History YMMV / TheShadow

* FairForItsDay: While the pulps often reflected the stereotypes of its day, it was a policy of long-time editor John Nanovic to constantly chip away at these elements in the magazine's stories. ''The Shadow'' would be notable for having African-American, Jewish and Chinese-American characters who were useful and often crucial parts of The Shadow's team. Nanovic also instituted two important rules: First that outside of plot-relevant needs, the main villain had to be a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant -- "Fu-Manchu"-style villains, or other ethnic {{Big Bad}}s were by and large out. One of the major exceptions to this rule was Shiwan Khan. Second, he dogged Gibson to drop the "AsianSpeekeeEngrish" Chinese characters, encouraging him to introduce Dr. Roy Tam (who spoke perfect English) and to soften the dialect of other Chinese characters.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: The radio episode "The Spider Boy." Thanks to ValuesDissonance, we are told that DomesticAbuse is a minor peccadillo that can be solved simply by apologizing to the victim...but that owning an unusual pet (a large spider) that at no time harms or even threatens to harm a human being is a horrific crime deserving of a KarmicDeath.

* NightmareFuel: As awesome as the Shadow is and as he's firmly planted on the side of right [[GoodIsNotNice he's no nice guy]] and he has no qualms about harming you or [[ManipulativeBastard even tricking you into killing yourself]] and if you're one of his agents, you'd best behave yourself and do as he orders...

** The goof becomes the punchline of a ''extremely'' long-term and obscure BrickJoke ''18 years later'' in an episode of ''Series/ThirtyRock''. The episode "The Tuxedo Begins" largely plays out as an extended riff on ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga'', but at one point Creator/AlecBaldwin is standing in a suit before a (faux) city skyline, and a clumsy post-production cape is inserted to the shot behind his back.

* CompleteMonster: In the first arc of the Creator/DynamiteComics revival, [[ArcVillain Taro Kondo]], a war criminal who took part in atrocities at the [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar Rape of Nanking]], develops a niche for himself as a spymaster and criminal overseas while his brother is dispatched by the Shadow in the US. [[LackOfEmpathy Dismissing his brother without a thought]], Kondo leads an expedition to secure uranium for the Japanese empire while providing young girls to his superior to rape at his leisure and leading his men to massacre an entire village as a diversion. When he has the ship the Shadow and his allies are on sunk, Kondo promptly orders any survivors to be gunned down and later betrays and murders his own allies. Faking the uranium’s potency to force his superior to commit {{seppuku}} in failure, Kondo briefly taunts him with the truth before him and promises to pay a "visit" to the man's daughters himself before he sells the uranium to the highest bidder.

** But still, that shot of him standing there and just [[DeathGlare staring the villains down]] is [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome still pretty darn cool.]]

* {{Narm}}: The Lanes are hypnotized by a ... cigarette billboard.

** The goof becomes the punchline of a ''extremely'' long-term and obscure BrickJoke ''18 years later'' in an episode of ''Series/ThirtyRock''. The episode "The Tuxedo Begins" largely plays out as an extended riff on ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga'', but at one point Alec Baldwin is standing in a suit before a (faux) city skyline, and a clumsy post-production cape is inserted to the shot behind his back.

* AwesomeMusic: "Omphale's Spinning Wheel" by Camille-Saint-Saens. "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

* AwesomeMusic: Music/JerryGoldsmith's beautiful score for the movie, especially [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iI5urovHYI The Shadow's theme-tune]] and Taylor Dayne's cover of Pandora Box's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehAnATDG_FE Original Sin]]".

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The Shadow himself walking out of the shadow he cast against the wall after the Mongol warriors use it to pinpoint him and nail him to the wall with crossbow bolts (but only managed to pin his cape to it).

* MagnificentBastard: Khan and to an extent Lamont himself.

* CompleteMonster: In the first arc of the Creator/DynamiteComics revival, [[ArcVillain Taro Kondo]], a war criminal who took part in atrocities at the [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar Rape of Nanking]], develops a niche for himself as a spymaster and criminal overseas while his brother is dispatched by the Shadow in the US. [[LackOfEmpathy Dismissing his brother without a thought]], Kondo leads an expedition to secure uranium for the Japanese empire while providing young girls to his superior to rape at his leisure and leading his men to massacre an entire village as a diversion. When he has the ship the Shadow and his allies are on sunk, Kondo promptly orders any survivors to be gunned down and later betrays and murders his own allies. Faking the uranium’s potency to force his superior to commit {{seppuku}} in failure, Kondo briefly taunts him with the truth before [[OffWithHisHead beheading him]] and promises to pay a "visit" to the man's daughters himself before he sells the uranium to the highest bidder.

** The goof becomes the punchline of a ''extremely'' long-term and obscure BrickJoke ''18 years later'' in an episode of ''Series/30Rock''. The episode "The Tuxedo Begins" largely plays out as an extended riff on ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga'', but at one point Alec Baldwin is standing in a suit before a (faux) city skyline, and a clumsy post-production cape is inserted to the shot behind his back.

* HilariousInHindsight: Shiwan's Narmy boasts that he's "the last descendant of Genghis Khan" became this when genetic studies confirmed that about ''0.5% of the world's population'' are the likely descendants of Genghis or his immediate male relations. One of his present-day descendants is an actor who's built a career around playing his own ancestors on Chinese-Mongolian TV.

* AwesomeMusic: Music/JerryGoldsmith's beautiful score for the movie, especially [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iI5urovHYI The Shadow's theme-tune]] and Taylor Dayne's cover of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehAnATDG_FE Original Sin]]".

* AwesomeMusic: Music/JerryGoldsmith's beautiful score for the movie, especially [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iI5urovHYI The Shadow's theme-tune]] and Taylor Dayne's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehAnATDG_FE Original Sin]]".

* FairForItsDay: While the pulps often reflected the stereotypes of its day, it was a policy of long-time editor John Nanovic to constantly chip away at these elements in the magazine's stories. ''The Shadow'' would be notable for having African-American, Jewish and Chinese-American characters who were useful and often crucial parts of The Shadow's team. Nanovic also instituted two important rules: First that outside of plot-relevant needs, the main villain had to be a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant -- "Fu-Manchu"-style villains, or other ethnic BigBads were by and large out. One of the major exceptions to this rule was Shiwan Khan. Second, he dogged Gibson to drop the "AsianSpeekeeEngrish" Chinese characters, encouraging him to introduce Dr. Roy Tam (who spoke perfect English) and to soften the dialect of other Chinese characters.

!!The comics:
* CompleteMonster: The Japanese general in "The Fire Of Creation". Not only does he reenact the Rape of Nanking on a small Chinese village for no other reason than their being Chinese, he's also a pedophile.

* FairForItsDay: While the pulps often reflected the stereotypes of its day, it was a policy of long-time editor John Nanovic to constantly chip away at these elements in the magazine's stories. ''The Shadow'' would be notable for having African-American, Jewish and Chinese-American characters who were useful and often crucial parts of The Shadow's team. Nanovic also instituted two important rules: First that outside of plot-relevant needs, the main villain had to be a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant -- "Fu-Manchu"-style villains, or other ethnic BigBads were by and large out. Second, he dogged Gibson to drop the "AsianSpeekeeEngrish" Chinese characters, encouraging him to introduce Dr. Roy Tam (who spoke perfect English) and to soften the dialect of other Chinese characters.

* FairForItsDay: While many parts of the pulps are horribly racist, the Shadow is also notable for having an Asian and an African-American as agents at a time when they would usually have been villains or useless.

* HilariousInHindsight: Shiwan's Narmy boasts that he's "the last descendant of Genghis Khan" became this when genetic studies confirmed that about 0.5% of the world's population are the likely descendants of Genghis or his immediate male relations. One of his present-day descendants is an actor who's built a career around playing his own ancestors on Chinese-Mongolian TV.

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Shiwan Khan]] is a [[SingleLineOfDescent descendant]] of [[UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan Genghis Khan]] who wishes to follow in his ancestor's footsteps and try to TakeOverTheWorld. Unlike Lamont Cranston [[TheAtoner who regrets the evil acts he has done in the past]], Khan revels in his evil deeds. Khan uses his PsychicPowers to [[PsychicAssistedSuicide force a security guard to kill himself]], he forces a cabbie to crash into a gas tanker and make a sailor jump off the Empire State Building, [[DisproportionateRetribution because the sailor made fun of the way Khan dresses]]. Khan also forces Margo Lane, Cranston's LoveInterest to try and murder Cranston, [[TheCorrupter hoping that Cranston would kill her instead and then return to his old evil ways]]. Khan also [[BadBoss kills one of his Mongol warriors when Cranston was able to control him]]. Khan kidnaps Margo's father, a nuclear physicist and forces him to build a crude nuclear weapon. Khan is planning to [[NukeEm use this nuclear weapon to destroy New York City]], so the world will bow in fear to him.