These may be of interest to anyone who skulks into this little room with the blue light. "Gangdom's Doom" sports one of my favorite covers simply because it made The Shadow seem real to me. A bit like Bama's covers for the Doc Savage reprints. Alas, the Night Master shouldn't really be seen as real but as unreal, a feeling up the back of one's neck. That glimpse out of the corner of your eye only to find there is nothing there when you turn quickly. Nothing there but inky shadows.
Gangdom's Doom was my least favorite of the Bantam covers, not because it wasn't a nicely done piece [it was], but because it just wasn't The Shadow to me, then or now. Too detailed, too modern, face in full view; more like The Spider than my hero...As you nicely put it, "shouldn't really be seen as real...".
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