Recap / The Shadow Pulps S 97 The Voodoo Master

• Applied Phlebotinum: The "Red Room" that Mocquino uses to brainwash/"zombify" those who displease him. Also the corresponding green room that The Shadow installs at Lamont Cranston's mansion to cure one of Mocquino's victims.
  • Also discussed as Dr. Rupert Sayre examines Stanton Wallace for evidence of a "robot zombification" like that he witnessed first-hand as the unwilling assistant to Eric Veldon in Master of Death.
• Awesome by Analysis: The Shadow quickly sniffs out what had happened to the poor unfortunate Stanton Wallace by piecing together disparate clues.
• Badass in Distress: The Shadow spends a couple of chapters recovering from both a nasty gunshot wound and a fall from a penthouse. In fact, his recovery is only sped by the application of a mysterious healing draught. Even then, he has to sleep for a good long while afterwards.
• Continuity Nod: As mentioned above, Rupert Sayre makes sure that someone isn't misusing Veldon's techniques again as in Master of Death.
• Crazy-Prepared: Why else would The Shadow have a red version of his normal outfit just in case he has to disguise himself in a completely red room?
• Disney Villain Death: A Retcon in the last paragraph clumsily sets up not only Never Found the Body, but straight-up says Mocquino survived to challenge The Shadow again. Even though we last saw him shot in the chest and being carried, dying, off the ferry then sinking into the Hudson River.
  • Enforced, due to Mocquino being immensely popular with everyone, Gibson included, necessitating finding some way to bring him back.
• Distressed Dude: Harry Vincent. Again.
• Fate Worse than Death: What Eldridge Rathcourt clearly considers the prospect of becoming a zombi. It pushes him to attacking Mocquino directly more or less to provoke Mocquino to killing him.
• Hollywood Voodoo: In a story called "The Voodoo Master", it'd be disappointing if there was no voodoo angle.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Mocquino uses this technique as the culmination of the "Red Room" torture — he enters in a crimson-and-gold outfit that makes him look demonic and bisected due to the red lights.
  • The Shadow steals this idea for himself at the story's climax.
• Science Marches On: The story seems to play on what was then a current belief on how aphasia comes about.
• Scam Religion: Mocquino puts himself forth as a Voudoun, but in reality he's a slick operator who has a fairly vast knowledge of science. His Voodoo cult is a front for a criminal operation.
• Spoiler Cover The cover of both the original magazine issue and the Nostalgia Ventures reprint depicts the climax of the book, with The Shadow in his red outfit.
• Technically-Living Zombie: Though the undead version are discussed during the story, Mocquino's "Zombie" are all still alive, just in a deep catatonia.
• You Have Failed Me: The main rationale that Mocquino uses for making his zombie.
• You Will Be Spared: The "quick and painless" variation is used by Mocquino to Rupert Sayre, as Mocquino says he bears Sayre no personal ill will, but still needs to dispatch him.
• Voodoo Doll: Mocquino used a wax version to denote the cult's latest victim and manner of death. Subverted in that there is no sympathetic voodoo, it's instead Mocquino sending messages to his mooks on whom they're going to kill next and have look like "voodoo justice."
• Voodoo Zombie: Of sorts — they're people driven into a catatonia by Mocquino's Applied Phlebotinum.