The City of Doom/The Fifth Face (Shadow (Nostalgia Ventures)) [Paperback]

Walter B. Gibson (Author), Maxwell Grant (Author), Alfred Bester (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Nostalgia Ventures (March 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932806733
• ISBN-13: 978-1932806731
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,193,898 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent Shadow reprint of 2 classic Shadow novels, February 27, 2009

By 

Michael R. Brown (Tamarac, FL) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The City of Doom/The Fifth Face (Shadow (Nostalgia Ventures)) (Paperback)

Nostalgia Ventures and Anthony Tollin have teamed up to do a comprehensive reprint of several Street & Smith pulp heroes. At present, they are doing double reprints of The Shadow and Doc Savage. Shortly, they will start new series reprinting The Avenger and The Whisperer. All have complete pulp texts (no edits or removals, like past reprints), tho reset so its easier to read, the original illustrations, reprinted covers (one is used as the cover of the book, but both original pulp covers are shown on the back), and several additional articles and additions.

Hopefully, they can succeed to reprinting all these characters in these new editions, they are all excellent.

With The Shadow having over 325 pulp novels, only a few reprinted, for the most part they are avoiding those that have been reprinted. They do try to pick two that more or less 'go together' in terms of a common theme.

This volume reprints "The City of Doom" (May 15, 1936) and "The Fifth Face" (Aug 15, 1940). The cover of "The City of Doom" is used as the cover of the volume, but both covers are shown on the back.

The common theme of this volume is "Supervillians". The Shadow did have a few, very few, reoccuring villians. And some of this was due to competition of the comic books. In some ways, its also a followup volume to #9, which features stories that inspired Batman and some of his villians.

"The City of Doom" provides a return of the villian "Voodoo Master" (Dr. Mocquino) who first appeared in "The Voodoo Master" reprinted in volume 3. In some ways, this character seems an inspiration to "Dr Death", an early Batman villian.

"The Fifth Face" provides another supervillian, known as "Five Face".

For extras in this issue, we get:

An intro by Harlan Ellison
A short article by pulp historian Will Murray on "the Rise of the Supervillian", which focuses on some of the supervillians in The Shadow, and the Batman supervillians they inspired.
A Shadow radio scrip, "The Immortal Murderer" (Dec 10 1944) written by SF author Alfred Bester, along with a short intro by Anthony Tollin who speaks of Bester and the work he had done in comics, radio, and SF. He also talks about the basis of this villian in the character of the immortal Vandal Savage, which Bester created as a villian for the Golden Age Green Lantern, and who continues to be a major villian in the DC Comics Universe to this day.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Vintage Pulp., September 10, 2009

By 

Parker (At Large) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The City of Doom/The Fifth Face (Shadow (Nostalgia Ventures)) (Paperback)

Far better than Voodoo Death, the first appearance of the Voodoo Master (reprinted in Volume 3), City of Doom gets right to the action from the first chapter.
As with many of the stories of this period in the Shadow's career, the Shadow, rather than his agents, handles much of the action. Its fun to see him remain one step ahead of the bad guys by piecing together insignificant bits of information, as well as seeing death traps and hidden trap doors with ease (something Gibson writes about very well given his background in stage magic).

Along with the main novel, there is a fun intorduction by noted author Harlan Ellison, a radio script from Alfred Bester, along with a biography of the legendary writer who began his career writing early Batman and Green Lantern tales, as well as articles showing the Shadow's influence on the creation of Batman. Throw in a second full length novel, "the Fifth Face"; all for about $10.50 from Amazon, and you have a deal thats hard to beat.

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic pulp stories by a master of the form!, July 27, 2009

By 

Leslie Karen Rigsbey "Leslie Rigsbey" (WOOD RIVER, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The City of Doom/The Fifth Face (Shadow (Nostalgia Ventures)) (Paperback)

I won't go into detail here because enough has already been laid out for you. Maxwell Grant is really Walter B. Gibson, famous magician/occultist and pulp writer who brilliantly turned the crimefighter/vigilante The Shadow into a truly mysterious and frightening figure in his stories about the character. Please don't pass this up if you love adventure/pulp/crime stories with a dose of the fantastic. Long live The Shadow!