The Shadow, for the most part, began as a pulp magazine early in the 1930's, but made his first appearance on March 7, 1931 in Detective Story Magazine (the magazine issue with the $1,000 Shadow contest). Before this on July 31, 1930, a Thursday night at 9:40 PM, Radio listeners tuned to CBS to hear the first appearance of "The Shadow" as James La Curto portrays the part in the Detective Story Hour. In this radio show The Shadow is actually just the narrarator of the show, but because of the huge fan response The Shadow later got his own turn in his own radio show series. The Shadow radio show series first aired on September 26, 1937. That radio show became the most famous old time radio show ever and even evolved into comics, novels, magazines and paperbacks, appeared in newspapers, and on movie screens. The Shadow has thrilled millions of fans for over 70 years!

         The Shadow is a super hero. Who like many super heroes fights crime in New York City. Behind the mask of The Shadow is a young wealthy man known as Lamont Cranston, also known as Kent Allard.

         The 1994 movie/radio show version - The Shadow has the ability to cloud men's mind so that they cannot see him. This power does come at a cost! If a person shines a light on The Shadow, The Shadow's shadow becomes visible to everyone. In the movie he could also mind-control anyone with a weak mind and can perform telekinesis.

         The pulp version - The Shadow really could only use his .45 pistols as he was also very sneeky, but in this version The Shadow could never turn invisible.

         The 1994 movie version - Before Lamont Cranston became The Shadow he was a ruthless king of Opium Fields, Tibet. There in the middle of the night he was kidnapped and taken to a Tulku temple. There the Tulku master taught Cranston.

          The pulps version - Kent was a military intelligence officer and adventurer. After the war (WWI), he was traveling abroad in the orient and encountered the mystics that trained him in various martial arts and mental disciplines.

          The people that Cranston knew helped him on solving the crimes so you could say that his friends where his sidekicks. In the radio show as well as the 1994 movie Margot Lane is the only person who knows the true identity of The Shadow is. Without Margot Lane The Shadow would be basically dead. Another friend/sidekick of Cranston's is Commissioner Weston. Lamont and Margot found out about these crimes from Commissioner Weston and solved everyone of them.

          In the magazines/pulps The Shadow had agents, Harry Vincent, Rutledge Mann, Burbank -, Cliff Marsland, Hawkeye -,Clyde Burke, Moe Shrevnitz, Jericho Druke, and Margot Lane.

           In issue number 209, Crime Over Miami, of The Shadow pulps, is where Kent Allard becomes Lamont Cranston. Kent was a military intelligence officer and adventurer. After the war (WWI), he was traveling abroad in the orient and encountered the mystics that trained him in various martial arts and mental disciplines. Some time afterwards he encountered Lamont Cranston, a wealthy dilettante who bore a striking resemblance to Kent. In time, they arranged a deal: Kent would adopt Lamont's identity (and access to his money) while Lamont lived a life of leisure abroad. The reason for this was because Lamont wanted to redime himself for past crimes, so he and Kent agreed on this arrangement.

          When the Shadow was brought to radio, the producers, as producers always seem to do when they want to bring a familiar character to another medium, made some changes in the character. They felt the Kent Allard/Lamont Cranston arrangement was too complicated for a radio show.

          One other thing, they added the character of Margot Lane, so he would have a "love interest".

          Click here to read the timeline of shadow products from the Shadow Scrapbook done by Walter B. Gibson, Anthony Tollin in 1979 and added onto by Guy Gudin.

          As time moved on from version to version of media The Shadow has changed...This is not the normal look change, but it is actually a major one. There is no true answer to this question, but anything from copyright difficulties to just making him a more interesting character are all valid answers. An example of the copyright difficulties can be seen with The Shadow comic book in Australia (picture to the right). Because of copyright difficulties the comic book company, Frew, had to alter this The Shadow character, although he is still, pretty much, the same shadow as the American version.

          You can find more information about this topic on the International page.