Appearing in "Death's Harlequin"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- The Shadow's Agents:
- Moe Shrevnitz (cameo)
Villains:
- Number One (Elizabeth "Bama" Caulfield)
Other Characters:
- Commissioner Weston
- The Real Lamont Cranston
- Mr. Lovelock (dies)
- Billy Violet (dies)
- Nando
Locations:
- New York City
- Cobalt Club
- Roosevelt Hotel
Items:
- Girasol Ring
Vehicles:
- Shrevnitz's cab
Synopsis for "Death's Harlequin"
RECAP
December 1935: While attending an aqua-themed nightclub, Commissioner Weston and "Cranston" witness the drowning of an Olympic diver. Soon after, Inspector Cardona is called in to investigate. Much later, The Shadow questions a financier of the club and learns of a blackmailing scheme being orchestrated by someone called "Number One." At midnight, The Shadow follows the financier to a secret location. Once inside the building, The Shadow is ambushed by several women in bathing suits who are brandishing daggers. During the assault, a harlequin costumed foe appears and fires a gun. A brief confrontation leaves the financier, who The Shadow was following earlier, dead while the deadly clown disappears during the conflict.
The next day, the real Lamont Cranston reads an invitation to a special ceremony. Unknown to him, it's a set-up. He goes to the meeting place, where a harlequin answers the door and promptly shoots Cranston. Bloodied, Cranston stumbles to the street and Shrevnitz's cab pulls up to whisk him to the hospital.
Part Two
The Shadow visits Cranston at the hospital and hears how the millionaire is being blackmailed by "Number One." Cranston reveals more about his past and why others may have been blackmailed too. With new information, The Shadow calls upon Commissioner Weston and others who he believes Number One is targeting. Disguised as Cranston, he then meets the men at a nightclub and informs them that he is aware of their connection to the blackmailing.
Later that night, a nurse at the hospital tries to kill the bedridden "Cranston" with a lethal needle shot. However, her attack is thwarted because it is The Shadow she is really confronting. He uses his Girasol ring to hypnotize her.
Under his control, she and The Shadow visit the real Cranston and the two men hatch a plan. Still hypnotized, the nurse takes the real Cranston to a club where "Number One" is waiting. Cranston is then dressed for his rite of degradation by the bathing beauties. Finally, the harlequin, known as "Number One," appears and tries to frighten Cranston with threats of harm. The scene intensifies until The Shadow comes in with guns blazing. In the chaos, Number One easily escapes, but is also quickly found in an apartment. When unmasked, it is a women who is behind the harlequin disguise, one who is an owner of a rival nightclub, and knew of the private affairs of the men she was blackmailing. When they stopped paying, she killed them off. She also confesses a bigger motive for the killings. She believed men treated women as delicate objects, causing women to be in servitude to them.
Realizing she has once again been humiliated, as everyone believed it was a man behind the killings and not a woman, she reaches for her gun, but The Shadow shoots first and she is disarmed and then taken into custody.
Notes
- This, and last issue's part one, is loosely based on Theodore Tinsley's Shadow story from 1939, "Death's Harlequin."
Trivia
- No trivia.
See Also
- Write your own review of this publication!
- Discuss Shadow Strikes (DC Comics) Vol 1 17 on the forums
- Cover gallery for the Shadow Strikes (DC Comics) series
Recommended Reading
- None.
Links and References
- None.