Review by C.J. Bunce
If you’re a connoisseur of classic superheroes, you’d be remiss not to grab the trade edition of Dynamite Comics’ Masks
Writer Chris Roberson looks at justice through the eyes of each of these classic superheroes, each having a different take on the evolving political climate, and how to deal with the story’s bad guys. Where the original source material was a story featuring The Spider, here the heroes take a backseat to The Shadow, whose perfectly shadowy dialogue manages to allow him to steal the scene in each of the story’s eight chapters. The book starts with a bang–a chapter we previewed here at borg.com in its original printing as Masks, Issue #1, back in November 2012. Alex Ross provided the interior art for the first chapter, and as much as we’d hope for a full book featuring Ross’s art, artists Dennis Calero provides an excellent look at the 1930s with a very pulp novel feel.
, everyone has climbed aboard to use the Year One tag to sell copies. Many times the Year One is not an origin story but a random early story that fails to satisfy readers’ expectations. A successful twist on the Year One was Andy Diggle and Jock’s 
, but there’s also been 
, 
and 
, 
and 
, and even 
. It’s not only DC Comics who has cornered the market on Year One titles. We reviewed Howard Chaykin’s well done 
and a 
. This week Matt Wagner, writer of Dynamite Comics’s 
, takes on the 1920s-1930s masked crimefighter The Shadow in The Shadow: Year One. The first issue of Wagner’s Year One creation kicks off the better side of Year One stories.
