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Lingo / Partners of Peril
Book by Grant, Maxwell, Gibson, Walter B., Tinsley, Theodore
144 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2007
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40 people want to read
About the author
Walter B. Gibson
635 books85 followersWalter Brown Gibson (September 12, 1897-December 6, 1985) was an American author and professional magician best known for his work on the pulp fiction character The Shadow. Gibson, under the pen-name Maxwell Grant, wrote "more than 300 novel-length" Shadow stories, writing up to "10,000 words a day" to satisfy public demand during the character's golden age in the 1930s and 1940s.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 13, 2019
I've been reading through some of the Doc Savage books, figured I should trip over to the darker side of pulp fiction and read some of The Shadow, as well.
A couple things, first off. One, this is possibly/probably not The Shadow you know. The catch phrases are still sort of there, overall, but the power to cloud men's minds and the quasi-Eastern mysticism is gone. Well, not gone. Never arrived. The Shadow radio show had to condense various Shadow stories to sub-30-minute tales, and so stuff like the clouding of men's minds and the mystic powers was added in to help give The Shadow some punch and allow him to talk in rooms full of criminals without the criminals knowing exactly where he is. Radio doesn't handle a man skulking about quietly for twenty minutes.
Two, this collection is meant to show how The Batman was inspired by The Shadow, if by inspired you mean "Originally, The Batman was basically a copy of The Shadow with a different visual flare". In that context, you have one tenuous link, one link that seems very likely but has seemingly disproven, and one link that is pretty much a smoking gun (insomuch as one of these stories was directly lifted for The Batman).
The tenuous one is "Lingo," a Shadow novel that is mostly a trifling. The Shadow is playing gangsters off of one another and interfering with a racket to cause it to fall apart. There is a lot of trumped up gangster-ese ("These gazebos have greased a sure pineapple," or some such nonsense), a fairly high body count, and fair gangland political strife; but not only does it drag on an additional ten-pages (an eternity in pulpland) but so much of the story seems so pointless. If The Shadow is mostly out to wreck a gang, and doesn't mind shooting, there are several chances to simply just toss a grenade into the works and explode some folks. Possibly it is about drawing certain key players out, but The Shadow knows the hidey-holes and even gets right into them when he choses. Once it is revealed that [massive spoiler deleted], the nonsense factor increases. It was a cool enough twist, but it exposes the whole thing as just a stalling for time. I suppose there was methods to the madness, but I think it was mostly just trying to play out a game of cat and mouse and didn't stop to realize the mouse was dying at the very start and barely limping along.
The tenuous connection, by the way, is that one scene has The Shadow toss a boomerang with a string tied to it to get on the roof of a nearby building, potentially foreshadowing a similar set up with the batarang back before the the bat-grapple-gun-thing got introduced in the 90s. It's not super-strong as far as connections go (I mean, Doc Savage carries around a portable grapple, too), but I get what they are going for.
The definite one is "Partners of Peril," a novel that Bill Finger and Bob Kane admit to riffing on. It's pretty obvious if you've read the first Batman story: a group of chemical industrialists start dying off when betrayed by one of their own and there's some back and forth about who the culprit is and finally The Shadow/Batman end up surviving a gas attack in a glass jar and exposing the baddie. This one is actually a pretty good story. It is pretty constantly action heavy. There are enough players on the stage to keep the reader guessing. There are some high-stakes explosions and lots of gunfire and injuries. A locked room mystery has a satisfyingly "espionage" flavor. Some "high tech" gets blended in, a train chase sequence, disguises. It's pretty chock full and exciting. It breathes in its pulp roots. Of the three, if there was just one to read, it would be this one.
The other one, the "disproven" one, is not actually a The Shadow story, but a Bulldog Black short where that detective squares up against a clown faced killer called The Joker. About 50% is nothing like The Batman's Joker, but the other half has a definite "The Joker" feel. It is a quick read, and more surface level than the baroque adventures of The Shadow, but it was a fun little excursion that demonstrates how the pulps manufactured constant micro-dangers for the hero to have to escape from.
All told, the read was pretty sweet. "Lingo" is way too slow for its own good, and "The Grim Joker" is only about 10 pages of quick reading, but "Partners of Peril" punches out well enough that it carries much of the book.
A couple things, first off. One, this is possibly/probably not The Shadow you know. The catch phrases are still sort of there, overall, but the power to cloud men's minds and the quasi-Eastern mysticism is gone. Well, not gone. Never arrived. The Shadow radio show had to condense various Shadow stories to sub-30-minute tales, and so stuff like the clouding of men's minds and the mystic powers was added in to help give The Shadow some punch and allow him to talk in rooms full of criminals without the criminals knowing exactly where he is. Radio doesn't handle a man skulking about quietly for twenty minutes.
Two, this collection is meant to show how The Batman was inspired by The Shadow, if by inspired you mean "Originally, The Batman was basically a copy of The Shadow with a different visual flare". In that context, you have one tenuous link, one link that seems very likely but has seemingly disproven, and one link that is pretty much a smoking gun (insomuch as one of these stories was directly lifted for The Batman).
The tenuous one is "Lingo," a Shadow novel that is mostly a trifling. The Shadow is playing gangsters off of one another and interfering with a racket to cause it to fall apart. There is a lot of trumped up gangster-ese ("These gazebos have greased a sure pineapple," or some such nonsense), a fairly high body count, and fair gangland political strife; but not only does it drag on an additional ten-pages (an eternity in pulpland) but so much of the story seems so pointless. If The Shadow is mostly out to wreck a gang, and doesn't mind shooting, there are several chances to simply just toss a grenade into the works and explode some folks. Possibly it is about drawing certain key players out, but The Shadow knows the hidey-holes and even gets right into them when he choses. Once it is revealed that [massive spoiler deleted], the nonsense factor increases. It was a cool enough twist, but it exposes the whole thing as just a stalling for time. I suppose there was methods to the madness, but I think it was mostly just trying to play out a game of cat and mouse and didn't stop to realize the mouse was dying at the very start and barely limping along.
The tenuous connection, by the way, is that one scene has The Shadow toss a boomerang with a string tied to it to get on the roof of a nearby building, potentially foreshadowing a similar set up with the batarang back before the the bat-grapple-gun-thing got introduced in the 90s. It's not super-strong as far as connections go (I mean, Doc Savage carries around a portable grapple, too), but I get what they are going for.
The definite one is "Partners of Peril," a novel that Bill Finger and Bob Kane admit to riffing on. It's pretty obvious if you've read the first Batman story: a group of chemical industrialists start dying off when betrayed by one of their own and there's some back and forth about who the culprit is and finally The Shadow/Batman end up surviving a gas attack in a glass jar and exposing the baddie. This one is actually a pretty good story. It is pretty constantly action heavy. There are enough players on the stage to keep the reader guessing. There are some high-stakes explosions and lots of gunfire and injuries. A locked room mystery has a satisfyingly "espionage" flavor. Some "high tech" gets blended in, a train chase sequence, disguises. It's pretty chock full and exciting. It breathes in its pulp roots. Of the three, if there was just one to read, it would be this one.
The other one, the "disproven" one, is not actually a The Shadow story, but a Bulldog Black short where that detective squares up against a clown faced killer called The Joker. About 50% is nothing like The Batman's Joker, but the other half has a definite "The Joker" feel. It is a quick read, and more surface level than the baroque adventures of The Shadow, but it was a fun little excursion that demonstrates how the pulps manufactured constant micro-dangers for the hero to have to escape from.
All told, the read was pretty sweet. "Lingo" is way too slow for its own good, and "The Grim Joker" is only about 10 pages of quick reading, but "Partners of Peril" punches out well enough that it carries much of the book.
April 3, 2019
This is a double feature, the first story written by Walter Gibson, the second by Theodore Tinsley.
LINGO is not a good effort and Walter Gibson is not a good writer. He was prolific enough to write two novels a month along with dozens of short stories which easily made him the best choice for the Shadow's head writer. However he was not a talented writer nor a skillful one. His prose is flat, turgid, melodramatic, and plodding. Occasionally he overcomes these faults and gives us a great tale like 'The Black Master' but for the most part it's a struggle getting through his work. What gives Gibson his saving grace is that he came up with many interesting ideas. The Shadow is, without doubt, one of the most intriguing and multi-faceted characters in all literature. (Do note we're talking about 'the Shadow' as presented in the pulps, not the ridiculous 'Lamont Cranston / Margo Lane / cloud men's minds' clown of radio and movies. LINGO is bad because there's nothing to it; it's just there. It's one of those deals where the hero is acting in disguise and it's supposed to come as a big surprise when it's finally revealed. The problem is you can guess it in the first chapter and after that you slog thru page after page of uninteresting fluff waiting for the end. The Shadow (in disguise) has a lot of dialogue. The Shadow (as himself) speaks only two words: 'Come' and 'Report'. The Shadow's lack of presence is made up for by several of his agents, Hawkeye, Clyde Burke, and the ubiquitous Harry Vincent who, as usual, falls into the villain's clutches and has to be rescued. Of all the mysteries surrounding the Shadow, chief among them is why he puts up with this incompetent goof. My advice is to skip LINGO. It's filler, probably written to meet a deadline, and contributes nothing to the canon. It's so unimportant the editors don't even bother to talk about it in the interim pages.
PARTNERS OF PERIL is the better entry because Tinsley is the superior writer to Gibson. His prose moves briskly along, never slowing up, and glides easily from one chapter to the next. He authored 27 Shadow novels and one wishes he could have provided more. This is the story Bill Finger and Bob Kane ripped off to create Batman in 'The Case of the Chemical Syndicate'. I can easily believe it because from what I've heard of him Bob Kane never had an original idea in his life, but like so many others in life (eg: Edison, Jobs, Roddenberry) he took or stole credit for things others came up with. The story is fun and interesting even without the Batman connection. Oh, and there's no Robin. That alone elevates it to fine literature.
A final feature is THE GRIM JOKER also by Tinsley. It's more 50-50 as to whether or not it inspired the Batman villain. In any event, it wasn't Kane who came up with the comic book version. It was Jerry Robinson.
The 5-star rating is solely for Tinsley's contribution.
LINGO is not a good effort and Walter Gibson is not a good writer. He was prolific enough to write two novels a month along with dozens of short stories which easily made him the best choice for the Shadow's head writer. However he was not a talented writer nor a skillful one. His prose is flat, turgid, melodramatic, and plodding. Occasionally he overcomes these faults and gives us a great tale like 'The Black Master' but for the most part it's a struggle getting through his work. What gives Gibson his saving grace is that he came up with many interesting ideas. The Shadow is, without doubt, one of the most intriguing and multi-faceted characters in all literature. (Do note we're talking about 'the Shadow' as presented in the pulps, not the ridiculous 'Lamont Cranston / Margo Lane / cloud men's minds' clown of radio and movies. LINGO is bad because there's nothing to it; it's just there. It's one of those deals where the hero is acting in disguise and it's supposed to come as a big surprise when it's finally revealed. The problem is you can guess it in the first chapter and after that you slog thru page after page of uninteresting fluff waiting for the end. The Shadow (in disguise) has a lot of dialogue. The Shadow (as himself) speaks only two words: 'Come' and 'Report'. The Shadow's lack of presence is made up for by several of his agents, Hawkeye, Clyde Burke, and the ubiquitous Harry Vincent who, as usual, falls into the villain's clutches and has to be rescued. Of all the mysteries surrounding the Shadow, chief among them is why he puts up with this incompetent goof. My advice is to skip LINGO. It's filler, probably written to meet a deadline, and contributes nothing to the canon. It's so unimportant the editors don't even bother to talk about it in the interim pages.
PARTNERS OF PERIL is the better entry because Tinsley is the superior writer to Gibson. His prose moves briskly along, never slowing up, and glides easily from one chapter to the next. He authored 27 Shadow novels and one wishes he could have provided more. This is the story Bill Finger and Bob Kane ripped off to create Batman in 'The Case of the Chemical Syndicate'. I can easily believe it because from what I've heard of him Bob Kane never had an original idea in his life, but like so many others in life (eg: Edison, Jobs, Roddenberry) he took or stole credit for things others came up with. The story is fun and interesting even without the Batman connection. Oh, and there's no Robin. That alone elevates it to fine literature.
A final feature is THE GRIM JOKER also by Tinsley. It's more 50-50 as to whether or not it inspired the Batman villain. In any event, it wasn't Kane who came up with the comic book version. It was Jerry Robinson.
The 5-star rating is solely for Tinsley's contribution.
October 11, 2017
Enjoyable glimpse into the pulp world of 1930s courtesy of Venture publications and another great reproduction of The Shadow stories giving the reader a good feel for what it was like to read these stories some 80 years ago. This particular volume, the third I've read in the Venture Shadow series, makes a good case that these stories directly inspired The Batman.
December 8, 2022
My first time reading an original Shadow .
August 28, 2025
Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger were obviously influenced by The Shadow, and this collection, especially "Partners of Peril," highlight that connection. Essays by Jerry Robinson (creator of The Joker), Will Murry, and Anthony Tollin discuss how much the writers and artists of Batman comics drew on the The Shadow and other pulp characters for inspiration.
"Lingo" (Walter Gibson). Two stars.
An average story about a battle for control of the rackets. A criminal "Big Boss" uses a ridiculously convoluted scheme to evade his rivals. In turn, The Shadow uses an even more convoluted plan to wipe out the criminals. Its connection to Batman is pretty tenuous, however. This story does earn its content warning for "out-of-date ethnic stereotyping" and language.
"Partners of Peril" (Theodore Tinsley). Four stars.
Murder and rifled safes hint at a plot against several businessmen. The connection of this tale to the very first Batman story ("The Case of the Chemical Syndicate," 1939) is unambiguous; the Batman story has essentially the same plot, only condensed and simplified. A dramatic action set-piece in this story was lifted whole cloth for the later Detective Comics tale.
"The Grim Joker" (Theodore Tinsley). Three stars.
This back-up story from The Whisperer starring Bulldog Black rounds out the collection. The title villain is interesting, as sadistic criminal geniuses go, but honestly, he does not really anticipate the more famous Batman villain of the same name.
"Lingo" (Walter Gibson). Two stars.
An average story about a battle for control of the rackets. A criminal "Big Boss" uses a ridiculously convoluted scheme to evade his rivals. In turn, The Shadow uses an even more convoluted plan to wipe out the criminals. Its connection to Batman is pretty tenuous, however. This story does earn its content warning for "out-of-date ethnic stereotyping" and language.
"Partners of Peril" (Theodore Tinsley). Four stars.
Murder and rifled safes hint at a plot against several businessmen. The connection of this tale to the very first Batman story ("The Case of the Chemical Syndicate," 1939) is unambiguous; the Batman story has essentially the same plot, only condensed and simplified. A dramatic action set-piece in this story was lifted whole cloth for the later Detective Comics tale.
"The Grim Joker" (Theodore Tinsley). Three stars.
This back-up story from The Whisperer starring Bulldog Black rounds out the collection. The title villain is interesting, as sadistic criminal geniuses go, but honestly, he does not really anticipate the more famous Batman villain of the same name.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews