Welcome to the second half of our interview with Matt Wagner about The Shadow: The Death of Margo Lane. The five issue miniseries begins this June from Dynamite Entertainment!
CraveOnline: What’s the Shadow’s life like as Lamont Cranston without Margo?
Matt Wagner: Safe to say…it’s a dark and lonely place. Here again, the character is a hard one for readers to empathize with. His adventures are, no question, thrilling and entertaining…but you don’t exactly feel for the man beneath the slouch hat. For such a fiercely solitary personality, it must be hard to realize that you’d become so attached to another person, so dependent on their presence as a stabilizing influence in your life. So hard, one might say…to realize that you were in love. I’m happy to say, I think I’ve pulled off a difficult narrative turn with this series; you actually feel sympathy for The Shadow! And nothing too maudlin or sappy…that wouldn’t fit the character at all. But readers will definitely feel and realize his immense sense of loss.
Will we see any other familiar friends and foes of the Shadow in this miniseries?
As I said…I’m a longtime Shadow fan and I’m pretty fluent with the line-up of supporting characters from the character’s pulp adventures. Longtime readers will recognize appearances by many of The Shadow’s covert field agents but the story is presented in such a way that these characters and their roles are made perfectly clear to even first-time readers. And…there’s a new villain to perplex and challenge our hero—one with certain ties to the history of his fiery war on crime.
Looking back at Margo’s place in the mythos of The Shadow, what was your favorite Margo story that you read?
One of my favorite Margo moments comes from the third issue of the O’Neil and Kaluta run of issues, published by DC Comics back in the mid-seventies. It’s a story about how a gang of criminals take over a prison from the inside and turn it into a secretive haven for crooks of all kinds, all the while running the joint as a standard prison to the perceptions of the outside world. What stuck out to me about this adventure was how active Margo was in The Shadow’s ultimate plan. He deploys her into the field to infiltrate the prison as a visiting city official.
Ultimately, both she and The Shadow are discovered and captured and there’s this terrific scene where the bad guys have her tied up and The Shadow is strapped into an electric chair. Just as they’re about to throw the switch and electrocute him, The Shadow starts laughing and, of course, it totally freaks out the bad guys…even though he’s locked in the chair! There’s an excellent panel of Margo—again, tied-up—standing next to the chair as The Shadow’s laughter fills the chamber and she’s got this grim smile on her face that so perfectly says, “You guys are totally f**ked…and you don’t even know it!”
And what was your favorite Margo-centric story that you’ve written?
I’ve got a couple favorite aspects from my own portrayal of Margo. First would be the fact that, in Year One, I fleshed out her background and gave her a past that had certain dark and desperate elements as well, something that connected her to our hero’s own troubled past. And, I really like the tone I’ve managed to strike in her narration as she tells the tale of this mysterious, fascinating and courageous man who has had such an overwhelming influence on her own life.
What made you decide to draw this series as well? After all, you only wrote The Shadow: Year One story…
I had a lot of fun drawing The Shadow and his world during the crossover with Grendel. When I first conceived of this story, I knew right away that I’d be drawing it as well. The Shadow’s just such a fun character to draw; he’s both graphic and illustrative, both stark and ethereal. It’s all dark shapes and swell design and that’s just a blast to draw! He personifies so many of the nighttime avenger motifs that were later adapted into the character of Batman, but he’s definitely not the same character. He has a much different body language and way that he moves that’s not Batman-ish at all.
A lot of the original pulp illustrators used a combination of ink and litho crayon in their rendering and I tend to add a similar shading element to this sort of narrative by using a simple black colored pencils. I find it really adds a lot of atmosphere and helps to evoke the flavor of those original pulp illustrations.
You’re working with your son as colorist on this one, not for the first time either. Do the two of you have a good working relationship?
Well, if we didn’t, we probably wouldn’t be doing this together. As you said, my son Brennan Wagner is the colorist on this project. He’s colored a ton of the stuff I’ve written in recent years—The Shadow: Year One, the Django/ Zorro series and he’s currently working on the relaunch of Will Eisner’s The Spirit that I wrote. He’d colored a variety of my covers as well but Grendel vs. The Shadow was the first sequential work of mine that he colored. I think he’s done a fantastic job on all of those. He’s a thoughtful colorist who gives a lot of consideration to story-telling as well as drama and mood.
For this series — The Death of Margo Lane — we’ve worked closely together and struck an all-new and very specific color palette that doesn’t look quite like any of the work I mentioned above. It’s very nourish and, I think, lends a dramatic pulp atmosphere to the story as a whole. And Brennan has a lovely, very painterly style when it comes to color. I really love his bold yet delicate style.
Can you tease any more details about the story?
Only that this series should appeal to both new readers as well as longtime fans. The story is a perfect jumping-on point if you’re a reader who’s had some interest in The Shadow but might not know where to begin. This tale has a profound effect on The Shadow and his merciless war on crime…the cost is devastating.
