Whole thing started with...

Ray Manzarek's solo album The Whole Thing Started With Rock N Roll makes a reference to a character named The Shadow a sucess in the genre of detective pulp magazines in the 1930's and featured in a successful radio show in 1931 and then later had a comic book devoted to his stories. Ray's song I Wake up screaming, starts with Ray's fake laugh "Uuuhahaha....uuuhaahaaha!" and then Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Uuuhaahha..." Which was exctly the opening line of The Shadow's radio show! Later in 1938 Orson Welles became the voice of The Shadow.

The character is considered to be the genesis of the super hero genre. The definition of a super hero was already there with The Shadow: a man with super powers fighting crime. The same super hero hype that started to sell millions of comic books in late 30's and 40's - the whole thing started with The Shadow. The character himself made his way into comics in 1940.

The 1940s series of Shadow Comics ran for 9 years, and there was even a daily comic strip. From the 1970s to 1990s, DC Comics took the character from the 1940s to the near future and back again. With the onset of the 1994 movie, Dark Horse Comics released the movie adaptation, a one-shot, and even some crossovers in its wake. In 2000, ACG comics reprinted the 1940s comic strip.

Who knows, Ray must have read one of those comic books...as most kids did in the 40's, asking for their parents to buy one of those 10 cents comic books. Or maybe he caught one of those radio shows with Orson Wells voice behind the speaker...