The Secret Squadron: Doc Savage

(updated with more pulps)

"Hombres Audaces" started being published by Editorial Molino in Spain in 1936 and stopped a few months later because of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Molino then moved to Argentina and continued publishing from 1936 until 1953, as Editorial Molino Argentina, for a total of 373 issues. They resumed publishing in Spain in 1941, and some titles exist in both editions with different covers. Hombres Audaces reprinted The Shadow (La Sombra), Doc Savage, Bill Barnes, Pete Rice and The Avenger, mostly with the original covers.

The collection has two numberings, a general one (from #1 to #373) and a separate one for each character. Some issues of the Argentinian edition were never published in Spain, but Molino kept the Argentinian numbering on the spine of the issues published in Spain.

Overall, the pulps were not published in chronological order, many issues being skipped (probably due to censorship problems) and others switched around. For Bill Barnes, character and airplane names were changed, paragraphs skipped and others inserted in order to adapt the plot to its random publishing order.

Here are all the issues I have in my collectiom. Enjoy!

The Shadow

Spanish Edition

#1 (4) April 25, 1936 #3 (12) June 20, 1936

#4 (16) July 18, 1936 #11 (47) 1939

#14 (79) December 1944 #20 (103) August 1945

#21 (107) November 1945 #24 (117) June 1946

#25 (121) July 1946 #27 (129) October 1946

#29 (142) May 1947 #32 (153) September 1947

#39 (179) May 1948 #40 (185) July 1948

Argentinian Edition

#1 (4) September 23, 1938

Doc Savage

Spanish Edition

#2 (6) May 2, 1936 #4 (14) June 27, 1936

#5 (18) July 25, 1936

Argentinian Edition

#13 (48) September 3, 1939 #51 (208) 1949

Pete Rice

Spanish Edition

#? January 1946 #? (65) February 1944

Further reading:

Tercera Fundación, in Spanish.
Tebeosfera, "Los Hombres Audaces de Molino" by Hector Pérez Día. In Spanish.

The Shadow has had a long and diverse life in comic books, starting in 1940 as a newspaper strip and then Street & Smith (also publishers of the pulps) published 101 issues, from 1940 to 1949. Then Archie had their turn, but it's more of an embarrassment than anything else, as The Shadow bears little resemblance to the character we know and love. Then DC Comics picked up the flag with wonderful art by Kaluta in 1973, then Dark Horse in 1993 and now Dynamite in 2012.

Below is a chronological gallery of the Shadow comic books in my collection. Unfortunately I don't have a single one from the Street & Smith run. But I have everything else, except for some Dynamite variants. As a rule, if the image has the Secret Squadron logo, it was scanned from my collection. If not, the images were lifted from the Grand Comics Database (thank you!), as 99% of my collection is Near Mint and it seemed redundant to scan the whole thing -- except for the Archies, those are Fine or less, and I'll get around to scanning them.

I also added the few non-US editions I have, from Brazil, Spain and France. These are fun curiosities to see, I think. Enjoy! This is going to be a looong post :)

Archie

The Shadow (1964-1965, 8 issues)

DC Comics

The Shadow (1973-1975, 12 issues)

Below, the 9 issues of the 1974 Brazilian edition by Ebal, of which I'm missing #2.

"As Maiores Aventuras do Sombra"
(The Shadow's Greatest Adventures)March, 1982

Here is an oddity, a very small Portuguese black and white comic, by Clube do Cromo, also a reprint of the Kaluta series. Issue #2 is announced in the back cover, but I could never find it. Notice the conspicuous absence of The Shadow on the cover. Date unknown.

The Shadow (1986, mini-series, 4 issues)

Ediciones Zinco, Spain, collects #1-4

The Shadow (1987-1989, 21 issues)

Below, three issues of the Brazilian edition by Abril. Not sure if more were published.

The Shadow Strikes! (1989-1992, 32 issues)

Dark Horse Comics

The Shadow - In the Coils of Leviathan (October 1993 - April 1994, 4 issues)

This "Dark Horse Tip Sheet" was offered in an issue of "Previews", a Diamond Distributors' catalogue from where clients and retaiers can order their comics. The publication, containing single-page advertisements for upcoming Dark Horse comics, was glued to the larger and thicker magazine. I had removed it, hence the torn spine.

The Shadow (June-July 1994, 2 issues, ties in with the film)

"The Shadow - La BD du Film"
(Dark Horse France, hardcover, 1994)

The Shadow and the Mysterious 3 (September 1994, one-shot)

The Shadow - Hell's Heat Wave (April-June 1995, 3 issues)

The Shadow and Doc Savage (July-August 1995, 2 issues)

Ghost and the Shadow (December 1995, one-shot)

Dynamite

The Shadow (2012, ongoing)

Dynamite have the habit of issuing several different covers, which is a nightmare for the completist (but excellent business for them, I imagine). These are the regular issues and variants I have, but I'm still missing a few.