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The year was 1930. To boost sales of their Detective Story Magazine, pulp publishers Street and Smith decided to sponsor a radio program where an announcer read stories from the magazine.
Rather than referring to him as "the guy who reads the stories," a man at Street and Smith's ad agency suggested naming him The Shadow.
Soon customers began asking for a pulp magazine of that name.
No such magazine existed at the time -- but Street and Smith knew an opportunity when they saw one, and quickly decided to created just such a title.
In time The Master of Darkness recruited numerous agents, among them the mysterious Burbank.
Little is known about Burbank, other than the fact that he is an "old friend" of the Master of Darkness, and that his mission is to facilitate communication among agents.
The Shadow copyright Advance magazine Publishers, Inc./ The Condé Nast Pubs.
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REPORT 35 - TOP TEN SERIAL VILLAINS
THE ULTIMATE SERIAL VILLAIN
THE BIG REVEAL!
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| In the old cliffhanger serials, a group of businessmen or industrialists were often plagued by an evil villain -- and in the end, it usually turned out that the villain had been a member of the group all along! This DIAL B for BURBANK series is just the same -- for among our group of serial villains lurks the greatest villain of them all -- the villain that inspired all the others! The source of this inspiration becomes clear when we see that almost ALL of these villains had TWO THINGS in common... |
| MAREX, WHO DEBUTED IN 1952, WORE A HOOD AND USED A MICROPHONE! |
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| ATOM MAN (1950), WORE A JUG AND USED A MICROPHONE! |
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| THE WIZARD (1949), WORE A HOOD AND USED A MICROPHONE! |
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| X |
| CAPT. MEPHISTO (1945), WORE A HAT AND USED A MICROPHONE! |
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| THE CRIMSON GHOST (1946), WORE A HOOD AND USED A MICROPHONE! |
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| THE SCORPION (1941) WORE A HOOD AND USED A MICROPHONE! |
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| BLACK TIGER (1940) SAT BEHIND A TIGER HEAD AND USED A MICROPHONE! |
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| THE OCTOPUS (1938) WORE A HOOD AND USED A MICROPHONE! |
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| MING THE MERCILESS WORE A (HOODLESS) ROBE AND USED A MICROPHONE! |
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So there you have it -- almost all of these villains had TWO THINGS in common: they wore a hood, and used a microphone.  The hood we might expect of any villain, but why a microphone, of all things? Why did so many serial villains find it essential to be seen using a microphone, making radio broadcasts? Which seminal villain were they imitating?
The amazing answer: they were imitating the most popular character of the era, the heroic villain who inspired them all... THE SHADOW! Only The Shadow is associated with a microphone, which he used to make his famous radio broadcasts. And as most Shadowfans know, The Shadow, famous for his slouch hat, actually wore a hood at the beginning of his career.
But where did the SHADOW'S hood come from? Who inspired it? How did the Master of Darkness start wearing it? When did he stop? And WHY? Reader, it's Shadow history in the making, and it's all...
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