Ever since the success of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, 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’sGreen Arrow: Year One, but there’s also been Teen Titans: Year One, Batgirl: Year One and Huntress: Year One, Nightwing: Year One and Robin: Year One, and even Batman: Two-Face/Scarecrow Year One. It’s not only DC Comics who has cornered the market on Year One titles. We reviewed Howard Chaykin’s well done Die Hard: Year Onehere last year, and if you look around you’ll even find a Judge Dredd Year One and a Punisher: Year One. This week Matt Wagner, writer of Dynamite Comics’s Green Hornet: Year One , 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.
Wagner and artist Wilfredo Torres begin their Year One with a mysterious force referred to as the “Shadow of Doom” in 1929 Cambodia, where we first meet The Shadow’s alter ego Lamont Cranston. He is in pursuit of a criminal called the White Tiger and this pursuit returns him to New York City, a city brewing with criminals for The Shadow to bring to justice.
