The Phantom was the first hero to wear a skin-tight uniform and the first whose mask turned his eyes into white slits.
I think the early versions of Batman’s origin have Bruce and his parents leaving a screening of Errol Flynn in “Zorro” when Dave and Martha Wayne are killed. It was later that it was changed to a performance of “Der Fleidermaus” (though who would take a kid to that?) to take the bat theme to fetishist levels.
I remember when the movie came out, and I remember wondering why such an old comic book character was being resurrected-I don’t think that The Shadow was anyway near as poplar as Batman or Superman. I do remember that he flew an autogyro aircraft-something long obsolete by the 1940’s.
The Shadow was extremely popular in the days of radio and pulps, before comic books. Old Time Radio fans were greater in number when the Shadow was made, and nostalgia is a powerful motivator. The pulp novels are the best introduction to the character.
I also think The Rocketeer is one of the best movies ever made.
So there.
It was good solid entertainment.
Best ever, maybe not, but darn good. And very true to the original comics (which, themselves, were relatively true to the old b&w serials. What the heck were those called, anyway? Guys with rocket backpacks and rocket ships and all.)
(Always loved how, though the rockets were going really fast, the smoke from their exhaust always went up.)
The recent comic “Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror” from IDW was quite good. Written by Roger Langridge, celebrated for his earlier “Snarked.” Stays mostly true to the spirit of the original comics and the movie.
How hard are those to track down? I have listened to a ton of the old radio shows, but I haven’t ever read the pulps. Is there a particularly good starting point?
Yep, I liked that film a lot. And Jennifer Connelly could wear the heck out of vintage clothes.
It’s still Zorro in most versions.
The pulps are pretty easy to find. Amazon has a great many. Here’s the link to the first Shadow story, The Living Shadow. This is the one you should read first. After that, it doesn’t matter as much.
In Detective #33 (Batman’s origin story), they’re leaving a movie theater, but they don’t mention the name of the movie. Once somebody thought of having it be Zorro, it stuck. Very recent versions, however, have had the movie be about a more Shadow-like character called “The Gray Ghost”.
AFAIK the Animated Series used The Grey Ghost and The newer movies used Die Fledermaus. DC canon is so screwed up at this point it hardly matters anymore in the “official” continuity.
Edit: Also the Grey Ghost was played by none othr than Adam West. It was a poignant and extremely well-done roe, and much more than a cameo or a one-note joke
Indeed. It was a particularly good episode of an excellent series, in no small part due to having Adam West in the role.
That would be the Animated Series continuity, not the comics.