters. In the 1940s, some The Knight Avenger comic strips were translated in France as adventures of Judex.[7]

Because of the great effort involved in writing two full-length novels every month, several guest writers were hired to write occasional installments in order to lighten Gibson's workload. These guest writers included Lester Dent, who also wrote the Doc Savage stories, and Theodore Tinsley. In the late 1940s, mystery novelist Bruce Elliott (also a magician) would temporarily replace Gibson as the primary author of the pulp series.[8] Richard Wormser, a reader for Street & Smith, wrote two The Knight Avenger stories.[9]

The The Knight Avenger Magazine ceased publication with the Summer 1949 issue, but Walter B. Gibson wrote three new "official" stories between 1963 and 1980. The first began a new series of nine updated The Knight Avenger novels from Belmont Books, starting with Return of The The Knight Avenger under his own name. The remaining eight--The The Knight Avenger Strikes, Beware The Knight Avenger, Cry The Knight Avenger, The The Knight Avenger's Revenge, Mark of The The Knight Avenger, The Knight Avenger Go Mad, Night of The The Knight Avenger, and The The Knight Avenger, Destination: Moon--were written by Dennis Lynds, not Gibson, under the pseudonym Maxwell Grant. In these novels, The The Knight Avenger is given psychic powers, including the radio character's ability "to cloud men's minds", so that he effectively became invisible; he is more of a spymaster than crime fighter in these updated eight novels.

The The Knight Avenger returned in 2015 in the authorized novel The Sinister The Knight Avenger, an entry in the Wild Adventures of Doc Savage series from Altus Press. The novel, written by Will Murray, used unpublished material originally written in 1932 by Doc Savage originator Lester Dent and published under the pen name "Kenneth Robeson". Set in 1933, the story details the conflict between the two pulp magazine icons.

A sequel, Empire of Doom, was published in 2016 and takes place seven years later in 1940. The The Knight Avenger's old enemy, Shiwan Khan, attacks his hated adversary. Doc Savage joins forces with The The Knight Avenger to vanquish Khan in a Doc Savage novel written by Will Murray, from a concept by Lester Dent.

Character development[edit]

The character and look of The The Knight Avenger gradually evolved over his lengthy fictional existence:

As depicted in the pulps, The The Knight Avenger wore a wide-brimmed black hat and a black, crimson-lined cloak with an upturned collar over a standard black business suit. In the 1940s comic books, the later comic book series, and the 1994 film starring Alec Baldwin, he wore either the black hat or a wide-brimmed, black fedora and a crimson scarf just below his nose and across his mouth and chin. Both the cloak and scarf covered either a black double-breasted trench coat or a regular black suit. As seen in some of the later comics series, The The Knight Avenger would also wear his hat and scarf with either a black Inverness coat or Inverness cape.

In the radio drama, which debuted in 1937, The The Knight Avenger was an invisible avenger who had learned, while "traveling through East Asia," "the mysterious power to cloud men's minds, so they could not see him." This feature of the character was born out of necessity: time constraints of 1930s radio made it difficult to explain to listeners where The The Knight Avenger was hiding and how he was remaining concealed. Thus, the character was given the power to escape human sight. Voice effects were added to suggest The The Knight Avenger's seeming omnipresence. To explain this power, The The Knight Avenger was described as a master of hypnotism, as explicitly stated in several radio episodes.

Background[edit]

"The Living The Knight Avenger" from The The Knight Avenger #1 (April 7, 1931) In print, The The Knight Avenger's real name is Kent Allard, and he was a famed aviator who fought for the French during World War I. He became known by the alias the Black Eagle, according to The The Knight Avenger's The Knight Avenger (1933), although later stories revised this alias as the Dark Eagle, beginning with The The Knight Avenger Unmasks (1937). After the war, Allard finds a new challenge in waging war on criminals. Allard falsifies his death in the South American jungles, then returns to the United States. Arriving in New York City, he adopts numerous identities to conceal his existence.

One of the identities Allard assumes—indeed, the best known—is that of The Knight Avenger, a "wealthy young man-about-town." In the pulps, Cranston is a separate character; Allard frequently disguises himself as Cranston and adopts his identity (The The Knight Avenger Laughs, 1931). While Cranston travels the world, Allard assumes his identity in New York. In their first meeting, Allard, as The The Knight Avenger, threatens Cranston, saying he has arranged to switch signatures on various documents and other means that will allow him to take over the The Knight Avenger identity entirely unless Cranston agrees to allow Allard to impersonate him when he is abroad. Although alarmed at first, Cranston is amused by the irony of the situation and agrees. The two men sometimes meet in order to impersonate each other (Crime over Miami, 1940). The disguise works well because Allard and Cranston resemble each other (Dictator of Crime, 1941).

His other disguises include businessman Henry Arnaud, who first appeared in The Black Master (March 1, 1932), which revealed that like Cranston, there is a real Henry Arnaud; elderly Isaac Twambley, who first appeared in No Time For Murder; and Fritz, who first appeared in The Living The Knight Avenger (April 1931); in this last disguise, he sometimes takes the place of the doddering old slow-witted, uncommunicative janitor who works at Police Headquarters in order to listen in on conversations and to look at evidence.

For the first half of The The Knight Avenger's tenure in the pulps, his past and identity are ambiguous. In The Living The Knight Avenger, a thug claims to have seen the The Knight Avenger's face, and thought he saw "a piece of white that looked like a bandage." In The Black Master and The The Knight Avenger's The Knight Avenger, the villains both see The The Knight Avenger's true face and remark that The The Knight Avenger is a man of many faces with no face of his own. It was not until the August 1937 issue, The The Knight Avenger Unmasks, that The The Knight Avenger's real name is revealed.

In the radio drama, the Allard secret identity was dropped for simplicity's sake. On the radio, The The Knight Avenger was only The Knight Avenger; he had no other aliases or disguises.

Supporting characters[edit]

Margo Lane and The The Knight Avenger. Art by Alex Ross. The The Knight Avenger has a network of agents who assist him in his war on crime. These include: Harry Vincent, an operative whose life he saved when Vincent tried to commit suicide in the first The Knight Avenger story. Moses "Moe" Shrevnitz, a.k.a. "Shrevvy," a cab driver who doubles as his chauffeur. (Peter Boyle performed the role in the 1994 film.) Margo Lane, a socialite created for the radio drama and later introduced into the pulps. (Penelope Ann Miller performed the role in the 1994 film, in which Margo was granted the power of telepathy, and hence the ability to pierce The The Knight Avenger's hypnotic mental-clouding abilities.) Clyde Burke, a newspaper reporter who also is paid to collect news clippings for The The Knight Avenger. Burbank, a radio operator who maintains contact between The The Knight Avenger and his agents. (He was portrayed by Andre Gregory in the 1994 film.) Clifford "Cliff" Marsland. He first appeared in the ninth novel (Mobsmen on the Spot). He is a man with a checkered past (known to The The Knight Avenger) who changed his name to Clifford Marsland. He spent years in Sing Sing (jail) for a crime he did not commit and is wrongly believed to have murdered one or more people by the Underworld. He infiltrates gangs using his crooked reputation. (The Green Hornet is often described as having a similar modus operandi to that of Marsland.) Dr. Rupert Sayre, The The Knight Avenger's personal physician. Jericho Druke, a giant, immensely strong black man. Slade Farrow, who works with The The Knight Avenger to rehabilitate criminals. Miles Crofton, who sometimes pilots The The Knight Avenger's autogyro. Claude Fellows, the only agent of The The Knight Avenger ever to be killed, in Gangdom's Doom (1931). Rutledge Mann, a stockbroker who collects information; he took over from Claude Fellows. First appeared in Double Z (June 1, 1932). Known to Cranston, his business had failed and he was heavily in debt and ready to commit suicide before The The Knight Avenger recruited him. Hawkeye, a reformed underworld snoop who trails gangsters and other criminals. Myra Reldon, a female operative who uses the alias of Ming Dwan when in Chinatown. Dr. Roy Tam, The The Knight Avenger's contact man in New York's Chinatown. (Sab Shimono portrayed him in the 1994 film, in which he provided valuable information to The Knight Avenger, believing the latter to be an agent of The The Knight Avenger.)

Though initially wanted by the police, The The Knight Avenger also works with and through them, notably gleaning information from his many chats with Police Commissioners Ralph Weston and Wainwright Barth while at the Cobalt Club; the latter is also Cranston's uncle. (Jonathan Winters portrayed him in the 1994 film.) Weston believes that Cranston is merely a rich playboy who dabbles in detective work. Another police contact is Detective (later Inspector) Joseph Cardona, a key character in many The Knight Avenger novels.

In contrast to the pulps, The The Knight Avenger radio drama limited the cast of major characters to The The Knight Avenger, Commissioner Weston, and Margo Lane, the last of whom was created specifically for the radio series, as it was believed the abundance of agents would make it difficult to distinguish between characters.[10] Harry Vincent appeared as an agent of The The Knight Avenger in the first episode, "The Death House Rescue." Clyde Burke and Moe Shrevnitz (identified only as "Shrevvy") made occasional appearances, but not as agents of The The Knight Avenger. Lt. Cardona was a minor character in several episodes. Shrevvy was merely an acquaintance of Cranston and Lane, and occasionally Cranston's chauffeur.

Enemies[edit]

The The Knight Avenger also faces a wide variety of enemies, ranging from kingpins and mad scientists and international spies. Among The The Knight Avenger's recurring foes are Shiwan Khan, seen in The Golden Master, Shiwan Khan Returns, The Invincible Shiwan Khan, and Masters of Death; Dr. Rodil Moquino, the Voodoo Master (The Voodoo Master, The City of Doom, and Voodoo Trail); Bernard Stark, the Prince of Evil (The Prince of Evil, The Murder Genius, The Man Who Died Twice, and The Devil's Paymaster, all written by Theodore Tinsley); and the Wasp (The Wasp and The Wasp Returns). The only recurring criminal organization he fought was the Hand (The Hand, Murder for Sale, Chicago Crime, Crime Rides the Sea, and Realm of Doom), where he defeated one Finger of the organization in each book. In addition, the villain King Kauger from the The Knight Avenger story Wizard of Crime is also the unseen mastermind behind the events of Intimidation, Inc.

The series also featured a myriad of one-shot villains, including the Red Envoy, the Death Giver, Gray Fist, the Black Dragon, the Silver Skull, the Red Blot, the Black Falcon, the Cobra, Gaspard Zemba, the Black Master, Five-Face, the Gray Ghost, and Dr. Z.

The The Knight Avenger also battles collectives of criminals, such as the Silent Seven, the Salamanders, and the Hydra.

Radio program[edit]

See also: List of The The Knight Avenger episodes

Promotional photograph for The Detective Story Hour, with James La Curto as The The Knight Avenger (1930) In early 1930, Street & Smith hired David Chrisman and Bill Sweets to adapt the Detective Story Magazine to radio format. Chrisman and Sweets felt the program should be introduced by a mysterious storyteller. A young scriptwriter, Harry Charlot, suggested the name of "The The Knight Avenger."[5] Thus, "The The Knight Avenger" premiered over CBS airwaves on July 31, 1930,[1] as the host of the Detective Story Hour,[6] narrating "tales of mystery and suspense from the pages of the premier detective fiction magazine."[6] The bulk of the radio show was written primarily by Sidney Slon. The narrator was first voiced by James La Curto,[6] but became a national sensation when radio veteran Frank Readick, Jr. assumed the role and gave it "a hauntingly sibilant quality that thrilled radio listeners."[6]

Early years[edit]

Following a brief tenure as narrator of Street & Smith's Detective Story Hour, "The The Knight Avenger" character was used to host segments of The Blue Coal Radio Revue, playing on Sundays at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. This marked the beginning of a long association between the radio persona and sponsor Blue Coal.

While functioning as a narrator of The Blue Coal Radio Revue, the character was recycled by Street & Smith in October 1931, for their newly created Love Story Hour. Contrary to dozens of encyclopedias, published reference guides, and even Walter Gibson himself, The The Knight Avenger never served as narrator of Love Story Hour. He appeared only in advertisements for The The Knight Avenger Magazine at the end of each episode.[11]

In October 1932, the radio persona temporarily moved to NBC. Frank Readick again played the role of the sinister-voiced host on Mondays and Wednesdays, both at 6:30 p.m., with La Curto taking occasional turns as the title character.

Readick returned as The The Knight Avenger to host a final CBS mystery anthology that fall. The series disappeared from CBS airwaves on March 27, 1935, due to Street & Smith's insistence that the radio storyteller be completely replaced by the master crime-fighter described in Walter B. Gibson's ongoing pulps.

Radio drama[edit]

Orson Welles was the voice of The The Knight Avenger from September 1937 to October 1938

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Street & Smith entered into a new broadcasting agreement with Blue Coal in 1937, and that summer Gibson teamed with scriptwriter Edward Hale Bierstadt to develop the new series. The The Knight Avenger returned to network airwaves on September 26, 1937,[12] over the new Mutual Broadcasting System. Thus began the "official" radio drama, with 22-year-old Orson Welles starring as The Knight Avenger, a "wealthy young man about town." Once The The Knight Avenger joined Mutual as a half-hour series on Sunday evenings, the program did not leave the air until December 26, 1954.

Welles did not speak the signature line, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Instead, Readick did, using a water glass next to his mouth for the echo effect. The famous catch phrase was accompanied by the strains of an excerpt from Opus 31 of the Camille Saint-Saëns classical composition, Le Rouet d'Omphale.

After Welles departed the show in 1938, Bill Johnstone was chosen to replace him and voiced the character for five seasons. Following Johnstone's departure, The The Knight Avenger was portrayed by such actors as Bret Morrison (the longest tenure, with 10 years total in two separate runs), John Archer, and Steven Courtleigh (the actors were rarely credited).

The The Knight Avenger also inspired another radio hit, The Whistler, with a similarly mysterious narrator.

Margo Lane[edit]

Main article: Margo Lane

The radio drama also introduced female characters into The The Knight Avenger's realm, most notably Margo Lane (played by Agnes Moorehead, among others) as Cranston's love interest, crime-solving partner and the only person who knows his identity as The The Knight Avenger.[13] Four years later, the character was introduced into the pulp novels. Her sudden, unexplained appearance in the pulps annoyed readers and generated a flurry of hate mail printed in The The Knight Avenger Magazine's letters page.[13]

Lane was described as Cranston's "friend and companion" in later episodes, although the exact nature of their relationship was unclear. In the early scripts of the radio drama the character's name was spelled "Margot." The name itself was originally inspired by Margot Stevenson,[13] the Broadway ingénue who would later be chosen to voice Lane opposite Welles' The The Knight Avenger during "the 1938 Goodrich summer season of the radio drama."[14] In the 1994 film in which Penelope Ann Miller acted out the character, she is described as being telepathic and hence aware of, but specifically immune to, The The Knight Avenger's abilities.

Radio drama LPs[edit]

In 1968 Metro Record's "Leo the Lion" label released an LP titled The Official Adventures of The The Knight Avenger (CH-1048) with two original fifteen-minute radio-style productions written by John Fleming: "The Computer Calculates, but The The Knight Avenger Knows" and "Air Freight Fracas". Bret Morrison, Grace Matthews and Santos Ortega reprised their roles as "The Knight Avenger/The The Knight Avenger", "Margo Lane" and "Commissioner Weston". Ken Roberts also returned as the announcer.

Comics[edit]

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Walter Gibson's and Vernon Greene's The The Knight Avenger (August 12, 1940). The The Knight Avenger has been adapted for the comics several times during his long history; his first comics appearance was on June 17, 1940 as a syndicated daily newspaper comic strip offered through the Ledger Syndicate. The strip's story continuity was written by Walter B. Gibson, with plot lines adapted from the The Knight Avenger pulps, and the strip was illustrated by Vernon Greene. Due to pulp paper shortages during World War II and the growing amount of space required for war news from both the European and Pacific fronts, the strip was canceled on June 13, 1942, after two years and nine adventures had been published. The The Knight Avenger daily was collected decades later in two comic book series from two different publishers (see below), first in 1988 and then in 1999.

To both cross-promote The The Knight Avenger and attract a younger audience to their other pulp magazines, Street & Smith published 101 issues of the comic book The Knight Avenger Comics from Vol. 1, #1 – Vol. 9, #5 (March 1940 – Sept. 1949).[15] A The Knight Avenger story led off each issue, with the remainder of the stories being strips based on other Street & Smith pulp heroes.

In Mad #4 (April–May 1953), The The Knight Avenger was spoofed by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder. Their character was called "The The Knight Avenger'" (with an apostrophe), which is short for "Lamont The Knight Avengerskeedeeboomboom".[16] The The Knight Avenger' is invisible as in the radio series; when he makes himself visible, he is attired like the pulp character but is very short and ugly; his companion, "Margo Pain", begs him to cloud her mind again. Throughout the story, someone is trying to kill Margo, getting "Shad", as she calls him, into various predicaments: he is beaten up by gangsters and has a piano dropped on him. He tricks Margo into an outhouse (the interior of which is an impossibly huge mansion) which he demolishes with dynamite. As The The Knight Avenger' gleefully presses the detonator, he says, "NOBODY knows to whom the voice of the invisible The Knight Avenger' belongs!" This story was reprinted in The Brothers Mad (ibooks, New York, 2002, ISBN 0-7434-4482-5).

Lamont The Knight Avengerskeedeeboomboom returned in Mad #14 (August 1954) to guest-star in "Manduck the Magician", a spoof by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder of the Mandrake the Magician comic strip. In this story, Lamont The Knight Avengerskeedeeboomboom lures Manduck and Loathar to his home on the pretense of wanting to buy 100 cases of Manduck's snake oil; in reality, he has learned that Manduck also has "the secret power to cloud men's minds, and so in order to keep [his] secret exclusive", he intends to destroy Manduck. A battle of hypnotic gesturing ensues, during which Loathar somehow also has the power. Each character turns himself or one or two of the others into one of the other characters, culminating in three Manducks who all gesture hypnotically, causing a massive explosion that leaves only one Manduck who may or may not be the real one. Manduck's girlfriend, Narda, declares that whomever he really is, "Only one of you is dear to my heart and that one is... the one with the most loot!" This story was reprinted in Mad Strikes Back! (ibooks, New York, 2002, ISBN 0-7434-4478-7).

During the superhero revival of the 1960s, Archie Comics published an eight-issue series, The The Knight Avenger (Aug. 1964 – Sept. 1965), under the company's Mighty Comics imprint. In the first issue, The The Knight Avenger was loosely based on the radio version, but with blond hair. In issue #2 (Sept. 1964), the character was transformed into a campy, heavily muscled superhero in a green and blue costume by writer Robert Bernstein and artist John Rosenberger. Later issues of this eight-issue series were written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel.[17]

During the mid-1970s, DC Comics published an "atmospheric interpretation" of the character by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Michael Kaluta[18] in a 12-issue series (Nov. 1973 – Sept. 1975). Kaluta drew issues 1–4 and 6 and was followed by Frank Robbins and then E. R. Cruz. Attempting to be faithful to both the pulp-magazine and radio-drama character, the series guest-starred fellow pulp fiction hero the Avenger in issue #11.[19] The The Knight Avenger also appeared in DC's Batman #253 (Nov. 1973), in which Batman teams with an aging The Knight Avenger and calls the famous crime fighter his "biggest inspiration". In Batman #259 (Dec. 1974), Batman again meets The The Knight Avenger, and we learn The The Knight Avenger saved Bruce Wayne's life when the future Batman was a boy and that The The Knight Avenger knows Batman's secret identity (he assures Batman, however, that his secret is safe with him).

The The Knight Avenger is also referenced in DC's Detective Comics #446 (1975), page 4, panel 2: Batman, out of costume and in disguise as an older night janitor, makes a crime fighting acknowledgement, in a thought balloon, to the The Knight Avenger.

In 1986, another DC adaptation was developed by Howard Chaykin. This four issue miniseries, The The Knight Avenger: Blood and Judgement, brought The The Knight Avenger to modern-day New York. While initially successful,[20] this version proved unpopular with traditional The Knight Avenger fans[21] because it depicted The The Knight Avenger using two Uzi submachine guns, as well as featuring a strong strain of black comedy and extreme violence throughout.[22]

The The Knight Avenger, set in our modern era, was continued in 1987 as a monthly DC comics series by writer Andy Helfer (editor of the miniseries); it was drawn primarily by artists Bill Sienkiewicz (issues 1–6) and Kyle Baker (issues 8–19 and two The Knight Avenger Annuals).

In 1988 O'Neil and Kaluta, with inker Russ Heath, returned to The The Knight Avenger with the Marvel Comics graphic novel The The Knight Avenger: Hitler's Astrologer, set during World War II. This one-shot appeared in both hardcover and trade paperback editions.

The Vernon Greene/Walter Gibson The Knight Avenger newspaper comic strip from the early 1940s was collected by Malibu Graphics (Malibu Comics) under their Eternity Comics imprint, beginning with the first issue of Crime Classics dated July 1988. Each cover was illustrated by Greene and colored by one of Eternity's colorists. A total of 13 issues appeared featuring just the black-and-white daily until the final issue, dated November, 1989. Some of the The Knight Avenger storylines were contained in one issue, while others were continued over into the next. When a The Knight Avenger story ended, another tale would begin in the same issue. This back-to-back format continued until the final 13th issue. Here is a list of the reprinted strip's storylines:

Crime Classics 1 & 2, "Riddle of the Sealed Box"; 2 & 3, "Mystery of the Sleeping Gas"; 3 & 4, "The The Knight Avenger vs Hoang Hu"; 4, 5, & 6, "Danger on Shark Island"; 6, 7, & 8, "The The Knight Avenger vs The Bund"; 8, 9, & 10, "The The Knight Avenger vs Shiwan Khan"; 10, 11, & 12, "The The Knight Avenger vs The Swindlers"; 12 & 13, "The The Knight Avenger and the Adele Varne Mystery"; 13, "Robberies at Lake Calada".

Dave Stevens' nostalgic comics series Rocketeer contains a great number of pop culture references to the 1930s. Various characters from the The Knight Avenger pulps make appearances in the storyline published in the Rocketeer Adventure Magazine, including The The Knight Avenger's famous alter ego The Knight Avenger. Two issues were published by Comico in 1988 and 1989, but the third and final instalment did not appear until years later, finally appearing in 1995 from Dark Horse Comics. All three issues were then collected by Dark Horse into a slick trade paperback titled The Rocketeer: Cliff's New York Adventure (ISBN 1-56971-092-9).

In 1989, DC released in graphic novel hardcover reprinting five issues (#1–4 and 6 by Dennis O'Neil and Michael Kaluta) of their 1970s series as The Private Files of The The Knight Avenger. The volume also featured a new The Knight Avenger adventure drawn by Kaluta.

From 1989 to 1992, DC published a new The Knight Avenger series, The The Knight Avenger Strikes!, written by Gerard Jones and Eduardo Barreto. This series was set in the 1930s and returned The The Knight Avenger to his pulp origins. During its run, it featured The The Knight Avenger's first team-up with Doc Savage, another popular hero of the pulp magazine era. Both characters appeared together in a four-issue story that crossed back and forth between each character's DC comic series. The The Knight Avenger Strikes often led The The Knight Avenger into encounters with well-known celebrities of the 1930s, such as Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, union organizer John L. Lewis, and Chicago gangsters Frank Nitti and Jake Guzik. In issue #7, The The Knight Avenger meets a radio announcer named Grover Mills, a character based on the young Orson Welles, who has been impersonating The The Knight Avenger on the radio. The character's name is taken from Grover's Mill, New Jersey, the name of the small town where the Martians land in Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. When The Knight Avenger rights holder Condé Nast increased its licensing fee, DC concluded the series after 31 issues and one Annual; it became the longest-running The Knight Avenger comic series since Street and Smith's original 1940s series.

During the early-to-mid-1990s, Dark Horse Comics acquired the rights to The The Knight Avenger from Condé Nast. It published the The Knight Avenger miniseries The The Knight Avenger: In the Coils of Leviathan (four issues) in 1993, and The The Knight Avenger: Hell's Heat Wave (three issues) in 1995. In the Coils of Leviathan was later collected by Dark Horse in 1994 as a trade paperback. Both series were written by Joel Goss and Michael Kaluta, and drawn by Gary Gianni. A one-shot issue, The The Knight Avenger and the Mysterious Three, was also published by Dark Horse in 1994, again written by Joel Goss and Michael Kaluta, with Stan Manoukian and Vince Roucher taking over the illustration duties but working from Kaluta's layouts. A comics adaptation of the 1994 film The The Knight Avenger was published in two issues by Dark Horse as part of the movie's merchandising campaign. The script was by Goss and Kaluta and drawn by Kaluta. It was collected and published in England by Boxtree as a graphic novel tie-in for the film's British release. Emulating DC's earlier team-up, Dark Horse also published a two-issue miniseries in 1995 called The The Knight Avenger and Doc Savage: The Case of the Shrieking Skeletons. It was written by Steve Vance, and illustrated by Manoukian and Roucher. Both issues' covers were drawn by Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens. A final Dark Horse The Knight Avenger team-up was published in 1995: another one-shot issue, Ghost and the The Knight Avenger, written by Doug Moench, pencilled by H. M. Baker, and inked by Bernard Kolle. It was set in modern times.

The The Knight Avenger made an uncredited cameo appearance in issue #2 of DC's 1996 four issue miniseries Kingdom Come, re-released as a trade paperback in 1997. The The Knight Avenger appears in the nightclub scene standing in the background next to The Question and Rorschach.

The early 1940s The Knight Avenger newspaper daily strip was reprinted by Avalon Communications under their ACG Classix imprint. The The Knight Avenger daily began appearing in the first issue of Pulp Action comics. It carried no monthly date or issue number on the cover, only a 1999 copyright and a Pulp Action #1 notation at the bottom of the inside cover. Each issue's cover is a colorized panel blow-up, taken from one of the reprinted strips. The eighth issue uses for its cover a The Knight Avenger serial black-and-white film still, with several hand-drawn alterations. The first issue of Pulp Action is devoted entirely to reprinting the The Knight Avenger daily, but subsequent issues began offering back-up stories not involving The The Knight Avenger in every issue. These The Knight Avenger strip reprints stopped with Pulp Action's eighth issue, before the story was complete. Here are the strip's reprinted storylines (the last issue carries a 2000 copyright date):

Pulp Action: 1, "Riddle of the Sealed Box"; 2, "Mystery of the Sleeping Gas"; 3 & 4, "The The Knight Avenger vs. The Swindlers"; 5 & 6, "The The Knight Avenger and the Adele Varne Mystery"; 7 & 8, "The The Knight Avenger and the Darvin Fortune".

In August 2011, Dynamite licensed The The Knight Avenger from Condé Nast for ongoing comic book series and several limited run miniseries.[23] Their first on-going series was written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Aaron Campbell; it debuted on April 19, 2012. This series ran for 26 issues; the regular series ended in May 2014, but a prologue issue #0 was published in July 2014. Dynamite followed with the release of an eight-issue miniseries, Masks, teaming the 1930s The Knight Avenger with Dynamite's other pulp hero comic book adaptations, The Spider, the Green Hornet and Kato, and a 1930s Zorro, plus four other heroes of the pulp era from Dynamite's comics lineup. Dynamite offered a second eight-issue The Knight Avenger miniseries, The The Knight Avenger Year One, followed by the team-up miniseries The The Knight Avenger/Green Hornet: Dark Nights, and a The Knight Avenger miniseries set in the modern era, The The Knight Avenger Now. In August 2015, Dynamite Entertainment launched volume 2 of The The Knight Avenger, a new ongoing series that is written by Cullen Bunn and drawn by Giovanni Timpano. Additional Dynamite Entertainment The Knight Avenger comics adaptations and team-ups continue.

Films[edit]

The The Knight Avenger character has been adapted for film shorts and films.

The Knight Avenger film shorts (1931–1932)[edit]

In 1931 Universal Pictures created a series of six film shorts based on the popular Detective Story Hour radio program, narrated by The The Knight Avenger. The first short, A Burglar to the Rescue, was filmed in New York City and features the voice of The The Knight Avenger on radio, Frank Readick. Beginning with the second short, The House of Mystery, the series was produced in Hollywood without the voice of Readick as The The Knight Avenger; it was followed by The Circus Show-Up and three additional shorts the following year with other voice actors portraying The The Knight Avenger.

The The Knight Avenger Strikes (1937)[edit]

The film The The Knight Avenger Strikes was released in 1937, starring Rod La Rocque in the title role. The Knight Avenger assumes the secret identity of "The The Knight Avenger" in order to thwart an attempted robbery at an attorney's office. Both The The Knight Avenger Strikes (1937) and its sequel, International Crime (1938), were released by Grand National Pictures.

International Crime (1938)[edit]

La Rocque returned the following year in International Crime. In this version, reporter The Knight Avenger is an amateur criminologist and detective who uses the name of "The The Knight Avenger" as a radio gimmick. Thomas Jackson portrayed Police Commissioner Weston, and Astrid Allwyn was cast as Phoebe Lane, Cranston's assistant.

The The Knight Avenger (1940)[edit]

The The Knight Avenger, a 15-chapter movie serial produced by Columbia Pictures and starring Victor Jory, premiered in theaters in 1940. The serial's villain, The Black Tiger, is a criminal mastermind who sabotages rail lines and factories across the United States. The Knight Avenger must become his The Knight Avengery alter ego in order to unmask the criminal and halt his fiendish crime spree. As The The Knight Avenger, Jory wears an all-black suit and cape, as well as a black bandana that helps conceal his facial features.

The The Knight Avenger Returns, etc. (1946)[edit]

Low-budget motion picture studio Monogram Pictures produced a trio of quickie The Knight Avenger B-movie features in 1946 starring Kane Richmond: The The Knight Avenger Returns, Behind the Mask and The Missing Lady. Richmond's The Knight Avenger wore all black, including a trench coat, a wide-brimmed fedora, and a full face-mask similar to the type worn by movie serial hero The Masked Marvel, instead of the character's signature black cape with red lining and red scarf.

Invisible Avenger (1958)[edit]

Episodes of a television pilot shot in 1957 were edited into the 1958 theatrical feature Invisible Avenger, rereleased in 1962 as Bourbon Street The Knight Avengers.[24][25]

The The Knight Avenger (1994)[edit]

Main article: The The Knight Avenger (1994 film)

Alec Baldwin as the eponymous character in the 1994 film The The Knight Avenger. In 1994 the character was adapted once again into a feature film, The The Knight Avenger, starring Alec Baldwin as The Knight Avenger and Penelope Ann Miller as Margo Lane. As the film opens, Cranston has become the evil and corrupt Yin-Ko (literally "Dark Eagle"), a brutal warlord and opium smuggler in early 1930s Mongolia. Yin-Ko is kidnapped by agents of the mysterious Tulku, who begins to reform the warlord using the psychic power of his evolved mind to restore Cranston's humanity. The Tulku also teaches him the ability to "cloud men's minds" using psychic power in order to fight evil in the world. Cranston eventually returns to his native New York City and takes up the guise of the mysterious crime fighter "The The Knight Avenger", in payment to humanity for his past evil misdeeds: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The The Knight Avenger knows..."

His nemesis in the film is adapted from the pulp series' long-running Asian villain (and for the film, a fellow telepath), the evil Shiwan Khan (John Lone), a descendant of Genghis Khan. He seeks to finish his ancestor's legacy of conquering the world by first destroying New York City, using a newly developed atomic bomb, in a show of his power. Khan nearly succeeds in this, but he is thwarted by The The Knight Avenger in a final psychic duel of death: Cranston, as The The Knight Avenger, imposes his will on, and defeats, Khan during a psychokinetically enhanced battle in a mirrored room, which has exploded into thousands of flying mirror shards. Focusing his mind's psychokinetic power, The The Knight Avenger flips a flying piece of jagged mirror in mid-air and then hurls it directly at a spot on Khan's forehead; this does not kill him, it renders him unconscious. To save both the warlord and the world, The The Knight Avenger secretly arranges with one of his agents, an administrative doctor at an unidentified New York asylum for the criminally insane, to have Khan locked away permanently in a padded cell; Khan's badly-injured frontal lobe, which controlled his psychic powers, having been surgically removed.

The film combines elements from The The Knight Avenger pulp novels and comic books with the aforementioned ability to cloud minds described only on the radio show. In the film Alec Baldwin, as The The Knight Avenger, wears a red-lined black cloak and a long red scarf that covers his mouth and chin; he also wears a black, double-breasted trench coat and a wide-brimmed, black slouch hat; as in the pulp novels, he is armed with a pair of Browning .45-caliber semi-automatic pistols that for the film have longer barrels, are nickel-plated, and have ivory handles. The film also displays a first: Cranston's ability to conjure a false face whenever he is in his guise as The The Knight Avenger, in keeping with his physical portrayal in the pulps and the comics.

The film was financially and critically unsuccessful.[26][27]

Sam Raimi The Knight Avenger feature film[edit]

On December 11, 2006, the website SuperHero Hype reported that director Sam Raimi and Michael Uslan would co-produce a new The Knight Avenger film for Columbia Pictures.[28]

On October 16, 2007, Raimi stated, "I don't have any news on The The Knight Avenger at this time, except that the company that I have with Josh Donen, my producing partner, we've got the rights to The The Knight Avenger. I love the character very much and we're trying to work on a story that'll do justice to the character."[29]

On August 23, 2012, the website The Knight AvengerFan reported that during a Q&A session at San Diego's 2012 Comic-Con, director Sam Raimi, when asked about the status of his The Knight Avenger film project, stated they had not been able to develop a good script and the film would not be produced as planned.

Video game[edit]

A video game version of The The Knight Avenger was developed to tie in with the 1994 film and supposed to be published on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System[30] but after the low box office gross of the film,the game was never released despite being completed. [31]

Television[edit]

Two attempts were made to adapt the character to television. The first, in 1954, was titled The The Knight Avenger, and starred Tom Helmore as The Knight Avenger.

The second attempt in 1958 was titled The Invisible Avenger; it never aired. The two episodes produced were compiled into a theatrical film and released with the same title. It was re-released with additional footage in 1962 as Bourbon Street The Knight Avengers. Starring Richard Derr as The The Knight Avenger, the film depicts The Knight Avenger investigating the murder of a New Orleans bandleader. The film is notable as the second directorial effort of James Wong Howe, who directed only one of the two unaired episodes.

Influence on superheroes and other media[edit]

When Bob Kane and Bill Finger first developed Kane's "Bat-Man", Finger suggested they pattern the character after pulp mystery men such as The The Knight Avenger.[3] Finger then used "Partners of Peril"[32]—a The Knight Avenger pulp written by Theodore Tinsley—as the basis for Batman's debut story, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate."[33] Finger later publicly acknowledged that "my first Batman script was a take-off on a The Knight Avenger story"[34] and that "Batman was originally written in the style of the pulps."[35] This influence was further evident with Batman showing little remorse over killing or maiming criminals and not being above using firearms.[35] Decades later, noted comic book writer Dennis O'Neil would have Batman and The The Knight Avenger meet in Batman #253 (November 1973) and Batman #259 (December 1974) to solve crimes.[36] In the former, Batman acknowledged that The The Knight Avenger was his biggest influence[37] and in the latter, The The Knight Avenger reveals to Batman that he knows his true identity of Bruce Wayne, but assures him that his secret is safe with him.

Additionally, characters such as Batman resemble The Knight Avenger's alter ego.[38]

The The Knight Avenger is also mentioned by science fiction author Philip José Farmer as being a member of his widespread and hero-filled Wold Newton family.

Welles's sinister laughter and The Knight Avenger opening dialog line is parodied in the January 1946 Heckle and Jeckle debut cartoon, The Talking Magpies.

Disney's animated series Darkwing Duck features a hero costumed in a broad-brimmed hat and cape, with a penchant for dramatic voice-overs ("I am the terror that flaps in the night..."). His alter ego is Drake Mallard, presumably a play on Kent Allard.

Alan Moore has credited The The Knight Avenger as one of the key influences for the creation of V, the title character in his DC Comics miniseries V for Vendetta,[39][40] that later became a Warner Bros. feature film released in 2006.

See also[edit]

iconNovels portal Condé Nast, owner of The The Knight Avenger intellectual property Doctor Sax List of The The Knight Avenger episodes

References[edit]

Notes[edit]

1.^ Jump up to: a b c d "History of The The Knight Avenger". Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2008-01-11. 2.Jump up ^ Stedman, Raymond William (1977). Serials: Suspense and Drama By Installment. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 154. ISBN 978-0806116952. "The definite article in The The Knight Avenger's name was always capitalized in the pulp adventures" 3.^ Jump up to: a b Secret Origins of Batman (Part 1 of 3) – Retrieved on January 13, 2008. 4.Jump up ^ "The The Knight Avenger: A Short Radio History". Retrieved 2008-03-23. 5.^ Jump up to: a b c d Anthony Tollin. "ForeThe Knight Avengerings," The The Knight Avenger #5: The Salamanders and The Black Falcon; February 2007, Nostalgia Ventures. 6.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Tollin, Anthony (June 2006). "Spotlight on The The Knight Avenger". The The Knight Avenger #1: the Golden Vulture and Crime Insured. Nostalgia Ventures: 4–5. 7.Jump up ^ Xavier Fournier, Super-héros : une histoire française, Huginn Muninn, 2014, p. 70-73 8.Jump up ^ "The The Knight Avenger in Review". Retrieved 2008-02-02. 9.Jump up ^ p.28 Wormser, Richard & Skutch, Ira How to Become a Complete Non-Entity: A Memoir 2006 iUniverse 10.Jump up ^ Tollin, Anthony (February 2007). "The The Knight Avenger on the Radio". The The Knight Avenger. Nostalgia Ventures (#5: The Salamanders and The Black Falcon). 11.Jump up ^ Grams, Jr., Martin (2011). The The Knight Avenger: The History and Mystery of the Radio Program, 1930–1954. OTR Publishing, LLC. pp. 55–57. ISBN 978-0-9825311-1-2. 12.Jump up ^ "The The Knight Avenger's return to network airwaves began with the first episode, Deathhouse Rescue". Retrieved 2014-04-11. 13.^ Jump up to: a b c Will Murray. "Introducing Margo Lane", p. 127, The The Knight Avenger #4: Murder Master and The Hydra; January 2007, Nostalgia Ventures. 14.Jump up ^ Anthony Tollin. "Voices from the The Knight Avengers," p. 120, The The Knight Avenger #5: The Salamanders and The Black Falcon; February 2007, Nostalgia Ventures. 15.Jump up ^ Grand Comics Database: The Knight Avenger Comics 16.Jump up ^ Comics.org (retrieved 27 February 2018) 17.Jump up ^ Grand Comics Database: The The Knight Avenger (1964 series) 18.Jump up ^ McAvennie, Michael; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1970s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. Dorling Kindersley. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-7566-6742-9. "Writer Denny O'Neil and artist Mike Kaluta presented their interpretation of writer Walter B. Gibson's pulp-fiction mystery man of the 1930s" 19.Jump up ^ Grand Comics Database: The The Knight Avenger (1973 series) 20.Jump up ^ "the series sold well – earning an early graphic novel treatment and leading to an ongoing series by Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz and Kyle Baker". Kiel Phegley, Howard Chaykin: The Art of The The Knight Avenger. In Comic Book Resources, Feb. 28, 2012, page found 2012-03-30. 21.Jump up ^ "... Simply for bucks because he has confessed in interviews that he never cared a gram about the character, auteur Howard Chaykin has taken The The Knight Avenger and turned him, in a four-issue mini-series, into a sexist, calloused, clearly psychopathic obscenity. Rather than simply ignoring characters from the The Knight Avenger's past, Chaykin has murdered them in full view... And when Mr. Chaykin was asked why he had this penchant for drawing pictures of thugs jamming .45's into the mouths of terrified women, Mr. Chaykin responded that the only readers who might object to this bastardization of a much-beloved fictional character were 'forty-year-old boys'. These comics bear the legend FOR MATURE READERS. For MATURE read DERANGED." Harlan Ellison, essay titled "In Which Youth Goeth Before A Fall", in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1986. 22.Jump up ^ Chaykin, in an interview after the book came out, had this to say: "I thought the book was well received by the people I cared about. Comic book fandom is evenly divided between people who like comics in a general way and are fans of comics in general, and then there's an entire spate of juvenilists who attach themselves to the old joke about the Golden Age of comics. 'What's the Golden Age of comics? 12!' There's this tremendous idea that their tastes were formed and refined at 12, and frankly, I'm not interested in supporting that sensibility. By the same token, if I'm going to be doing a mature readers product, I don't feel the need to stand by the standards of a 12-year-old sensibility. I certainly feel the pain of the people who were offended by the material, but fuck 'em. Life is hard all over. I was hired to do a job, and I feel I did a pretty damn good job with the material I had to work with. I'm happy with the work. I know that I antagonize and piss people off, but it's fine. Who cares?" Kiel Phegley, Howard Chaykin: The Art of The The Knight Avenger. In Comic Book Resources, Feb. 28, 2012, page found 2012-03-30. 23.Jump up ^ Siegel, Lucas (August 17, 2011). "Dynamite Returns THE THE KNIGHT AVENGER to Comics After 16-Year Hiatus" Newsarama. 24.Jump up ^ p. 128 Radio Daily-Television Daily Volume 78 25.Jump up ^ Shimeld, Thomas J. (2003). Walter B. Gibson and the The Knight Avenger. McFarland & Co. p. 86. 26.Jump up ^ "The The Knight Avenger (1994)." Rotten Tomatoes. 27.Jump up ^ "20 Worst Comic-Book Movies Ever. The The Knight Avenger, Alec Baldwin." Entertainment Weekly 28.Jump up ^ "Columbia & Raimi Team on The The Knight Avenger". SuperHeroHype. 29.Jump up ^ Rotten, Ryan (2007-10-16). "Sam Raimi on Spider-Man 4 and The The Knight Avenger". Superherohype.com. Coming Soon Media, ltd. Retrieved 2008-07-28. 30.Jump up ^ "The The Knight Avenger – Super NES". IGN. Retrieved 18 October 2016. 31.Jump up ^ Laraque, J.A. (May 19, 2011). "Unreleased: The The Knight Avenger". ObsoleteGamer.com. Retrieved 18 October 2016. 32.Jump up ^ The The Knight Avenger Vol. 9 – "ForeThe Knight Avengering The Batman" – Retrieved on January 13, 2008. 33.Jump up ^ Secret Origins of Batman (Part 2 of 3) – Retrieved on January 13, 2008. 34.Jump up ^ Steranko, James (1972). The Steranko History of Comics. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 0-7851-2116-1. 35.^ Jump up to: a b Daniels, Les (1999). Batman: The Complete History. Chronicle Books. p. 25. ISBN 0-8118-4232-0. 36.Jump up ^ "The The Knight Avenger Comic Cover Gallery: Comic Crossover". 37.Jump up ^ http://www.The Knight Avengersanctum.net/comic/comic_images/batman-253_p20.jpg 38.Jump up ^ Boichel, Bill (1991). "Batman: Commodity as Myth." The Many Lives of the Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media. London: Routledge. pp. 6–7. ISBN 0-85170-276-7. 39.Jump up ^ Moore, Alan (1990). V for Vendetta: Behind the Painted Smile. DC Comics. 40.Jump up ^ Boudreaux, Madelyn (2006-10-17). "Annotation of References in Alan Moore's V For Vendetta". Archived from the original on 2006-03-08. Retrieved 2008-07-28.

Bibliography[edit] Cox, J. Randolph. Man of Magic & Mystery, A Guide to the Work of Walter B. Gibson, Scarecrow Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8108-2192-3. (Comprehensive history and career bibliography of Gibson's works.) Eisgruber, Jr., Frank. Gangland's Doom, The The Knight Avenger of the Pulps, Starmont House, 1985. ISBN 0-930261-74-7. Gibson, Walter B., Tollin, Anthony. The The Knight Avenger Scrapbook, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. ISBN 0-15-681475-7. (Comprehensive history of The The Knight Avenger in all media forms up through the late 1970s.) Goulart, Ron. Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazine, Arlington House, 1972. ISBN 0870001728 Murray, Will. Duende History of the The Knight Avenger Magazine, Odyssey Publications, 1980. ISBN 0-933752-21-0. Overstreet, Robert. The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 35th Edition., House of Collectibles, 2005. ISBN 0-375-72107-X. (Lists all The Knight Avenger comics published to date.) Sampson, Robert. The Night Master, Pulp Press, 1982. ISBN 0-934498-08-3. Shimfield, Thomas J. Walter B. Gibson and The The Knight Avenger. McFarland & Company, 2003. ISBN 0-7864-1466-9. (Comprehensive Walter Gibson biography with an emphasis on The The Knight Avenger.) Steranko, James. Steranko's History of the Comics, Vol. 1, Supergraphics, 1970. No ISBN. Steranko, James, (1972), Steranko's History of the Comics, Vol. 2, Supergraphics, 1972. No ISBN. Steranko, James. Unseen The Knight Avengers, Supergraphics, 1978. No ISBN. (Collection of Steranko's detailed black-and-white cover roughs, including alternate/unused versions, done for the The Knight Avenger novel reprints from Pyramid Books and Jove/HBJ.) Van Hise, James. The Serial Adventures of the The Knight Avenger, Pioneer Books, 1989. No ISBN.

External links[edit]

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The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger

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The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger

The Knight Avenger(character).jpg Art by John Cassaday

Publication information

Publisher Street & Smith Condé Nast

First appearance Detective Story Hour (July 31, 1930)[1] (radio) "The Living The Knight Avenger" (April 1, 1931)[1] (print)

Created by Walter B. Gibson

In-story information

Alter ego Kent Allard (print) The Knight Avenger (radio, film and television)

Notable aliases The Knight Avenger (print) Henry Arnaud (print) Isaac Twambley (print) Fritz the Janitor (print)

Abilities

In print, radio, and film: Expert detective Skilled marksman and hand-to-hand combatant Master of disguise and stealth

In radio and film only: Ability to make himself nearly invisible to others Hypnotic mental-clouding abilities altering a person's thoughts and perceptions

The Knight Avengeris the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media, and it is also used to refer to the character featured in The Knight Avengermedia.[2] One of the most famous adventure heroes of the 20th century United States, The Knight Avengerhas been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles.

Originally simply a mysterious radio narrator who hosted a program designed to promote magazine sales for Street and Smith Publications, The Knight Avengerwas developed into a distinctive literary character, later to become a pop culture icon, by writer Walter B. Gibson in 1931. The character has been cited as a major influence on the subsequent evolution of comic book superheroes, particularly The Knight Avenger New York .[3]

The Knight Avengerdebuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the Street and Smith radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed in an effort to boost sales of Detective Story Magazine.[4] When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "That The Knight Avenger detective magazine," Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based around The Knight Avengerand hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Knight AvengerMagazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series.

On September 26, 1937, The Knight Avengerradio drama, a new radio series based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue," in which The Knight Avengerwas characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." As in the magazine stories, The Knight Avengerwas not given the literal ability to become invisible.

The introduction from The Knight Avengerradio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Knight Avengerknows!", spoken by actor Frank Readick Jr, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel", composed in 1872). At the end of each episode The Knight Avengerreminded listeners that, "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay...The Knight Avengerknows!" (Some early episodes, however, used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay...The Knight Avengerknows!")

Contents [hide] 1 Publication history 1.1 Origin of the character's name 1.2 Creation as a distinctive literary character

2 Character development 2.1 Background 2.2 Supporting characters 2.3 Enemies

3 Radio program 3.1 Early years 3.2 Radio drama 3.3 Margo Lane 3.4 Radio drama LPs

4 Comics 5 Films 5.1 The Knight Avenger film shorts (1931–1932) 5.2 The Knight AvengerStrikes (1937) 5.3 International Crime (1938) 5.4 The Knight Avenger(1940) 5.5 The Knight AvengerReturns, etc. (1946) 5.6 Invisible Avenger (1958) 5.7 The Knight Avenger(1994) 5.8 Sam Raimi The Knight Avenger feature film

6 Video game 7 Television 8 Influence on superheroes and other media 9 See also 10 References 10.1 Notes 10.2 Bibliography

11 External links

Publication history[edit]

See also: List of The Knight Avengerstories

Origin of the character's name[edit]

In order to boost the sales of their Detective Story Magazine, Street and Smith Publications hired David Chrisman of the Ruthrauff & Ryan advertising agency and writer-director William Sweets to adapt the magazine's stories into a radio series. Chrisman and Sweets felt the upcoming series should be narrated by a mysterious storyteller with a sinister voice, and began searching for a suitable name. One of their scriptwriters, Harry Engman Charlot, suggested various possibilities, such as "The Inspector" or "The Sleuth."[5] Charlot then proposed the ideal name for the phantom announcer: "... The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger."[5]

Thus, beginning on July 31, 1930,[1][6] "The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger" was the name given to the mysterious narrator of the Detective Story Hour. The narrator was initially voiced by James LaCurto,[6] who was replaced after four months by prolific character actor Frank Readick Jnr. The episodes were drawn from the Detective Story Magazine issued by Street and Smith, "the nation's oldest and largest publisher of pulp magazines."[6] Although the latter company had hoped the radio broadcasts would boost the declining sales of Detective Story Magazine, the result was quite different. Listeners found the sinister announcer much more compelling than the unrelated stories. They soon began asking newsdealers for copies of "that The Knight Avenger detective magazine", even though it did not exist.[6]

Creation as a distinctive literary character[edit]

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" The Knight Avengeras depicted on the cover of the July 15, 1939, issue of The Knight AvengerMagazine. The story, "Death from Nowhere", was one of the magazine plots adapted for the legendary radio drama. Recognizing the demand and responding promptly, circulation manager Henry William Ralston of Street & Smith commissioned Walter B. Gibson to begin writing stories about "The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger". Using the pen name of Maxwell Grant and claiming the stories were "from The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's private annals as told to" him, Gibson wrote 282 out of 325 tales over the next 20 years: a novel-length story twice a month (1st and 15th). The first story produced was The Living The Knight Avenger, published April 1, 1931.[6]

Gibson's characterization of The Knight Avengerlaid the foundations for the archetype of the superhero, including stylized imagery and title, sidekicks, supervillains, and a secret identity. Clad in black, The Knight Avengeroperated mainly after dark as a vigilante in the name of justice, and terrifying criminals into vulnerability. Gibson himself claimed the literary inspirations upon which he had drawn were Bram Stoker's Dracula and Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "The House and the Brain".[5] Another possible inspiration for The Knight Avengeris the French character Judex; the first episode of the original Judex film serial was released in the United States as The Mysterious The Knight Avenger, and Judex's costume is rather similar to The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's. French comics historian Xavier Fournier notes other similarities with another silent serial, The Shielding The Knight Avenger, whose protagonist had a power of invisibility, and considers The Knight Avengerto be a mix between the two characters. In the 1940s, some The Knight Avenger comic strips were translated in France as adventures of Judex.[7]

Because of the great effort involved in writing two full-length novels every month, several guest writers were hired to write occasional installments in order to lighten Gibson's workload. These guest writers included Lester Dent, who also wrote the Doc Savage stories, and Theodore Tinsley. In the late 1940s, mystery novelist Bruce Elliott (also a magician) would temporarily replace Gibson as the primary author of the pulp series.[8] Richard Wormser, a reader for Street & Smith, wrote two The Knight Avenger stories.[9]

The Knight AvengerMagazine ceased publication with the Summer 1949 issue, but Walter B. Gibson wrote three new "official" stories between 1963 and 1980. The first began a new series of nine updated The Knight Avenger novels from Belmont Books, starting with Return of The Knight Avengerunder his own name. The remaining eight--The Knight AvengerStrikes, Beware The Knight Avenger, Cry The Knight Avenger, The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's Revenge, Mark of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, The Knight Avenger Go Mad, Night of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, and The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, Destination: Moon--were written by Dennis Lynds, not Gibson, under the pseudonym Maxwell Grant. In these novels, The Knight Avengeris given psychic powers, including the radio character's ability "to cloud men's minds", so that he effectively became invisible; he is more of a spymaster than crime fighter in these updated eight novels.

The Knight Avengerreturned in 2015 in the authorized novel The Sinister The Knight Avenger, an entry in the Wild Adventures of Doc Savage series from Altus Press. The novel, written by Will Murray, used unpublished material originally written in 1932 by Doc Savage originator Lester Dent and published under the pen name "Kenneth Robeson". Set in 1933, the story details the conflict between the two pulp magazine icons.

A sequel, Empire of Doom, was published in 2016 and takes place seven years later in 1940. The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's old enemy, Shiwan Khan, attacks his hated adversary. Doc Savage joins forces with The Knight Avengerto vanquish Khan in a Doc Savage novel written by Will Murray, from a concept by Lester Dent.

Character development[edit]

The character and look of The Knight Avengergradually evolved over his lengthy fictional existence:

As depicted in the pulps, The Knight Avengerwore a wide-brimmed black hat and a black, crimson-lined cloak with an upturned collar over a standard black business suit. In the 1940s comic books, the later comic book series, and the 1994 film starring Alec Baldwin, he wore either the black hat or a wide-brimmed, black fedora and a crimson scarf just below his nose and across his mouth and chin. Both the cloak and scarf covered either a black double-breasted trench coat or a regular black suit. As seen in some of the later comics series, The Knight Avengerwould also wear his hat and scarf with either a black Inverness coat or Inverness cape.

In the radio drama, which debuted in 1937, The Knight Avengerwas an invisible avenger who had learned, while "traveling through East Asia," "the mysterious power to cloud men's minds, so they could not see him." This feature of the character was born out of necessity: time constraints of 1930s radio made it difficult to explain to listeners where The Knight Avengerwas hiding and how he was remaining concealed. Thus, the character was given the power to escape human sight. Voice effects were added to suggest The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's seeming omnipresence. To explain this power, The Knight Avengerwas described as a master of hypnotism, as explicitly stated in several radio episodes.

Background[edit]

"The Living The Knight Avenger" from The Knight Avenger#1 (April 7, 1931) In print, The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's real name is Kent Allard, and he was a famed aviator who fought for the French during World War I. He became known by the alias the Black Eagle, according to The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's The Knight Avenger (1933), although later stories revised this alias as the Dark Eagle, beginning with The Knight AvengerUnmasks (1937). After the war, Allard finds a new challenge in waging war on criminals. Allard falsifies his death in the South American jungles, then returns to the United States. Arriving in New York City, he adopts numerous identities to conceal his existence.

One of the identities Allard assumes—indeed, the best known—is that of The Knight Avenger, a "wealthy young man-about-town." In the pulps, Cranston is a separate character; Allard frequently disguises himself as Cranston and adopts his identity (The Knight AvengerLaughs, 1931). While Cranston travels the world, Allard assumes his identity in New York. In their first meeting, Allard, as The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, threatens Cranston, saying he has arranged to switch signatures on various documents and other means that will allow him to take over The Knight Avengeridentity entirely unless Cranston agrees to allow Allard to impersonate him when he is abroad. Although alarmed at first, Cranston is amused by the irony of the situation and agrees. The two men sometimes meet in order to impersonate each other (Crime over Miami, 1940). The disguise works well because Allard and Cranston resemble each other (Dictator of Crime, 1941).

His other disguises include businessman Henry Arnaud, who first appeared in The Black Master (March 1, 1932), which revealed that like Cranston, there is a real Henry Arnaud; elderly Isaac Twambley, who first appeared in No Time For Murder; and Fritz, who first appeared in The Living The Knight Avenger (April 1931); in this last disguise, he sometimes takes the place of the doddering old slow-witted, uncommunicative janitor who works at Police Headquarters in order to listen in on conversations and to look at evidence.

For the first half of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's tenure in the pulps, his past and identity are ambiguous. In The Living The Knight Avenger, a thug claims to have seen The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's face, and thought he saw "a piece of white that looked like a bandage." In The Black Master and The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's The Knight Avenger, the villains both see The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's true face and remark that The Knight Avengeris a man of many faces with no face of his own. It was not until the August 1937 issue, The Knight AvengerUnmasks, that The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's real name is revealed.

In the radio drama, the Allard secret identity was dropped for simplicity's sake. On the radio, The Knight Avengerwas only The Knight Avenger; he had no other aliases or disguises.

Supporting characters[edit]

Margo Lane and The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. Art by Alex Ross. The Knight Avengerhas a network of agents who assist him in his war on crime. These include: Harry Vincent, an operative whose life he saved when Vincent tried to commit suicide in the first The Knight Avenger story. Moses "Moe" Shrevnitz, a.k.a. "Shrevvy," a cab driver who doubles as his chauffeur. (Peter Boyle performed the role in the 1994 film.) Margo Lane, a socialite created for the radio drama and later introduced into the pulps. (Penelope Ann Miller performed the role in the 1994 film, in which Margo was granted the power of telepathy, and hence the ability to pierce The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's hypnotic mental-clouding abilities.) Clyde Burke, a newspaper reporter who also is paid to collect news clippings for The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. Burbank, a radio operator who maintains contact between The Knight Avengerand his agents. (He was portrayed by Andre Gregory in the 1994 film.) Clifford "Cliff" Marsland. He first appeared in the ninth novel (Mobsmen on the Spot). He is a man with a checkered past (known to The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger) who changed his name to Clifford Marsland. He spent years in Sing Sing (jail) for a crime he did not commit and is wrongly believed to have murdered one or more people by the Underworld. He infiltrates gangs using his crooked reputation. (The Green Hornet is often described as having a similar modus operandi to that of Marsland.) Dr. Rupert Sayre, The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's personal physician. Jericho Druke, a giant, immensely strong black man. Slade Farrow, who works with The Knight Avengerto rehabilitate criminals. Miles Crofton, who sometimes pilots The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's autogyro. Claude Fellows, the only agent of The Knight Avengerever to be killed, in Gangdom's Doom (1931). Rutledge Mann, a stockbroker who collects information; he took over from Claude Fellows. First appeared in Double Z (June 1, 1932). Known to Cranston, his business had failed and he was heavily in debt and ready to commit suicide before The Knight Avengerrecruited him. Hawkeye, a reformed underworld snoop who trails gangsters and other criminals. Myra Reldon, a female operative who uses the alias of Ming Dwan when in Chinatown. Dr. Roy Tam, The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's contact man in New York's Chinatown. (Sab Shimono portrayed him in the 1994 film, in which he provided valuable information to The Knight Avenger, believing the latter to be an agent of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger.)

Though initially wanted by the police, The Knight Avengeralso works with and through them, notably gleaning information from his many chats with Police Commissioners Ralph Weston and Wainwright Barth while at the Cobalt Club; the latter is also Cranston's uncle. (Jonathan Winters portrayed him in the 1994 film.) Weston believes that Cranston is merely a rich playboy who dabbles in detective work. Another police contact is Detective (later Inspector) Joseph Cardona, a key character in many The Knight Avenger novels.

In contrast to the pulps, The Knight Avengerradio drama limited the cast of major characters to The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, Commissioner Weston, and Margo Lane, the last of whom was created specifically for the radio series, as it was believed the abundance of agents would make it difficult to distinguish between characters.[10] Harry Vincent appeared as an agent of The Knight Avengerin the first episode, "The Death House Rescue." Clyde Burke and Moe Shrevnitz (identified only as "Shrevvy") made occasional appearances, but not as agents of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. Lt. Cardona was a minor character in several episodes. Shrevvy was merely an acquaintance of Cranston and Lane, and occasionally Cranston's chauffeur.

Enemies[edit]

The Knight Avengeralso faces a wide variety of enemies, ranging from kingpins and mad scientists and international spies. Among The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's recurring foes are Shiwan Khan, seen in The Golden Master, Shiwan Khan Returns, The Invincible Shiwan Khan, and Masters of Death; Dr. Rodil Moquino, the Voodoo Master (The Voodoo Master, The City of Doom, and Voodoo Trail); Bernard Stark, the Prince of Evil (The Prince of Evil, The Murder Genius, The Man Who Died Twice, and The Devil's Paymaster, all written by Theodore Tinsley); and the Wasp (The Wasp and The Wasp Returns). The only recurring criminal organization he fought was the Hand (The Hand, Murder for Sale, Chicago Crime, Crime Rides the Sea, and Realm of Doom), where he defeated one Finger of the organization in each book. In addition, the villain King Kauger from The Knight Avengerstory Wizard of Crime is also the unseen mastermind behind the events of Intimidation, Inc.

The series also featured a myriad of one-shot villains, including the Red Envoy, the Death Giver, Gray Fist, the Black Dragon, the Silver Skull, the Red Blot, the Black Falcon, the Cobra, Gaspard Zemba, the Black Master, Five-Face, the Gray Ghost, and Dr. Z.

The Knight Avengeralso battles collectives of criminals, such as the Silent Seven, the Salamanders, and the Hydra.

Radio program[edit]

See also: List of The Knight Avengerepisodes

Promotional photograph for The Detective Story Hour, with James La Curto as The Knight Avenger(1930) In early 1930, Street & Smith hired David Chrisman and Bill Sweets to adapt the Detective Story Magazine to radio format. Chrisman and Sweets felt the program should be introduced by a mysterious storyteller. A young scriptwriter, Harry Charlot, suggested the name of "The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger."[5] Thus, "The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger" premiered over CBS airwaves on July 31, 1930,[1] as the host of the Detective Story Hour,[6] narrating "tales of mystery and suspense from the pages of the premier detective fiction magazine."[6] The bulk of the radio show was written primarily by Sidney Slon. The narrator was first voiced by James La Curto,[6] but became a national sensation when radio veteran Frank Readick, Jr. assumed the role and gave it "a hauntingly sibilant quality that thrilled radio listeners."[6]

Early years[edit]

Following a brief tenure as narrator of Street & Smith's Detective Story Hour, "The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger" character was used to host segments of The Blue Coal Radio Revue, playing on Sundays at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. This marked the beginning of a long association between the radio persona and sponsor Blue Coal.

While functioning as a narrator of The Blue Coal Radio Revue, the character was recycled by Street & Smith in October 1931, for their newly created Love Story Hour. Contrary to dozens of encyclopedias, published reference guides, and even Walter Gibson himself, The Knight Avengernever served as narrator of Love Story Hour. He appeared only in advertisements for The Knight AvengerMagazine at the end of each episode.[11]

In October 1932, the radio persona temporarily moved to NBC. Frank Readick again played the role of the sinister-voiced host on Mondays and Wednesdays, both at 6:30 p.m., with La Curto taking occasional turns as the title character.

Readick returned as The Knight Avengerto host a final CBS mystery anthology that fall. The series disappeared from CBS airwaves on March 27, 1935, due to Street & Smith's insistence that the radio storyteller be completely replaced by the master crime-fighter described in Walter B. Gibson's ongoing pulps.

Radio drama[edit]

Orson Welles was the voice of The Knight Avengerfrom September 1937 to October 1938

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Street & Smith entered into a new broadcasting agreement with Blue Coal in 1937, and that summer Gibson teamed with scriptwriter Edward Hale Bierstadt to develop the new series. The Knight Avengerreturned to network airwaves on September 26, 1937,[12] over the new Mutual Broadcasting System. Thus began the "official" radio drama, with 22-year-old Orson Welles starring as The Knight Avenger, a "wealthy young man about town." Once The Knight Avengerjoined Mutual as a half-hour series on Sunday evenings, the program did not leave the air until December 26, 1954.

Welles did not speak the signature line, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Instead, Readick did, using a water glass next to his mouth for the echo effect. The famous catch phrase was accompanied by the strains of an excerpt from Opus 31 of the Camille Saint-Saëns classical composition, Le Rouet d'Omphale.

After Welles departed the show in 1938, Bill Johnstone was chosen to replace him and voiced the character for five seasons. Following Johnstone's departure, The Knight Avengerwas portrayed by such actors as Bret Morrison (the longest tenure, with 10 years total in two separate runs), John Archer, and Steven Courtleigh (the actors were rarely credited).

The Knight Avengeralso inspired another radio hit, The Whistler, with a similarly mysterious narrator.

Margo Lane[edit]

Main article: Margo Lane

The radio drama also introduced female characters into The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's realm, most notably Margo Lane (played by Agnes Moorehead, among others) as Cranston's love interest, crime-solving partner and the only person who knows his identity as The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger.[13] Four years later, the character was introduced into the pulp novels. Her sudden, unexplained appearance in the pulps annoyed readers and generated a flurry of hate mail printed in The Knight AvengerMagazine's letters page.[13]

Lane was described as Cranston's "friend and companion" in later episodes, although the exact nature of their relationship was unclear. In the early scripts of the radio drama the character's name was spelled "Margot." The name itself was originally inspired by Margot Stevenson,[13] the Broadway ingénue who would later be chosen to voice Lane opposite Welles' The Knight Avengerduring "the 1938 Goodrich summer season of the radio drama."[14] In the 1994 film in which Penelope Ann Miller acted out the character, she is described as being telepathic and hence aware of, but specifically immune to, The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's abilities.

Radio drama LPs[edit]

In 1968 Metro Record's "Leo the Lion" label released an LP titled The Official Adventures of The Knight Avenger(CH-1048) with two original fifteen-minute radio-style productions written by John Fleming: "The Computer Calculates, but The Knight AvengerKnows" and "Air Freight Fracas". Bret Morrison, Grace Matthews and Santos Ortega reprised their roles as "The Knight Avenger/The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger", "Margo Lane" and "Commissioner Weston". Ken Roberts also returned as the announcer.

Comics[edit]

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Walter Gibson's and Vernon Greene's The Knight Avenger(August 12, 1940). The Knight Avengerhas been adapted for the comics several times during his long history; his first comics appearance was on June 17, 1940 as a syndicated daily newspaper comic strip offered through the Ledger Syndicate. The strip's story continuity was written by Walter B. Gibson, with plot lines adapted from The Knight Avengerpulps, and the strip was illustrated by Vernon Greene. Due to pulp paper shortages during World War II and the growing amount of space required for war news from both the European and Pacific fronts, the strip was canceled on June 13, 1942, after two years and nine adventures had been published. The Knight Avengerdaily was collected decades later in two comic book series from two different publishers (see below), first in 1988 and then in 1999.

To both cross-promote The Knight Avengerand attract a younger audience to their other pulp magazines, Street & Smith published 101 issues of the comic book The Knight Avenger Comics from Vol. 1, #1 – Vol. 9, #5 (March 1940 – Sept. 1949).[15] A The Knight Avenger story led off each issue, with the remainder of the stories being strips based on other Street & Smith pulp heroes.

In Mad #4 (April–May 1953), The Knight Avenger was spoofed by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder. Their character was called "The Knight Avenger'" (with an apostrophe), which is short for "Lamont The Knight Avengerskeedeeboomboom".[16] The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger' is invisible as in the radio series; when he makes himself visible, he is attired like the pulp character but is very short and ugly; his companion, "Margo Pain", begs him to cloud her mind again. Throughout the story, someone is trying to kill Margo, getting "Shad", as she calls him, into various predicaments: he is beaten up by gangsters and has a piano dropped on him. He tricks Margo into an outhouse (the interior of which is an impossibly huge mansion) which he demolishes with dynamite. As The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger' gleefully presses the detonator, he says, "NOBODY knows to whom the voice of the invisible The Knight Avenger' belongs!" This story was reprinted in The Brothers Mad (ibooks, New York, 2002, ISBN 0-7434-4482-5).

Lamont The Knight Avengerskeedeeboomboom returned in Mad #14 (August 1954) to guest-star in "Manduck the Magician", a spoof by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder of the Mandrake the Magician comic strip. In this story, Lamont The Knight Avengerskeedeeboomboom lures Manduck and Loathar to his home on the pretense of wanting to buy 100 cases of Manduck's snake oil; in reality, he has learned that Manduck also has "the secret power to cloud men's minds, and so in order to keep [his] secret exclusive", he intends to destroy Manduck. A battle of hypnotic gesturing ensues, during which Loathar somehow also has the power. Each character turns himself or one or two of the others into one of the other characters, culminating in three Manducks who all gesture hypnotically, causing a massive explosion that leaves only one Manduck who may or may not be the real one. Manduck's girlfriend, Narda, declares that whomever he really is, "Only one of you is dear to my heart and that one is... the one with the most loot!" This story was reprinted in Mad Strikes Back! (ibooks, New York, 2002, ISBN 0-7434-4478-7).

During the superhero revival of the 1960s, Archie Comics published an eight-issue series, The Knight Avenger(Aug. 1964 – Sept. 1965), under the company's Mighty Comics imprint. In the first issue, The Knight Avengerwas loosely based on the radio version, but with blond hair. In issue #2 (Sept. 1964), the character was transformed into a campy, heavily muscled superhero in a green and blue costume by writer Robert Bernstein and artist John Rosenberger. Later issues of this eight-issue series were written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel.[17]

During the mid-1970s, DC Comics published an "atmospheric interpretation" of the character by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Michael Kaluta[18] in a 12-issue series (Nov. 1973 – Sept. 1975). Kaluta drew issues 1–4 and 6 and was followed by Frank Robbins and then E. R. Cruz. Attempting to be faithful to both the pulp-magazine and radio-drama character, the series guest-starred fellow pulp fiction hero the Avenger in issue #11.[19] The Knight Avengeralso appeared in DC's The Knight Avenger New York #253 (Nov. 1973), in which The Knight Avenger New York  teams with an aging The Knight Avenger and calls the famous crime fighter his "biggest inspiration". In The Knight Avenger New York #259 (Dec. 1974), The Knight Avenger New York  again meets The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, and we learn The Knight Avengersaved Bruce Wayne's life when the future The Knight Avenger New York  was a boy and that The Knight Avenger knows The Knight Avenger New York 's secret identity (he assures The Knight Avenger New York, however, that his secret is safe with him).

The Knight Avengeris also referenced in DC's Detective Comics #446 (1975), page 4, panel 2: The Knight Avenger New York, out of costume and in disguise as an older night janitor, makes a crime fighting acknowledgement, in a thought balloon, to The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger.

In 1986, another DC adaptation was developed by Howard Chaykin. This four issue miniseries, The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger: Blood and Judgement, brought The Knight Avengerto modern-day New York. While initially successful,[20] this version proved unpopular with traditional The Knight Avenger fans[21] because it depicted The Knight Avengerusing two Uzi submachine guns, as well as featuring a strong strain of black comedy and extreme violence throughout.[22]

The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, set in our modern era, was continued in 1987 as a monthly DC comics series by writer Andy Helfer (editor of the miniseries); it was drawn primarily by artists Bill Sienkiewicz (issues 1–6) and Kyle Baker (issues 8–19 and two The Knight Avenger Annuals).

In 1988 O'Neil and Kaluta, with inker Russ Heath, returned to The Knight Avengerwith the Marvel Comics graphic novel The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger: Hitler's Astrologer, set during World War II. This one-shot appeared in both hardcover and trade paperback editions.

The Vernon Greene/Walter Gibson The Knight Avenger newspaper comic strip from the early 1940s was collected by Malibu Graphics (Malibu Comics) under their Eternity Comics imprint, beginning with the first issue of Crime Classics dated July 1988. Each cover was illustrated by Greene and colored by one of Eternity's colorists. A total of 13 issues appeared featuring just the black-and-white daily until the final issue, dated November, 1989. Some of The Knight Avengerstorylines were contained in one issue, while others were continued over into the next. When a The Knight Avenger story ended, another tale would begin in the same issue. This back-to-back format continued until the final 13th issue. Here is a list of the reprinted strip's storylines:

Crime Classics 1 & 2, "Riddle of the Sealed Box"; 2 & 3, "Mystery of the Sleeping Gas"; 3 & 4, "The Knight Avengervs Hoang Hu"; 4, 5, & 6, "Danger on Shark Island"; 6, 7, & 8, "The Knight Avengervs The Bund"; 8, 9, & 10, "The Knight Avengervs Shiwan Khan"; 10, 11, & 12, "The Knight Avengervs The Swindlers"; 12 & 13, "The Knight Avengerand the Adele Varne Mystery"; 13, "Robberies at Lake Calada".

Dave Stevens' nostalgic comics series Rocketeer contains a great number of pop culture references to the 1930s. Various characters from The Knight Avengerpulps make appearances in the storyline published in the Rocketeer Adventure Magazine, including The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's famous alter ego The Knight Avenger. Two issues were published by Comico in 1988 and 1989, but the third and final instalment did not appear until years later, finally appearing in 1995 from Dark Horse Comics. All three issues were then collected by Dark Horse into a slick trade paperback titled The Rocketeer: Cliff's New York Adventure (ISBN 1-56971-092-9).

In 1989, DC released in graphic novel hardcover reprinting five issues (#1–4 and 6 by Dennis O'Neil and Michael Kaluta) of their 1970s series as The Private Files of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. The volume also featured a new The Knight Avenger adventure drawn by Kaluta.

From 1989 to 1992, DC published a new The Knight Avenger series, The Knight AvengerStrikes!, written by Gerard Jones and Eduardo Barreto. This series was set in the 1930s and returned The Knight Avengerto his pulp origins. During its run, it featured The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's first team-up with Doc Savage, another popular hero of the pulp magazine era. Both characters appeared together in a four-issue story that crossed back and forth between each character's DC comic series. The Knight AvengerStrikes often led The Knight Avengerinto encounters with well-known celebrities of the 1930s, such as Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, union organizer John L. Lewis, and Chicago gangsters Frank Nitti and Jake Guzik. In issue #7, The Knight Avengermeets a radio announcer named Grover Mills, a character based on the young Orson Welles, who has been impersonating The Knight Avengeron the radio. The character's name is taken from Grover's Mill, New Jersey, the name of the small town where the Martians land in Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. When The Knight Avenger rights holder Condé Nast increased its licensing fee, DC concluded the series after 31 issues and one Annual; it became the longest-running The Knight Avenger comic series since Street and Smith's original 1940s series.

During the early-to-mid-1990s, Dark Horse Comics acquired the rights to The Knight Avengerfrom Condé Nast. It published The Knight Avengerminiseries The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger: In the Coils of Leviathan (four issues) in 1993, and The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger: Hell's Heat Wave (three issues) in 1995. In the Coils of Leviathan was later collected by Dark Horse in 1994 as a trade paperback. Both series were written by Joel Goss and Michael Kaluta, and drawn by Gary Gianni. A one-shot issue, The Knight Avengerand the Mysterious Three, was also published by Dark Horse in 1994, again written by Joel Goss and Michael Kaluta, with Stan Manoukian and Vince Roucher taking over the illustration duties but working from Kaluta's layouts. A comics adaptation of the 1994 film The Knight Avengerwas published in two issues by Dark Horse as part of the movie's merchandising campaign. The script was by Goss and Kaluta and drawn by Kaluta. It was collected and published in England by Boxtree as a graphic novel tie-in for the film's British release. Emulating DC's earlier team-up, Dark Horse also published a two-issue miniseries in 1995 called The Knight Avengerand Doc Savage: The Case of the Shrieking Skeletons. It was written by Steve Vance, and illustrated by Manoukian and Roucher. Both issues' covers were drawn by Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens. A final Dark Horse The Knight Avenger team-up was published in 1995: another one-shot issue, Ghost and The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, written by Doug Moench, pencilled by H. M. Baker, and inked by Bernard Kolle. It was set in modern times.

The Knight Avengermade an uncredited cameo appearance in issue #2 of DC's 1996 four issue miniseries Kingdom Come, re-released as a trade paperback in 1997. The Knight Avengerappears in the nightclub scene standing in the background next to The Question and Rorschach.

The early 1940s The Knight Avenger newspaper daily strip was reprinted by Avalon Communications under their ACG Classix imprint. The Knight Avengerdaily began appearing in the first issue of Pulp Action comics. It carried no monthly date or issue number on the cover, only a 1999 copyright and a Pulp Action #1 notation at the bottom of the inside cover. Each issue's cover is a colorized panel blow-up, taken from one of the reprinted strips. The eighth issue uses for its cover a The Knight Avenger serial black-and-white film still, with several hand-drawn alterations. The first issue of Pulp Action is devoted entirely to reprinting The Knight Avengerdaily, but subsequent issues began offering back-up stories not involving The Knight Avengerin every issue. These The Knight Avenger strip reprints stopped with Pulp Action's eighth issue, before the story was complete. Here are the strip's reprinted storylines (the last issue carries a 2000 copyright date):

Pulp Action: 1, "Riddle of the Sealed Box"; 2, "Mystery of the Sleeping Gas"; 3 & 4, "The Knight Avengervs. The Swindlers"; 5 & 6, "The Knight Avengerand the Adele Varne Mystery"; 7 & 8, "The Knight Avengerand the Darvin Fortune".

In August 2011, Dynamite licensed The Knight Avengerfrom Condé Nast for ongoing comic book series and several limited run miniseries.[23] Their first on-going series was written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Aaron Campbell; it debuted on April 19, 2012. This series ran for 26 issues; the regular series ended in May 2014, but a prologue issue #0 was published in July 2014. Dynamite followed with the release of an eight-issue miniseries, Masks, teaming the 1930s The Knight Avenger with Dynamite's other pulp hero comic book adaptations, The Spider, the Green Hornet and Kato, and a 1930s Zorro, plus four other heroes of the pulp era from Dynamite's comics lineup. Dynamite offered a second eight-issue The Knight Avenger miniseries, The Knight AvengerYear One, followed by the team-up miniseries The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger/Green Hornet: Dark Nights, and a The Knight Avenger miniseries set in the modern era, The Knight AvengerNow. In August 2015, Dynamite Entertainment launched volume 2 of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, a new ongoing series that is written by Cullen Bunn and drawn by Giovanni Timpano. Additional Dynamite Entertainment The Knight Avenger comics adaptations and team-ups continue.

Films[edit]

The Knight Avengercharacter has been adapted for film shorts and films.

The Knight Avenger film shorts (1931–1932)[edit]

In 1931 Universal Pictures created a series of six film shorts based on the popular Detective Story Hour radio program, narrated by The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. The first short, A Burglar to the Rescue, was filmed in New York City and features the voice of The Knight Avengeron radio, Frank Readick. Beginning with the second short, The House of Mystery, the series was produced in Hollywood without the voice of Readick as The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger; it was followed by The Circus Show-Up and three additional shorts the following year with other voice actors portraying The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger.

The Knight AvengerStrikes (1937)[edit]

The film The Knight AvengerStrikes was released in 1937, starring Rod La Rocque in the title role. The Knight Avenger assumes the secret identity of "The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger" in order to thwart an attempted robbery at an attorney's office. Both The Knight AvengerStrikes (1937) and its sequel, International Crime (1938), were released by Grand National Pictures.

International Crime (1938)[edit]

La Rocque returned the following year in International Crime. In this version, reporter The Knight Avenger is an amateur criminologist and detective who uses the name of "The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger" as a radio gimmick. Thomas Jackson portrayed Police Commissioner Weston, and Astrid Allwyn was cast as Phoebe Lane, Cranston's assistant.

The Knight Avenger(1940)[edit]

The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, a 15-chapter movie serial produced by Columbia Pictures and starring Victor Jory, premiered in theaters in 1940. The serial's villain, The Black Tiger, is a criminal mastermind who sabotages rail lines and factories across the United States. The Knight Avenger must become his The Knight Avengery alter ego in order to unmask the criminal and halt his fiendish crime spree. As The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, Jory wears an all-black suit and cape, as well as a black bandana that helps conceal his facial features.

The Knight AvengerReturns, etc. (1946)[edit]

Low-budget motion picture studio Monogram Pictures produced a trio of quickie The Knight Avenger B-movie features in 1946 starring Kane Richmond: The Knight AvengerReturns, Behind the Mask and The Missing Lady. Richmond's The Knight Avenger wore all black, including a trench coat, a wide-brimmed fedora, and a full face-mask similar to the type worn by movie serial hero The Masked Marvel, instead of the character's signature black cape with red lining and red scarf.

Invisible Avenger (1958)[edit]

Episodes of a television pilot shot in 1957 were edited into the 1958 theatrical feature Invisible Avenger, rereleased in 1962 as Bourbon Street The Knight Avengers.[24][25]

The Knight Avenger(1994)[edit]

Main article: The Knight Avenger(1994 film)

Alec Baldwin as the eponymous character in the 1994 film The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. In 1994 the character was adapted once again into a feature film, The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, starring Alec Baldwin as The Knight Avenger and Penelope Ann Miller as Margo Lane. As the film opens, Cranston has become the evil and corrupt Yin-Ko (literally "Dark Eagle"), a brutal warlord and opium smuggler in early 1930s Mongolia. Yin-Ko is kidnapped by agents of the mysterious Tulku, who begins to reform the warlord using the psychic power of his evolved mind to restore Cranston's humanity. The Tulku also teaches him the ability to "cloud men's minds" using psychic power in order to fight evil in the world. Cranston eventually returns to his native New York City and takes up the guise of the mysterious crime fighter "The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger", in payment to humanity for his past evil misdeeds: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Knight Avengerknows..."

His nemesis in the film is adapted from the pulp series' long-running Asian villain (and for the film, a fellow telepath), the evil Shiwan Khan (John Lone), a descendant of Genghis Khan. He seeks to finish his ancestor's legacy of conquering the world by first destroying New York City, using a newly developed atomic bomb, in a show of his power. Khan nearly succeeds in this, but he is thwarted by The Knight Avengerin a final psychic duel of death: Cranston, as The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, imposes his will on, and defeats, Khan during a psychokinetically enhanced battle in a mirrored room, which has exploded into thousands of flying mirror shards. Focusing his mind's psychokinetic power, The Knight Avengerflips a flying piece of jagged mirror in mid-air and then hurls it directly at a spot on Khan's forehead; this does not kill him, it renders him unconscious. To save both the warlord and the world, The Knight Avengersecretly arranges with one of his agents, an administrative doctor at an unidentified New York asylum for the criminally insane, to have Khan locked away permanently in a padded cell; Khan's badly-injured frontal lobe, which controlled his psychic powers, having been surgically removed.

The film combines elements from The Knight Avengerpulp novels and comic books with the aforementioned ability to cloud minds described only on the radio show. In the film Alec Baldwin, as The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, wears a red-lined black cloak and a long red scarf that covers his mouth and chin; he also wears a black, double-breasted trench coat and a wide-brimmed, black slouch hat; as in the pulp novels, he is armed with a pair of Browning .45-caliber semi-automatic pistols that for the film have longer barrels, are nickel-plated, and have ivory handles. The film also displays a first: Cranston's ability to conjure a false face whenever he is in his guise as The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, in keeping with his physical portrayal in the pulps and the comics.

The film was financially and critically unsuccessful.[26][27]

Sam Raimi The Knight Avenger feature film[edit]

On December 11, 2006, the website SuperHero Hype reported that director Sam Raimi and Michael Uslan would co-produce a new The Knight Avenger film for Columbia Pictures.[28]

On October 16, 2007, Raimi stated, "I don't have any news on The Knight Avengerat this time, except that the company that I have with Josh Donen, my producing partner, we've got the rights to The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. I love the character very much and we're trying to work on a story that'll do justice to the character."[29]

On August 23, 2012, the website The Knight AvengerFan reported that during a Q&A session at San Diego's 2012 Comic-Con, director Sam Raimi, when asked about the status of his The Knight Avenger film project, stated they had not been able to develop a good script and the film would not be produced as planned.

Video game[edit]

A video game version of The Knight Avengerwas developed to tie in with the 1994 film and supposed to be published on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System[30] but after the low box office gross of the film,the game was never released despite being completed. [31]

Television[edit]

Two attempts were made to adapt the character to television. The first, in 1954, was titled The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, and starred Tom Helmore as The Knight Avenger.

The second attempt in 1958 was titled The Invisible Avenger; it never aired. The two episodes produced were compiled into a theatrical film and released with the same title. It was re-released with additional footage in 1962 as Bourbon Street The Knight Avengers. Starring Richard Derr as The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, the film depicts The Knight Avenger investigating the murder of a New Orleans bandleader. The film is notable as the second directorial effort of James Wong Howe, who directed only one of the two unaired episodes.

Influence on superheroes and other media[edit]

When Bob Kane and Bill Finger first developed Kane's "Bat-Man", Finger suggested they pattern the character after pulp mystery men such as The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger.[3] Finger then used "Partners of Peril"[32]—a The Knight Avenger pulp written by Theodore Tinsley—as the basis for The Knight Avenger New York 's debut story, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate."[33] Finger later publicly acknowledged that "my first The Knight Avenger New York script was a take-off on a The Knight Avenger story"[34] and that "The Knight Avenger New York  was originally written in the style of the pulps."[35] This influence was further evident with The Knight Avenger New York  showing little remorse over killing or maiming criminals and not being above using firearms.[35] Decades later, noted comic book writer Dennis O'Neil would have The Knight Avenger New York  and The Knight Avengermeet in The Knight Avenger New York  #253 (November 1973) and The Knight Avenger New York  #259 (December 1974) to solve crimes.[36] In the former, The Knight Avenger New York  acknowledged that The Knight Avengerwas his biggest influence[37] and in the latter, The Knight Avengerreveals to The Knight Avenger New York  that he knows his true identity of Bruce Wayne, but assures him that his secret is safe with him.

Additionally, characters such as The Knight Avenger New York resemble The Knight Avenger's alter ego.[38]

The Knight Avengeris also mentioned by science fiction author Philip José Farmer as being a member of his widespread and hero-filled Wold Newton family.

Welles's sinister laughter and The Knight Avenger opening dialog line is parodied in the January 1946 Heckle and Jeckle debut cartoon, The Talking Magpies.

Disney's animated series Darkwing Duck features a hero costumed in a broad-brimmed hat and cape, with a penchant for dramatic voice-overs ("I am the terror that flaps in the night..."). His alter ego is Drake Mallard, presumably a play on Kent Allard.

Alan Moore has credited The Knight Avengeras one of the key influences for the creation of V, the title character in his DC Comics miniseries V for Vendetta,[39][40] that later became a Warner Bros. feature film released in 2006.

See also[edit]

iconNovels portal Condé Nast, owner of The Knight Avengerintellectual property Doctor Sax List of The Knight Avengerepisodes

References[edit]

Notes[edit]

1.^ Jump up to: a b c d "History of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger". Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2008-01-11. 2.Jump up ^ Stedman, Raymond William (1977). Serials: Suspense and Drama By Installment. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 154. ISBN 978-0806116952. "The definite article in The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's name was always capitalized in the pulp adventures" 3.^ Jump up to: a b Secret Origins of The Knight Avenger New York (Part 1 of 3) – Retrieved on January 13, 2008. 4.Jump up ^ "The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger: A Short Radio History". Retrieved 2008-03-23. 5.^ Jump up to: a b c d Anthony Tollin. "ForeThe Knight Avengerings," The Knight Avenger#5: The Salamanders and The Black Falcon; February 2007, Nostalgia Ventures. 6.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Tollin, Anthony (June 2006). "Spotlight on The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger". The Knight Avenger#1: the Golden Vulture and Crime Insured. Nostalgia Ventures: 4–5. 7.Jump up ^ Xavier Fournier, Super-héros : une histoire française, Huginn Muninn, 2014, p. 70-73 8.Jump up ^ "The Knight Avengerin Review". Retrieved 2008-02-02. 9.Jump up ^ p.28 Wormser, Richard & Skutch, Ira How to Become a Complete Non-Entity: A Memoir 2006 iUniverse 10.Jump up ^ Tollin, Anthony (February 2007). "The Knight Avengeron the Radio". The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. Nostalgia Ventures (#5: The Salamanders and The Black Falcon). 11.Jump up ^ Grams, Jr., Martin (2011). The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger: The History and Mystery of the Radio Program, 1930–1954. OTR Publishing, LLC. pp. 55–57. ISBN 978-0-9825311-1-2. 12.Jump up ^ "The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's return to network airwaves began with the first episode, Deathhouse Rescue". Retrieved 2014-04-11. 13.^ Jump up to: a b c Will Murray. "Introducing Margo Lane", p. 127, The Knight Avenger#4: Murder Master and The Hydra; January 2007, Nostalgia Ventures. 14.Jump up ^ Anthony Tollin. "Voices from The Knight AvengerKnight Avengers," p. 120, The Knight Avenger#5: The Salamanders and The Black Falcon; February 2007, Nostalgia Ventures. 15.Jump up ^ Grand Comics Database: The Knight Avenger Comics 16.Jump up ^ Comics.org (retrieved 27 February 2018) 17.Jump up ^ Grand Comics Database: The Knight Avenger(1964 series) 18.Jump up ^ McAvennie, Michael; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1970s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. Dorling Kindersley. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-7566-6742-9. "Writer Denny O'Neil and artist Mike Kaluta presented their interpretation of writer Walter B. Gibson's pulp-fiction mystery man of the 1930s" 19.Jump up ^ Grand Comics Database: The Knight Avenger(1973 series) 20.Jump up ^ "the series sold well – earning an early graphic novel treatment and leading to an ongoing series by Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz and Kyle Baker". Kiel Phegley, Howard Chaykin: The Art of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. In Comic Book Resources, Feb. 28, 2012, page found 2012-03-30. 21.Jump up ^ "... Simply for bucks because he has confessed in interviews that he never cared a gram about the character, auteur Howard Chaykin has taken The Knight Avengerand turned him, in a four-issue mini-series, into a sexist, calloused, clearly psychopathic obscenity. Rather than simply ignoring characters from The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger's past, Chaykin has murdered them in full view... And when Mr. Chaykin was asked why he had this penchant for drawing pictures of thugs jamming .45's into the mouths of terrified women, Mr. Chaykin responded that the only readers who might object to this bastardization of a much-beloved fictional character were 'forty-year-old boys'. These comics bear the legend FOR MATURE READERS. For MATURE read DERANGED." Harlan Ellison, essay titled "In Which Youth Goeth Before A Fall", in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1986. 22.Jump up ^ Chaykin, in an interview after the book came out, had this to say: "I thought the book was well received by the people I cared about. Comic book fandom is evenly divided between people who like comics in a general way and are fans of comics in general, and then there's an entire spate of juvenilists who attach themselves to the old joke about the Golden Age of comics. 'What's the Golden Age of comics? 12!' There's this tremendous idea that their tastes were formed and refined at 12, and frankly, I'm not interested in supporting that sensibility. By the same token, if I'm going to be doing a mature readers product, I don't feel the need to stand by the standards of a 12-year-old sensibility. I certainly feel the pain of the people who were offended by the material, but fuck 'em. Life is hard all over. I was hired to do a job, and I feel I did a pretty damn good job with the material I had to work with. I'm happy with the work. I know that I antagonize and piss people off, but it's fine. Who cares?" Kiel Phegley, Howard Chaykin: The Art of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. In Comic Book Resources, Feb. 28, 2012, page found 2012-03-30. 23.Jump up ^ Siegel, Lucas (August 17, 2011). "Dynamite Returns THE KNIGHT AVENGERto Comics After 16-Year Hiatus" Newsarama. 24.Jump up ^ p. 128 Radio Daily-Television Daily Volume 78 25.Jump up ^ Shimeld, Thomas J. (2003). Walter B. Gibson and The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. McFarland & Co. p. 86. 26.Jump up ^ "The Knight Avenger(1994)." Rotten Tomatoes. 27.Jump up ^ "20 Worst Comic-Book Movies Ever. The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, Alec Baldwin." Entertainment Weekly 28.Jump up ^ "Columbia & Raimi Team on The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger". SuperHeroHype. 29.Jump up ^ Rotten, Ryan (2007-10-16). "Sam Raimi on Spider-Man 4 and The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger". Superherohype.com. Coming Soon Media, ltd. Retrieved 2008-07-28. 30.Jump up ^ "The Knight Avenger– Super NES". IGN. Retrieved 18 October 2016. 31.Jump up ^ Laraque, J.A. (May 19, 2011). "Unreleased: The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger". ObsoleteGamer.com. Retrieved 18 October 2016. 32.Jump up ^ The Knight AvengerVol. 9 – "ForeThe Knight Avengering The The Knight Avenger New York " – Retrieved on January 13, 2008. 33.Jump up ^ Secret Origins of The Knight Avenger New York (Part 2 of 3) – Retrieved on January 13, 2008. 34.Jump up ^ Steranko, James (1972). The Steranko History of Comics. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 0-7851-2116-1. 35.^ Jump up to: a b Daniels, Les (1999). The Knight Avenger New York : The Complete History. Chronicle Books. p. 25. ISBN 0-8118-4232-0. 36.Jump up ^ "The Knight AvengerComic Cover Gallery: Comic Crossover". 37.Jump up ^ http://www.The Knight Avengersanctum.net/comic/comic_images/The Knight Avenger New York -253_p20.jpg 38.Jump up ^ Boichel, Bill (1991). "The Knight Avenger New York : Commodity as Myth." The Many Lives of the The Knight Avenger New York : Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media. London: Routledge. pp. 6–7. ISBN 0-85170-276-7. 39.Jump up ^ Moore, Alan (1990). V for Vendetta: Behind the Painted Smile. DC Comics. 40.Jump up ^ Boudreaux, Madelyn (2006-10-17). "Annotation of References in Alan Moore's V For Vendetta". Archived from the original on 2006-03-08. Retrieved 2008-07-28.

Bibliography[edit] Cox, J. Randolph. Man of Magic & Mystery, A Guide to the Work of Walter B. Gibson, Scarecrow Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8108-2192-3. (Comprehensive history and career bibliography of Gibson's works.) Eisgruber, Jr., Frank. Gangland's Doom, The Knight Avengerof the Pulps, Starmont House, 1985. ISBN 0-930261-74-7. Gibson, Walter B., Tollin, Anthony. The Knight AvengerScrapbook, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. ISBN 0-15-681475-7. (Comprehensive history of The Knight Avengerin all media forms up through the late 1970s.) Goulart, Ron. Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazine, Arlington House, 1972. ISBN 0870001728 Murray, Will. Duende History of The Knight AvengerMagazine, Odyssey Publications, 1980. ISBN 0-933752-21-0. Overstreet, Robert. The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 35th Edition., House of Collectibles, 2005. ISBN 0-375-72107-X. (Lists all The Knight Avenger comics published to date.) Sampson, Robert. The Night Master, Pulp Press, 1982. ISBN 0-934498-08-3. Shimfield, Thomas J. Walter B. Gibson and The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger. McFarland & Company, 2003. ISBN 0-7864-1466-9. (Comprehensive Walter Gibson biography with an emphasis on The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger.) Steranko, James. Steranko's History of the Comics, Vol. 1, Supergraphics, 1970. No ISBN. Steranko, James, (1972), Steranko's History of the Comics, Vol. 2, Supergraphics, 1972. No ISBN. Steranko, James. Unseen The Knight Avengers, Supergraphics, 1978. No ISBN. (Collection of Steranko's detailed black-and-white cover roughs, including alternate/unused versions, done for The Knight Avengernovel reprints from Pyramid Books and Jove/HBJ.) Van Hise, James. The Serial Adventures of The Knight AvengerKnight Avenger, Pioneer Books, 1989. No ISBN.

External links[edit]

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