This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Welcome to Red Panda Report Special Episode Number 4, where I am talking about The Shadow, Episode 17 of Season 1, which is called The White Legion.
My joking title for this review is White Good Sale, and if you listen to the episode, you'll know why I called it White Good Sale.
It's actually a quote from the episode, which is how I like to do a lot of my titles.
And if you want to listen to the episode, you don't want to mess around looking for it here and there, listen to people's ads about me undies or she for, I don't know, what is it, the psychology one? You help? Help you? Me need help? Help!
No, that's not it, sorry. If you do need help though, get it, it's just funny where the ads show up for that kind of stuff.
Anyway, you can find it ad free here on mgmunius.com, it'll be linked in the show notes, it'll be linked, basically go to the show notes, if you're hearing this you should be able to get to the show notes very easily, on mgmunius.com under Red Panda Report Number 4.
You'll find Red Panda Report 3.5, which is the White Legion, and it's just the episode, it has all the Blue Coal and other old timey ads in it, but that's about it, it doesn't have other people's modern ads that are going to irritate you.
It'll have ads that will delight and entertain you, hopefully, as they've delighted and entertained me, but I'm going to go ahead and get right into this by telling you that, oh I'm sorry, this is actually not episode 17, it's episode 26 of season 1.
It's called The White Legion, like I said earlier, it originally aired March 20th, 1938, that's a long time ago, I did not do the math, but it's a long time ago, and 80 something years, we're coming up, it's 2023, I'm not going to do the math, I think it's 85 years ago, which is kind of wild.
But anyway, I'll start off saying I didn't really enjoy the way Lamont and Margot stumble under the White Legion's plot, I think it's pretty silly. There's no force of destiny at work leading him on these adventures, as far as I know, unless there's some unknown feature of the shadow magic or whatever, the natural magics of the shadow that enable him to stumble upon crimes.
It doesn't really make sense. I say that even though in another world, in another life, I enjoy things like Comminator Black, which has the main character stumbling into crazy situations, and then he says, this is a Golgum plot!
And there's even been one of those workflow, or decision tree memes made of it, where it says, encounter strange thing, and then thing after thing after thing, and it goes around, I just saw a crow catch a lizard on a wall, that was really cool.
Anyway, and it basically all leads to it being a Golgum plot, and it's very funny. But here we have the shadow not fighting against one single evil organization, he's fighting all sorts of crimes, he's encountering all sorts of crimes everywhere.
Petty crimes to world conquering crimes that will kill and subjugate millions, or tens of millions, or billions of people on the earth. And yet this crime, it does involve a murder and a kidnapping, but it's all about politics, and it's just local politics in the town.
And for some reason there's a white legion, an army of people, I would assume, in white garb, I don't know if it's like a Ku Klux Klan thing, or what it is, but it's just very strange.
It's just very strange the way that Margot and Lamont stumble upon this, because he's like, oh, let's go out and get some exercise, and perhaps get me some new shirts.
So then they go to the department store, and a guy happens to be kidnapped right in front of them that's involved with this plot. Like, there's no way I can think of that you could, based on what was in the episode, argue that no, the shadow has his agents, because Margot's the only agent he really has in this, right, in the radio.
Anyway, and they planned it out, they had all this intel, and they said, go to this place at this time, this guy's going to be shopping there, and this guy's under threat. I mean, okay, here's one small way.
If he had this ADA, I think it's an ADA, under monitoring, he could have known, oh, this guy's going to be here, but then all of their time together should have been, should have been like, Lamont, why are we going to this dry cleaner's?
Why are we going to this place? Why are we going to that place? No, don't worry, Margot, it just strikes my fancy to be among the common people, or whatever.
That would be silly, but it would also kind of work, but that's not what they did. So, I mean, if you really, really, really want to be super generous and not be critical at all, you do that, but you know, you got to turn your head to the side and close your eye and plug both your ears, maybe hold something over your nose in order for that to make sense to you.
At least from my perspective. So, anyway, I did like the idea of a newspaper man being the villain, though. It has been said that the corporate press is the enemy of the people, and here we have somebody using the power of the press to basically influence and sway people to his own political persuasion, and it doesn't matter how many people have to die.
In fact, the White Legion, whatever they are, whatever their goals are, they are willing to commit murder and kidnapping and all manner of things, including, I guess you would say, psychological warfare.
I think it's been referred to as fourth age warfare. It's information warfare against the masses in order to see there will be done, and that's kind of interesting.
Also, the twist of the White Legion's high commander, who he actually is, is very exciting because it seems like it's going to be the newspaper man, and then it turns out to be the kidnapped guy's wife. No, it doesn't.
She's in there as a very minor character. She doesn't come back, I don't think, but yeah, there's a revelation, a dramatic revelation at the end of who the grand leader, the grand wizard of the White Legion is.
Basically, I wonder if they're like a Clux Clan analog of some sort, but I don't know when the Clan was active or when they started, so I couldn't speculate.
And I'm not going to look it up like I did with the German button thing from the last episode, from the last Red Panda Report special, so I'm going to leave it at that.
So something that I thought was odd is the White Legion is involved in orchestrating kidnappings and murders, abducting the DA or ADA, like I said before, was done to free one of their members from a murder charge.
They call each other comrades, and they are aligned with local city politics to the point that they are willing to kill to see their will done.
It's good that the story is anti-political, but I'm surprised at the same time that it is apolitical.
All that matters in the conflict is that people are trying to use the machinery of politics to their own selfish ends, even going so far as to murder for their supposedly just cause.
The abuse done is criminal and vile. It matters not what the abuser believes. And I'm saying that's something odd, but it's something clever and deft and interesting.
It just so easily could have been made up to be, I think they were Republicans and Democrats at the time. It could have been made as Republican versus Democrat.
It could have been made Communist, because these guys are calling each other comrade. It could have been made Fascist. I believe Fascism was a popular movement around the world.
In fact, a US President, I don't know if it was Roosevelt or somebody else, openly admired Mussolini, for example, for the fascistic way in which Italy was run at the time.
And if it wasn't him, it was probably Woodrow Wilson, because just look at Woodrow Wilson's history, okay? Just look into that. Do me a favor. Do yourself a favor.
Anyway, but I just find that to be really interesting, because it could have been used as a political cudgel, and instead it's used to make the larger, more correct, more moral point that, hey, manipulating and using the political machinery to marginalize, oppress, and murder and harm other people is wrong, no matter what side of the aisle you are on.
And that's just impressive.
Of course, there is also the idea that Blue Coal didn't want you alienating all their, you know, everybody needs heating, not, you know, just Democrats or Republicans.
And while they might have been Blue Coal, they very well may have been dyed-in-the-wool red Republicans. So, who knows? Who knows? Only the Shadow knows.
But I'm going to move on from there and get into a little bit of the lore in just a moment.
Okay, yes.
Shreevy, slow down. I see something up ahead. I have some interest in.
All right, so it's fun that Margot drives Lamont around. It makes sense that he would have a need to be driven around so he can jump out of a car as the Shadow from time to time.
The Shadow is given an opportunity to claim the glory of the day and instead asks to be left alone, to be just a voice who, or that rather, and this is a quote, that wakes the guilty conscience, brings terror to the wrongdoer and comfort to the oppressed.
That's a lovely sentiment. I think that's beautiful. Why did I include that in the lore?
Because I think that's part of the mythos of who the Shadow is. I mean, he viciously and savagely attacks the guilty and he goes out of his way putting his own life at risk to save the innocent and to help them.
And this goes back to the Death House Rescue where he punished the guilty, he helped free an innocent man, and he provided actual help and aid to his wife and child who would have otherwise died from medical costs being too high.
And it's just beautiful. It's lovely. It's like everything good about superheroes.
And I think a lot of, well, I don't know for a fact, I have the impression that a thing that people like about the Shadow is how dark and grim and edgy it is.
But honestly, this is not dark or grim or edgy. Now, maybe the pulp novels have a little bit more of that, but even in the pulp novels, the Shadow is whoever he is.
Whether he be Levant Cranston or some other wealthy young man about town or just a shadow of his former self scarred and disfigured beyond being able to mix into polite company, he's a good man.
And sentiments like this, lines like this, dialogue like this expresses that very well, and it just shows him to be so commendable and so moral and just and good. And like I said, it's beautiful.
And I especially think it's beautiful in a hero like this who has that dark edge to him. And it clarifies, I think, for people that, yeah, you can have both of these. You can have the darkness that is requisite to attack and hurt and punish crime.
And you can have the softness that it takes to help people be who they are and to save people's lives, not just from danger, but from ruin and emptiness.
And gosh, I wish they had the Shadow's agents in this, because in the books, it really comes across that he is saving the men who become his agents in material and spiritual ways.
And it's not even religious. It's just metaphysically, there was something more that these men live for when they were at the edge of death. And it's just it's beautiful moving.
Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and get out of here. That's enough for this one. I'm going to move on to the next episode, which is going to be going to be me talking about one of the final episodes.
And it was interesting to me. For some reason, they chose this to be the last episode of the first season. And I think it's very good.
I don't know if it has anything to do with the politics at the time or not. But regardless, it was a solid episode and the messaging, it was fabulous.
And, you know, to be cynical for a second, maybe they left off with showing the dark and the light of the shadow to bring people back, to have it stick in their memory.
Says, wow, this guy is something, this character is something. And, you know, definitely sticks in my mind.
And I'm wondering if perhaps that was a calculated move. And if it was, congratulations. You won. You did it. You get the whole kit and cable to the whole chocolate factory.
It's all yours because you did such a good job. Anyway, but really, I'm going to go ahead and sign off right now.
And I ask that you come back for the next episodes. We'll be rounding out. I'll be rounding out the specials.
We're talking about one more. I don't know if it's the final episode or if it's just from the last season of the shadow.
I think it's just from the last season, but it's not the final episode. And then I'll be talking about the shadow movie from 1994.
And that's all I'll say about it for now.
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