The Shadow 051 The Cobra

THE COBRA was originally published in the April 1, 1934 issue of The Shadow Magazine. A new crime fighter has appeared in Manhattan. The Cobra, a sinister being clad from head to foot in brown, decimates the criminal population as The Shadow stands by. But does this new rival of The Shadow have some ulterior motive? All of New York trembles at the mention of this new avenger of crime whose face hides under the hood of a cobra. With a hiss perfectly mimicking the poisonous snake, he strikes. Deek Hundell was a crime boss. The Shadow was keeping an eye on him to forestall his plans for crime. But The Cobra does The Shadow one better. The Cobra shows up and pumps a bullet straight through the heart of Deek Hundell. And there's one less gangster to threaten Manhattan. The sinister underworld of the city are in terror of The Cobra. And their fear of The Shadow is decreased by comparison. Yes, The Shadow is now seen as inefficient and not much of a threat. The Cobra has taken his place as the number one threat to crimedom. New York Police Commissioner Ralph Weston is convinced that The Cobra will be the savior of the city. And as for The Shadow, the commissioner gradually becomes convinced that The Shadow has given up fighting crime, and has turned to join it instead. In the past, Commissioner Weston doubted the existence of The Shadow. He no longer has those doubts. But now, he tends to believe The Shadow a master criminal, not a crime fighter. He has support from Caleb Myland, a criminologist of international repute, and from Crawler Gorgan, an underworld contact who keeps the police appraised of the latest happenings among the crime bosses of New York. The information they provide him convinces Weston that The Shadow is up to no good. Of course, we know that The Shadow still works for the cause of justice. But time and again, The Shadow carefully lays his plans to reveal the sinister machinations of a master criminal, only to be beat to the punch by The Cobra. This is starting to affect his reputation in the underworld. And when crooks lose their fear of The Shadow, he also looses that edge that often allows him to come out on top. No longer do their steady trigger fingers falter when they face The Shadow. His advantage has been nullified. How does The Cobra do it? How does he manage to insert himself in the hidden lairs of the bigshots, and defeat their tight security? He has many assistants, known as "fangs." By bribery or intimidation, he turns one trusted lieutenant of each crime boss into his own personal stooge. This traitor is his wedge to gain access to the master criminals that he will slay. Each of the "fangs" report to The Cobra, who then makes his plans to defeat yet another Manhattan kingpin of crime. But is there something more to The Cobra than meets the eye? Is he really intent to wipe out crime? Or does he have other motives. The police trust him, but The Shadow isn't so sure. The Shadow suspects The Cobra may turn out to be the biggest crook, yet! It's The Shadow's job to keep an eye on The Cobra. To try to anticipate his lightning quick strikes and be there in advance. The Shadow won't interfere, if The Cobra seems on the up and up. But he's watching closely to make sure that The Cobra is truly fighting for law and order. Assisting The Shadow in this difficult endeavor are his faithful agents Harry Vincent, reporter Clyde Burke, underground-contact Cliff Marsland and contact-man Burbank. Harry and Clyde play very small parts in this story. Cliff Marsland, on the other hand, gets a major role. He's in nearly every scene. Poor Cliff gets run through the wringer in this one. He's even taken prisoner by The Cobra, trussed up, drugged and left as bait for The Shadow. But in the end, he makes a most respectable showing. There's no sign of Hawkeye, the hunchy little spotter who was introduced to the series in the previous year. Hawkeye and Marsland both patrolled the criminal underworld, often as a pair. But in this story, Cliff works alone. Hawkeye is nowhere to be seen. A full assortment of officers of the law are present, here. Detective Joe Cardona is about the only one who still believes The Shadow is working on the side of justice. All the others are of the opinion that The Shadow has turned to the criminal side of the scales. Those others include Commissioner Weston, Detective Sergeant Markham, Inspector Timothy Klein and a new character from headquarters, one Detective Logan. We get to visit The Shadow's sanctum in this story. And we are reminded that only once before had men of crime penetrated to the sanctum. However, they had not lived to tell the location of the sanctum to anyone. This refers to an incident in the February 15, 1934 story, "Gray Fist," which saw publication just six weeks previously. Three years later, author Walter Gibson would again allow The Shadow's sanctum to be invaded in the July 1, 1937 story "Crime Insured." And just as The Shadow has his sanctum, The Cobra has his own lair. It's a stone-walled underground room with a low ceiling. A cobwebbed den at the bottom of a stone stairway. And in the corner is a basket containing his pet, a live cobra! Since much of this story takes place in the darkened criminal underworld, we get to see several of the gangster hangouts. The Black Ship, mentioned in several dozen of The Shadow novels, appears here. And the Blue Crow is a new hangout where only the most disreputable of rowdies meet. I don't recall the Blue Crow ever appearing in any other Shadow novel. Some of the other familiar trappings that appear in this story include The Shadow's rubber suction cups, with which he climbs the outside of buildings. And let's not forget that small vial of purplish liquid. The pungent elixir is pulled from beneath his black cloak and administered to Cliff Marsland to help revive him from his drugged state. It would seem that The Shadow was using one drug to counteract the effects of another, here. And both, probably, quite illegal. At least, that would be my guess. The Shadow appears in only one disguise in this story. He enters the Blue Crow in the guise of a sweatered dope addict. This dull-faced man has no name; it's just one of The Shadow's many disguises. There's no sign of The Shadow's oft-used Lamont Cranston disguise. So he doesn't get to show off his abilities at disguise in this story. Just the one. Yes, in case you haven't already figured it out, The Cobra turns out to be a villain. A villain posing as a crime fighter. But he makes a pretty cool villain with his "fangs" - his assistants - his underground lair, and his neat cobra-like outfit. I liked this 1934 tale. It's most definitely worth your time.