The
Shadow makes his debut in New York, and battles an old foe that is
precipitating a gang war. Journalist Maxwell Grant offers to be the
Shadow’s biographer, saying “Samuel Johnson had Boswell! Holmes
had Watson!” The details about Kent Allard and Margo Lane’s
families given in this series conflict with their family histories in
the CU. Additionally, the Maxwell Grant seen here is clearly not
Walter Gibson, who in both the CU and “our” universe wrote the
Shadow novels under the Grant pseudonym. Because of these factors, I consider this series an AU.
How many AUs have you counted for the volumes so far?
ReplyDeleteYou consider a Dynamite series an AU? I'm shocked!! :-P
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I don't consider everything Dynamite publishes to be an AU. Their Army of Darkness series is definitely in the CU, and Howard Chaykin's The Shadow: Midnight in Moscow had the Shadow at one point sharing dinner at Nero Wolfe's brownstone with Wolfe, Doc Savage, Tarzan and Bulldog Drummond, with a picture of the monument to the Wold Newton meteor in the background. There are plenty of Dynamite crossovers I do include in the CU. Unfortunately, they also publish a lot of stories that simply cannot be reconciled with CU continuity. I put critical thought and analysis into whether the works I include in the books can fit into the main timeline or not. Though I am critical of much of Dynamite's output, that is not the sole criteria I use to exclude stories from the CU.
DeleteThe main criteria is whether a work is that it has a link to a known work in the CU and does not violate a previous work. (Though exceptions have been for the last one is someone can come up with a theory that explains the discrepancies.)
DeleteQuality cannot be a major, or arguably a minor, criteria. There would be to much disagreement.
Oh, I know that. I was just trying to make a bad joke. :-P
DeleteI figured you did.
DeleteHowever, I think it's important it to state something like that. I just want to make sure that was clear to everybody, even if it's just a lurker.
The number of AU's us potentially limitless
ReplyDeleteThere may even bie I e where I spelled that right
ReplyDelete